Thursday, April 19, 2007

Baltimore School Budget Debated

Following up on stories from a couple of weeks ago, the Balitmore City School Board debated their error-filled budget yesterday. While some members admitted to not reading the budget line by line (why not?), others were more focused on how to fix the monstrosity. Amidst all that, this little gem has come to light:
At the same time, school system officials said that all six staff members in the office responsible for preparing the budget are new to their jobs, with the most senior employee having been there for about seven months.
While blame has been assigned to things like software, I would think that budget office inexperience is now the likely culprit. I know that sometimes school offices can get such turnover in staff in some critical areas, but why didn't the CFO and other responsible officers do a little more oversight of their new employees? That suggests managerial incompetence or at least inattention--which is probably worse. Here is more evidence of that assertion:
But John Walker, the system's chief financial officer, acknowledged that he would not have noticed many of the problems if the newspaper had not brought them to his attention. The only errors explained in a document released yesterday were those reported in The Sun.
So, let's parse that out little.

John Walker has a budget office comprised of six individuals, all with less than a year on the job. They have a software package that seems prone to user error and a CFO who admits that if it were not for the local newspaper's review of the budget, he would not have known about the errors. So here is my question:

Why is this man still drawing a salary from the school system?

Does this man have pictures of the school board playing poker with Satan? The school board needs to dump him and dump him now before he does anything else this monumentally stupid.

Related: Baltimore School Budget Riddled with Errors (4/9/07)
One Example in Baltimore School Budget Morass (4/9/07)
Baltimore School Board to Hold Emergency Meeting (4/11/07)
Baltimore School Budget a Software Glitch? (4/11/07)
Baltimore City and State Officials to Help with School Budget (4/12/07)

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