Yesterday we detailed Arizona’s educational funding excesses for K-12. It may seem hard to believe but today we discovered that the problems go deeper than overpaid personnel. An example? Deer Valley Unified School District superintendent Virginia McElyea.
She has convinced the Governing Board to call a March 9, 2010 override election to provide an additional $24 million for the district’s already bloated $334 million budget. Her excuse is that the money is needed to pay salaries and support programs for students. Already inflated salaries will, by historical evidence, be the primary beneficiary of this ill-gotten lucre.
But while calling for additional taxpayer funding, the district is concurrently paying hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to win an award from the Malcolm Baldrige program that will pad the resume for the superintendent. The effort has been underway for more than two years, but now McElyea has compounded the situation, wasting even more money. She recently hired yet another highly paid administrator to help her win this “crown jewel” for her career.
McElyea, who lives in a $ million+ home, defends this new hire based on the fact that his salary is coming from federal “stimulus money.” Is she kidding? The superintendent is actually using stimulus money to win an award? What is she stimulating, other than her own ego? Money that should be going into our classrooms, into the programs that teach our students, is being used to support a personal award effort for the superintendent?
Since she doesn’t live in Deer Valley, she is exempt from the property taxes of this override. Interestingly, the district where she does reside just voted down an override for the second year in a row.
The time has come to tell her “no more.” No more personal awards, no more overpaid administrators, no more failing our students, no more bond overrides and no more tax increases.
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