Accountability at transportation

Here is a the transcript of Mr. Brad Wolkan's audience communication at our 9/15/08 board meeting. He asks some good questions.


The Citizens for Livonia's Future has received communications from several parents regarding issues with transportation. These are very similar issues to those that have been occurring over the last few years. Bus stops in unlit locations, or where there are no sidewalks, children getting home at 5pm, or having to cross a busy street, or in one case, a bus stop located in close proximity to the home of a registered sex offender.

The largest issue appears to be the lack of communication, or the type of response to calls placed by parents from the persons responsible for the transportation department communication. This reflects very poorly upon LPS and directly affects relations with your customers.

The recent posting for the job of assistant transportation supervisor clearly shows that instead of fixing systemic problems in transportation, LPS has again chosen to throw bodies on the fire and incur more long term expenditures, this is being done at the expense of our classroom dollars. When will this mentality stop?

Huron valley public schools was wrestling with these same issues at the beginning of year start - up issues, but they cured the problem by the following year by obtaining assistance from a transportation management company. I know much has been said about contracting services, but in some cases this may be necessary, especially when it becomes very apparent that the district is unable to manage these services themselves.

This solution is also a one time cost and will not have theSame impact upon the classroom dollars as the expense of a long-term employee at a supervisory level. When will we stop working harder and begin to work smarter? Working harder only incurs more cost; working smarter can achieve the goal of saving money.

This brings us to the question of why the district is creating new administrative positions as well as reassigning supervisory & administrative roles. These changes appear to be in direct conflict with financial checks & balances for our very limited classroom dollars. You have a new administrator of operations reporting to the director of secondary education. You have hired a finance supervisor to oversee the bid process, yet the warehouse supervisor has been conducting most of the bid process. You willNow have a vacancy in the warehouse supervisor position - who will be doing the bids and purchasing duties? Will this now create another promotion to fill that position?

You have created vacancies within the transportation, warehouse, & custodial departments by promoting from within, yet you have proposed to lay off custodians and forgo the daily cleaning of school classrooms & lavatories. All of these promotions are continuing to cost the district in long term expenditures at a time when you continue to deplete the dangerously low cash reserves. Where are all of these funds coming from? The positions that have been vacated due to attrition should be the additional funds returned to the classrooms so that we may maintain our educational offerings for our students, not for the long-term expense of creating more upper management.

Wasn't one of the goals of the reconfiguration of the district to reduce administrative levels? Why is the district going backwards and why is LPS creating and filling more & new administrative positions?

I would direct your attention to board policy CGB - administrative personnel positions -, which states:

"All administrative positions in the school system shall be established initially by the board of education.

It is the intent of the board to activate sufficient number of such positions to promote the attainment of the school system goals."

I must ask the board this question: have all of these current and proposed administrative positions been established by the board, and is the board aware of what area of responsibility each of the administrative positions have? Do you know how many employees report to these administrators and what their job responsibilities are?

The LPS administration appears to be very convoluted and have no real organizational structure, there does not appear to be direct levels of reporting, or defined areas of responsibility.

You, as board members, have a direct responsibility to answer to thousands of students, parents, and citizens of this district, yet there is only one person who is responsible for answering to you. Don't you think it may be time to begin to hold that person responsible for providing answers to the board, so that you, our board of education, will be able to responsibly answer your constituents?