3 comments:

• Joanne Bobin posted at 10:41 am on Sun, Jan 27, 2013.

  Posts: 3256

  Excellent comments, Mr. Neely.

  It is sad that so many perceive District Administrators as "ridiculous chair sitters" when they have absolutely NO perception of what the job entails.

  Before my husband retired he was a director at the district level in the Sacramento area. He left home at 4AM and returned maybe around 7PM depending on what activities he had to attended, i.e., board meetings, individual school events, etc.

  He oversaw a budget of 5 million dollars, much of it federal funding, and every penny had to be accounted for through multiple reports to the feds. He visited every school site at least once a month and sat in on classes, evaluating teacher and student performance and brought in over 1 million in grants to supplement district funds over his 4 year tenure, far, far exceeding his salary. That is only a small percentage of his duties.

  The idiom, "walk a mile in my shoes" should be considered before making judgmental comments of which one knows nothing.

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• George Neely posted at 8:47 am on Sun, Jan 27, 2013.

  Posts: 12

  I'm sorry, but I can’t let Mr. Branson's post go by as the only comment on this story. I can’t let that go by as the only comment on this story. Let me add a couple of things.
  First, the story did not mention a few important details. This change, as put together by Mr. Hern and Dr. Washer, will save the district over $100,000 annually. Reducing cost has been one of the goals of this Board since we were seated in 2010. Mr. Hern has been one of the chief engineers of that effort.
  The position vacated with the retirement of Art Hand will not be filled. A logical question then is why didn’t we do that earlier? Truth is that not only was Mr. Hand very good at his job of keeping things working in this district while money was (is) short, he was also VERY good at finding ways of bringing more money into the district. He brought in far more than was his salary. There is no replacing Art Hand. That said, we move on.
  Two years ago, when Mr. Hern came to Lodi, the Board of Education tasked him with finding a way to stop the cycle of layoffs that was destroying this district. He not only did that, but also put us back on firm financial footing despite continued declining revenues. Now that the decline in revenue has leveled off, and in fact we may see some small increases, Lodi Unified has got to be prepared to use these funds in the best possible ways to meet the needs of our students. I have listened closely to Tim Hern’s ideas and plans, and I feel confident that we are in good hands.
  Tim is far from a “ridiculous chair sitter.” He has made, and will continue to make, a significant difference for Lodi Unified and the tax payers of this district. We are fortunate to have him as part of our team.
  

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• Jerry Bransom posted at 3:42 pm on Sat, Jan 26, 2013.

  Posts: 361

  Yet another ridiculous chair sitter.

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