Board hires Wright as full-time director for business, finance

By DEB WUETHRICH

Tecumseh Public School Board members voted to accept a recommendation from Superintendent Mike McAran to hire Bill Wright full-time as the district’s Director of Business and Finance at Monday night’s meeting. Wright has been filling an interim post since November while McAran and a committee of board members explored whether sharing a business manager with another district might be feasible.

McAran said problems with sharing included the fact that other schools operate on different business software systems and plan to stick with them, while Tecumseh recently began using Pentamation and plans to continue with theirs. “We also talked with Clinton and Britton who wanted to maintain their own independent positions,” he said, adding that the district also decided to go that route for now after reviewing the other options. McAran said five candidates had applied for the position and three, including Wright, were interviewed last week.

Wright, who also has worked as a finance director for the Lenawee Intermediate School District and has taught school finance courses at Siena Heights and Eastern Michigan University, is being employed through Professional Educational Services Group on a per day basis with a salary equivalent of $77,860 per year. Under the arrangement, the district does not pay FICA, worker’s compensation, or retirement.

“This is a considerable savings for the district,” said McAran. Former business manager, Karen Donahue, earned $95,279 plus benefits.

“Bill has given us the information we have needed and anytime we’ve asked, he’s been right there,” said board member Gary Urban in affirming the selection. “Some people would say [hiring Wright] was a no brainer.”

Wright said he decided to throw his hat into the ring for the full-time post at this time because there’s still a lot of work to be done in the district.

“It’s a great district and a great community and I’m really impressed with student achievement here,” he said. “There is a funding crisis in Michigan and with my background I think I can help move Tecumseh Public Schools forward.”
Wright also spent some time Monday evening outlining steps the board could take to fund critical repairs and maintenance in the district in light of the failed bond proposals by applying for an energy bond, which is authorized through the State Treasury Department. The resolution, which could include an estimated $1.6 million in bonds, will likely come back to the board for approval in June. Wright worked at length with the board’s Finance and Facilities Committees, he said.

“What we did was look at Proposal 1 and pulled out projects related to energy that could translate to energy savings that could be paid for by an energy bond, which we are eligible for,” Wright explained. He said another key factor was trying to time the application so as to minimize principal and interest payments this year, thereby saving some of the general fund for other maintenance project needs. The district hopes to continue to be able to allot $250,000 from the general fund each year for capital projects.
Items that were selected as needing to be attended to soon, some as soon as this summer, and that were possible energy savings related included: a middle school boiler, $193,884; a Herrick Park boiler, $140,151; a middle school cold water pipe replacement, $81,321; among others that totaled an estimated $1,430,135.

“We pulled all those projects that we could identify as having potential energy savings, and what we will be asking for is the authority to go up to a certain amount, in this case, $1.6 million, then you as a board can pick and choose which projects to actually proceed with,” Wright said. “The Board has the authority to seek bids with finances coming through the energy bonds.” He said the unfortunate part of the May 6 bond proposal failures is that money and interest to fund the projects that must be attended to must now come from the general fund, but the hope is that some energy savings could help offset those costs by going the energy bond route.

With declining student enrollment affecting revenues and the district only anticipating that it will receive a small increase of $100 per student, much less than the Governor’s formerly promised $216, based on figures shared at a recent revenue estimating conference, and escalating expenditures translating to a declining fund balance, Wright said there still is a lot of work to be done prior to approving final budget revisions for this year and adopting the 2008-2009 school year budget.

The district has identified approximately $602,841 in net budget reductions through recent discussions, including the elimination of an Energy Education contract ($73,200) and staff person ($24,169), staff layoffs ($293,799), and other areas such as changes in health and other benefits where staff would pay higher co-pays and out of pocket expenses. The district needs to find another $400,000 in reductions prior to balancing the budget.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Wright said. A public budget hearing is tentatively scheduled for June 23, prior to adoption of the budget.

Tecumseh Herald

 

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