IASB Walks Like a CIETC Duck

The Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) placed its executive director, Maxine Kilcrease, on paid administrative leave Thursday after it was revealed she had convinced the former board chair and staffers to increase her pay without board approval. Evidently, she did not like the fact her $212,000 salary included deductions for the taxes for which she (and every other worker in America) is responsible. What?

This scandal looks, smells, quacks and walks like the stinky duck that was the Central Iowa Employment and Training Consortium (CIETC) scandal a few years back. A few people lost their jobs at CIETC and a few others went to jail. The same should happen at IASB. In the wake of CIETC, elected officials were falling all over themselves to express outrage. Grand promises were made that steps would be taken to protect taxpayer dollars in the future. IASB proves these steps were not taken. This time, elected officials need to save the platitudes and actually enact measures to ensure we won’t suffer a third outrageous theft of our money.

Step 1 – any entity that accepts dues, grants or other monies from government bodies must operate under strict open government rules. An exception should be made for independent businesses that provide products or services. But, organizations resembling IASB and CIETC that are established as collaborations even partly administered by, invested in or affiliated with government should be treated like government. The books of these entities should be open for public review and all activities should be conducted in the open air and sunshine for public scrutiny.

Step 2 – end the incestuous hiring and administrative practices in quasi-government entities like CIETC and IASB. CIETC exposed a shocking and shameful practice of relatives hiring relatives and financial back scratching between government (often elected officials) board members and CIETC employees. It appears the same was going on at IASB.

None of us have the IASB facts yet and I do not want to jump to conclusions. However, since this story broke in the Des Moines Register, I have been reminded that a former Des Moines School Board member currently serves as IASB’s legal counsel, one served as IASB chairman when IASB bought their sprawling building on Grand Avenue, another went to work for IASB when she left the school board, and a current school board member worked at IASB when she was running for office. These four are all fine people. I am not and would not suggest they did anything wrong. However, the fact so many Des Moines School Board members had and have relationships with IASB should make us all a little uncomfortable, especially now we know how much money was running through the sticky fingers of IASB staff.

Let me be perfectly clear, I have every reason to believe the Des Moines School Board members past and present involved with IASB had nothing but the best interests of the taxpayers in mind at all times. The same was probably true with many involved with CIETC. What both of these instances show is that without laws to protect taxpayers by mandating open disclosure of the finances and activities of these quasi-government entities, the taxpayers get burned. Let’s call a duck a duck and let’s put an end to the ability of organizations like CIETC and IASB to treat taxpayer resources as their own private slush funds.

Added to original blog post: I was alerted by a reader to further evidence of the IASB revolving door of Des Moines School staff and other board members. Former Des Moines Schools facilities director Duane Van Hemert and Jefferson Scranton School Board member Sam Harding were hired in 2009 by IASB to run the Iowa Construction Advocate Team (ICAT). ICAT was formed after the sales tax was extended statewide to pay for school construction projects. Ca ching!

The reader who brought this to my attention happens to be an architect. He says ICAT may be “walking the thin line of providing architectural design/planning services without a license.” He goes on to say ICAT makes “initial planning recommendations to school boards, and assists in the selection of architects and other construction professionals. This is a slippery way around fair bidding laws and directing work towards a chosen few.“ Did I hear a quack?

(It should be noted the Keystone Area Education Agency newsletter linked above also announced another IASB staffer, Larry Siegel, was heading off to be an “entrepreneur” with the help of IASB. Quack. Quack!)

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

School Board Huffing about Culver is Ironic

Last week I took the opportunity to bash the Des Moines School Board in this space for voting to dismiss school 90 minutes early every Wednesday next year. I believe this decision is bad for education. I also railed about the board making little effort to involve parents, students and the community in the decision. Now it appears the School Board got a taste of an ironically similar acrid brew and they are feeling left out.

Des Moines joined the other six large Iowa school districts and refused to sign on to Governor Chet Culver’s entry application for the federal government’s Race to the Top funds. Des Moines School Board president Connie Boesen said, “We’ve had no input, and we’re the ones that have to be accountable and implement it.”

Wow, I bet those words tasted nasty coming out of a school board member’s mouth after spending more than a week telling parents and community members that the opportunity for discussion about early dismissals had past. Hopefully, she and her colleagues will learn how it feels to be excluded from the conversation and revisit their recent actions.

Regardless, Ms. Boesen did the right thing. In truth, she had little choice. The board and the community need to be a part of the process. The Governor and the Legislature were told by the feds months ago that the application for the Race funds would be due January 19. Waiting until this week to push legislation through at record speed and ask for school board presidents to sign on to the application with scant to no public discussion is flat out wrong.

Often, those who pay the price for well intended, yet hastily concocted government programs are the very people the government is supposedly out to help. The Race to the Top looks like a contender for such a program. It is fraught with numerous potentially harmful consequences for our nation’s schools. Let alone the fact the program description and the application itself sound like NBC’s latest reality show. Building better schools will not be done with gimmicky competitions. It is going to take a real commitment to fund schools and empower teachers, parents and communities to reinvent the way we run our schools.

A handful of school boards and states are letting the first of two application deadlines pass without being bullied by the federal government to play a bobbing for dollars contest. If most of them were to do so, perhaps Washington would figure out it is time to stop waving tax dollars in our faces and expect we are going to ask how high when they say jump. Good policy isn’t a race to be won. Good government comes through setting standards and cooperating with each other to get results.


Note: The following was added Saturday, January 16, the day after the original post.
Today, the school board president made statements to the Des Moines Register even more thick with irony than yesterday. “We need to be more centered on students than adults.” Really? Siding with the union to dismiss school early once a week was more about adults than students? Maybe the president will ask the board to reconsider their own actions next week now that they understand that education is more about students than employees.

From the Saturday edition of the Des Moines Register: “Des Moines school board chairwoman Connie Boesen said state leaders made serious missteps in drafting the legislation because they didn’t allow districts ample time to weigh in.

‘We have shown success and we need more flexibility to get schools turned around, not more constraints,” Boesen said. “It was all so hastily done, and I don’t understand that. We want to be able to have the latitude to handle educational programming in ways that make differences for students. We need to be more centered on students than adults.”


This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.

Iowa General Assembly Makes Amazing Discovery

Iowa Legislative Leaders have vowed to cut the 2010 Legislative Session from 120 days to 80 days to save scarce state resources. When they aren’t wringing their hands about how to do this, they are patting themselves on the back for being creative and self-sacrificing for the state they love. In the process of trying to get the work done in less time, they made what they believe is an astounding discovery. The week has a mysterious day called Friday. It falls between Thursday and Saturday. Much to the elected officials’ surprise, not only could they work on this previously unknown day, but, and this is really amazing, most Iowans already do.

This morning, bleary eyed House members entered the Chamber and sat down. The microphones were not working well, but everything else seemed the same as it does on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Who knows what they might discover next? If this Friday thing works out, there is talk they may form a committee to look into the possibility of working, and this is shocking, five days in a row on a regular basis.

This entry was first published as a Des Moines Register blog entry.