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Community Corner

Time For Change – Stop the lies and let the School Board election represent the wishes of an honestly and accurately informed public

 VOTE for Dr. Kinder and Mr. Doell to remain on the School Board.

We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.” ― Arne Tiselius (Nobel Prize award address, 1948)

 Mr. Miller, a long-time advisor to Eileen Tyrrell and her RS for RS group, has stepped-up with a laundry list of charges.  But, like Ms. Tyrrell’s statements, there is much misinformation and also valuable missing information in his campaign article. 

I will go through Mr. Miller’s statements one by one.

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"Consultant contract deals with two former Minnesota coworkers of former Superintendent Borchers…"

  • Two executive-level Rockwood administrators left their jobs just prior to Borchers starting at Rockwood.  Rather than hire replacements immediately upon arriving, he realized significant cost savings by hiring two temporary consultants.  These were two persons whom he had previously worked, and who came from one of the highest performing school districts in the nation. These two individuals were eventually hired to fill the two vacated positions.  While not reported by the RSforRS group, the reader should know that this netted overall savings to Rockwood.  And what executive-in-charge does not seek to bring some of his own people into an organization?  And there was never any criticism of the resume' of these two people, who by all accounts, appear to be qualified.

"The above consultant situation was so poorly received that it resulted in an open apology letter to the community by former Superintendent Borchers."

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  • Yes, RSforRS created such an embarrassing scandal that Borchers apologized. And now they are going after Board members Kinder and Doell in the same fashion, continuing RSforRS’s unrelenting series of personal attacks by creating scandal where none existed. 

 "The Glenn Construction debacle and subsequent no-bid construction contracts revelation."

  • First, know that many large organizations have a preferred construction contractor. This is very, very common.  For new construction, preferred contractors are familiar with school-type construction, and for renovation work, they are intimate with the floor plans and construction type. Glenn was made the go-to project manager (it is a project manager, not performing the construction work themselves) many years ago, and I believe this began before ANY sitting Board member came into office; this is old policy, and as mentioned, it is not at all uncommon.  The efficiencies went so far as Glenn having an office in the Rockwood Annex to facilitate planning, etc.  This relationship began, many years ago, after an alternate company failed to complete construction of one of the elementary schools before fall classes, as promised, leading to ongoing construction while students attended school.  The outcome of this was the angry Superintendent and Board at that time decided to go with Glenn for future work since they had provided satisfactory work.  That this relationship still existed until last year says a lot abut how well Glenn delivered, and in fact they completed several projects well under budget and this is not disputed.

"Payout of accumulated unused sick days to teachers at retirement (one teacher received $100,600)"

  • This is state law and has no bearing on Dr. Kinder or Mr. Doell.  The attempt to tar them with this is just another example of this group’s style of personal attack. 

"Failure of the Proposition R bond issue in April 2012."

  • Are they to blame for the failure of the bond to pass, too?  What the reader is not being told is that, while Rockwood’s last several bond propositions failed to pass, our neighbor Parkway has passed theirs – despite spending way more per student than Rockwood.  Also not mentioned is that Rockwood may have to seek an increase in operating millage to make needed repairs since the bond did not pass.  Oh, and Ms. Tyrrell?  Her major complaint when lobbying against Prop S (alongside Mr. Miller and her RSforRS group) was that she believed that her son’s high school needed certain repairs that were not going to be funded through this bond; there are some serious sour grapes in this whole incident and many know this story.

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of a bond issue, the Board approved a 2% pay raise for former Superintendent Borchers in April 2012 – making him one of the highest paid superintendents in the state."

  • This is an odd statement in so many ways.  I will list them: 1) Borchers was paid significantly less than the Rockwood superintendent he replaced.  And after his departure, the interim superintendent brought in to replace him (doing a fine job) is being paid much more than Borchers.  2) For reference, Borchers was paid much less than the Superintendent of Kirkwood schools, a much smaller school district.  3)  Rockwood is a huge responsibility, including over 21,000 students, many hundreds of teachers and other employees, and with 30 schools, possesses educational space square footage comparable to the University of Missouri.   

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of a bond issue, the Board approved a pay raise for school custodians in April 2012)."

  • Well, this says it all.  But I am wondering why the pay raise amount is not mentioned, or how their wages compare to other StL county school districts?  That is because our custodians’ pay had fallen well below the county average and an attempt was made to bring them a bit more into line.  Suffice it to say that Mr. Miller is out of touch with the working man.  The reader should also note that in none of these diatribes is it explained how other StL school districts are able to pay their staff higher average wages than Rockwood.  Is it an extravagance to attempt to bring Rockwood wages up off the bottom?

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of a bond issue, the Board approved a pay raise for “staff who coach or sponsor extracurricular activities” in April 2012."

  • Again, I am wondering why the amount of the pay raise is not mentioned.  Yet these payments are not so high to begin with, and a small increase will not be a straw to break the camel’s back.

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of a bond issue, the Board approved a pay raise for school nurses in May 2012." 

