Taos Schools Caveat
Editor’s Note: Contributor Lorraine Coca-Ruiz comments below on TMS budget challenges among other issues. Coca-Ruiz is the former TMS board president and and the 8-year County Treasurer. In the early double-aughts she stood up to County Commissioners and saved the county from insolvency. We welcome her to Taos Friction.
DON’T SAY WE DIDN’T TELL YOU SO!
By Lorraine Coca-Ruiz
For the last four years the majority of the previous board and the previous finance director, Bobby Spinelli warned all those superintendents that the federal stimulus money would no longer be available. The stimulus money, which was spread out over two years, did what it was supposed to do and helped postpone staffing cuts. To make money available the board gave a directive to institute a hiring freeze and a travel freeze. At various meeting the board told the superintendent to trim the fat of the school district and eliminate unnecessary spending.,However the superintedent went on a spending spree, hunting for teachers in California and Colorado but came back empty handed. What a nice vacation.
The school district budget should have been made public; whatever happened to transparency?
Today, June 8, 2011 the board will be voting on a budget that Thomas Tafoya and Superintendent Rod Weston took to the Public Education Department for review. Why would the board president hand carry a budget to PED when it’s the responsibility of the superintendent? That is the reason the superintendent gets paid the Big Bucks!
Is it because Mr. Tafoya is running the schools? Rumor is that he has hand picked those teachers that received pink slips. The schools claim it was the first and second year employees who got the axe. But that is absolutely false. For example, the secretary to the superintendent is still employed as well as others who are favored. Decisions have been made to benefit the powerful and the connected.
Class size can only be increased by so much, before the students won’t fit in the classroom. I predict that the school district will start losing students who can use the option of “School Choice†to go to school in other districts, too.
That means fewer students less money.
The current board will have to provide an educationally sound, yet fiscally responsible, budget for the betterment of Taos school district children, I challenge the board to ask the hard question concerning the budget. When you look at the budget you will see that CRAB hall employees receive an increase in pay and preference in terms of positions. Check out the human resource position, transportation position and the number of additional secretaries being hired.
Remember what Governor Susana Martinez has said that the budget requires cuts to be made in the bureaucracy–not in the classroom. If you approve a budget that is pro-administration you can bet your budget will be returned by PED and you will be operating the school district without a budget.
I’ll be watching.