Jefferson County Public Schools – No wonder school costs are so high

A ‘follow the money’ adventure!

Go ahead, set your own salary!!!

I got a tip recently that the number of Jefferson County Public Schools employees earning over $100,000 annually is way out of line with similar sized school districts around the rest of the country. While I am still researching that, I now know one reason why this is so, and the reason is shocking.

A new report says administrator salaries in Jefferson County Schools are indexed to the teachers’ union contract salaries. When the union gets a raise, so do all the administrators.

But, it gets MUCH WORSE!

Apparently, “…the key individual who represented the JCPS board in negotiating teacher salaries” is in the group of administrators whose salaries are indexed by that contract.

This is an outrageous betrayal of the taxpayer’s trust. The person negotiating the union’s contract on behalf of taxpayers stood to personally benefit from letting the union get as high a raise as possible.

Sound incredible?

Read about it on page 37 in the new “Final Report of a Study of the ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CENTRAL OFFICE STAFFING, FUNCTIONS, AND OPERATIONS” from the Jefferson County audit.

The auditors concluded:

“This practice presents a major issue for a potential conflict of interest always being a factor in the negotiations process.”

Well, I guess so!