  • So now we go after the nurses?  Mr. Miller, as an M.D. you should know that lay people revere nurses, so this one shows poor judgment.  But ditto to my previous reply. 

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of a bond issue, the Board approved more than $45,000 for a PR consultant."

  • I can’t speak directly to this one, but I do reflect upon how much unpaid time I and other Rockwood citizens have invested into debunking these attacks.  But note that if the $45K in PR spending adds just 50 cents to each residents' Rockwood property values that you folks are driving down, it provides a positive return.

"Voted to extend former Superintendent Borchers’ contract prior to the release of state audit results." 

  • Examining your own list of complaints, all but a few pre- or post-date Borchers tenure at Rockwood.  Yet your group included him in your attacks along with the teachers (?!) and administrators.  The reason being that Borchers and the Board did not acquiesce to the more inappropriate demands your group, and especially Ms. Tyrrell, insisted upon.  These absurd demands included her insistence that she have access to confidential closed-door Rockwood discussions.  So Borchers “had to go”.  Many of us are concerned that the newly hired superintendent will be the next to “have to go” and the threat of these attacks may give your small group of self-disaffected individuals an outsized voice in Rockwood governance. 

"Missouri State Auditor findings and resultant “Fair” rating (nothing about Rockwood should ever be “Fair”).":

  • Two responses:  First: every audited school and other state institution comparable in size to Rockwood also received a “fair” rating, and only a couple of very, very small school districts (e.g. the semi-rural Mexico school district) received the better “good” rating.  Reasonable people can recognize that a large and complex institution will result in a greater number of findings in the policies and procedures audit.  Fix them and move on.  Second: There is irony in the Freudian slip Mr. Miller includes in parentheses and it is insightful (this is an inserted opinion of Mr. Miller's which he has used before in this context).

"The lack of a competitive bidding process for multiple services."

  • Bringing this up twice – but already responded.

"A Board member’s conflict of interest."

  • I have been waiting for this one and it is high time the public gets to look behind the curtain of RSforRS attack and vague innuendo. This elderly man is an attorney and had been a pubic citizen member of the School Board.  He was approached by the contractor with a request to perform some minor legal work, which he took on.  For this part-time work he was paid $10 an hour and it was primarily motivated by the wish of an elderly professional to be helpful.  Note that the construction company had an office for Rockwood-directed work located in the Rockwood Annex and this made this association convenient.  Referring to above statements / responses, we know that the construction company was already the “preferred” contractor so no one can claim that he used his school board influence to achieve this end.  The sole issue is that he participated in normal discussions and then votes having to do with whether the district would pursue construction activities.  Prior to this, Rockwood contacted the State’s attorneys in Jefferson City and were told his participation in this situation would be OK.  And his activities were in plain view.  But the State Auditor in his policies and procedures review objected, and subsequently the ethics commission fined this fellow. Mr. Miller and team has made much of this fine, but the commission, recognizing this fellow was an attorney and might fight back, gave him a “deal he couldn’t refuse”, leveling a $10K fine, but accepting a paltry $400 payment to settle the case.  I understand his desire to settle and be done with it, but I also see the small settlement as not representing a strong case by the commission, either.

"Noted $1.2 million overpayment for construction change orders."

  • Now I am catching you in outright falsification, but I am not surprised.  First, the $1.2 Mil was not for change orders.  While change orders (changes to the plans in the middle of construction projects) did occur, the $1.2 Mil that Ms. Tyrrell and your group have so misconstrued refers to (and I quote from the Auditor) “possible over/double payments”.  I direct attention to the word “possible”.  I find it fascinating how your group has dropped the word “possible” and it should be indicative to the reader of the willingness you will go to in order to mislead.  Before delving into what the Auditor’s finding represents, I want to include that the Auditor at least had the integrity to include Rockwood’s rebuttal in his published report, where they disagreed and stated that the $1.2 Mil was properly paid.  After the audit published they were compelled to have their attorney’s formally investigate whether the $1.2 M was improperly paid and thus recoverable.  The result was a determination that it WAS properly paid and it is significant that the Auditor made no further mention of this $1.2 M in his 6-month check back, recognizing that it was not an issue for him any longer.  But still an issue for Ms. Tyrrell and RSforRS, as we can see.
  • Now for the interested reader we will delve into what this $1.2 Mil represents, and this speaks volumes about the value the preferred (go-to) construction project management company delivered to Rockwood.  First, the construction project management company did not actually perform the construction work, but served as the project manager, sub-contracting to the various construction subcontractors.  They were provided the full budget and their own compensation was a percentage of the budget.  This is common.  The issue arose when the project manager completed several projects UNDER BUDGET, and unspent funds were returned to Rockwood.  But since the project manager’s fee was a percentage of the total budget amount, their fee had also been applied to the returned dollars.  We should recognize that the project manager deserves this incremental fee for coming-in under budget, and to not earn this incremental fee would penalize the project manager for coming-in under budget.  Note this is where the problem arises, because eventually Rockwood used these returned dollars to fund additional projects, and, again, for this the project manager earned a fee.  If you are following this you will see that the project manager earned a fee from a pool of returned dollars upon which it had already earned a fee.  Ergo the Auditor’s “possible over/double payments”.  The only scandal here is how Ms. Tyrrell and her RSforRS cronies have completely misconstrued the facts in their attacks on Rockwood and its School Board members. Doesn't the truth matter at all?

"The lack of adequate inventory control for thousands of items of school property."

  • There was a preexisting capital item inventory system in place and the auditor indicated the need for a different type.  The prior system had been in use for decades, and represented an in- and out-of service inventory: when an item is purchased it is listed in the inventory and when discarded or sold it is removed from inventory.  The Auditor preferred that Rockwood inventory all capital items on an annual basis.  End of story.  Except that several hundred thousand dollars then had to be spent to purchase the new inventory software.

"The lack of adequate oversight of millions of dollars of expenses using district credit cards."

  • This is too broad of a statement.  Many Rockwood employees were issued Rockwood credit cards, and use represents approvable expenditures for off-campus team events, etc. However, the Auditor indicated that fewer people should have these cards and Rockwood took this step.  Readers know these expenditures are justified with submitted receipts and the Auditor did not make a finding that they were improperly used.

"The lack of adequate receipting procedures."

  • I did not see this in the Auditor’s report.

"The lack of adequate oversight of district vehicle use."

  • I did not see this in the Auditor’s report.  But this sounds more like documentation than use.

"The lack of adequate oversight of student attendance records."

  • There was no claim that the attendance records were inaccurate.  Reflecting new software availability, the Auditor wanted Rockwood to utilize so-called immutable software for attendance records.  This type of software does not allow changes to be made once data is entered, or instead keeps a history of each record change when it is made alongside the original data entry.  Rockwood spend several hundred thousand dollars complying with the Auditor’s request.

"The lack of adequate computer security measures."

  • Amazing.  Mr. Miller has taken a single and simple finding by the Auditor and has divided it into two pieces to attempt to create from thin air the straw that will break Rockwood’s back.  See the above comment.

"Failure of the Proposition S bond issue in April 2013."

  • Not sure why Mr. Miller keeps bringing this up.  All sitting Board Members (at that time) supported Prop S.  The PTO supported Prop S.  The teacher’s professional association supported Prop S.  This was part of their role once the Board voted to place Prop S on the ballot.  Although it did not pass, many voters supported Prop S.  Some may scream and shout with little knowledge of the underlying needs and financing opportunities (see Ms. Tyrrell for example), but members of the Board, working with the non-elected chief financial officer and numerous parent input groups, proposed a bond issue because it is compelling.  That Ms. Tyrrell and her RSforRS group viciously attacked Prop S in the media, successfully undermining it, does not place the blame at Mr. Kinder and Mr. Doells’s feet.

"Resignation of former Board president, Steve Smith, over conflict of interest issues."

  • Not sure why Mr. Kinder and Mr. Doell are to be blamed for this. 

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of two bond issues, the Board approved a pay raise for administrators and teachers in May 2013."

  • This was a much needed raise and I think I get some credit.   Last spring I published a piece describing how Rockwood teacher salary was in the bottom 20% for the county.  Previously, the teachers had forgone significant raises due to Rockwood’s finances, being told they would eventually be caught-up.  After my piece published (with compelling graphic) they approached the School Board to seek an out of cycle salary adjustment to get off the bottom of the county wage scale.  What is also not mentioned here is that this occurred after the 2013 Board Election and the new members of the Board, which includes one who is a Ms. Tyrrell supporter and Commentator in the Patch, joined the rest of the Board in unanimously voting for this raise.  You should also know that this raise was not large, and Rockwood teachers are still paid well below the country average. 

"Missouri Ethics Commission investigation and violation of state law by former Board president, Steve Smith, resulting in a $10,000 fine." 

  • Double counting on Mr. Miller’s part again – see the previous comment.  But I will tersely add that Mr. Smith paid the much reduced amount of $400 to settle the case without fighting it.  This suggests to many of us that the commission knew this was a minor offense and a weak case.

"Despite fiscal hardships and the failure of two bond issues, the Board approved a $250,000 one-year salary for interim superintendent Adams -- $16,000 MORE than the previous superintendent, who was already one of the highest paid education administrators in the state."

  • Sadly for tax payers, this represents the going rate for a school district of our size.  But Mr. Miller is correct when he says that he, Ms. Tyrrell, and her RSforRS cronies drove-off our previous superintendent by including in their remarks that he was overpaid, just to result in an previously retired interim superintendent (a good man) standing-in with a significantly higher salary.  Something else to know is that Borchers was paid less than the long-standing Rockwood superintendent before him.

"Missouri Ethics Commission investigation and violation of state law by Rockwood School District and former Superintendent Borchers."

  • Once again Mr. Miller is reworking previous claims to find that camel-back breaking straw.  Notice that there is no information here?

Artie Romero, Rockwood resident, father of two (also a neighbor not aligned with a secret organization and who knows how to research an issue and report on it accurately).

Vote your opinion on April 8.

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