A KOAM report on the settlement includes R-8 Board of Education President Jeff Koch's acknowledgement that the reserves are now far below the 26 percent CFO Paul Barr claimed a few months ago.
Koch says although the settlement did take a "big chunk" out of the general reserves fund, the district is still above 10 percent in reserves.
A positive for the district, it appears, is that the district continues to divest itself of the baggage left by former Superintendent C. J. Huff, whose push to have Joplin High School opened by the beginning of the 2014-2015 led to the millions in overtime that were at the heart of the P1 lawsuit:
There are a few more things to come and hopefully that will be finished up in the next year and when the new superintendent comes in he'll be able to start with a fresh slate,” says Koch.
10 comments:
Koch is dumber than a box of rocks. Such a huge mistake to make him President of the board.
Why the hell didn't Koch tell you, as he did the Globe, the BOE had narrowed the superintendent search to two people, neither from Missouri?
From Item 7 of the settlement: "This Agreement shall not be construed as an admission of liability, as each party denies any and all liability to each other and denies the nature and extent of any damage claimed by any other party."
A payment of $2.5 million will be seen by the public as an admission of guilt and liability, but is there anywhere the District said directly that the cost overruns were directly tied to the race to get the school done on Huff's timetable? A smoking gun?
As far as I can tell, the district has never admitted this. It was featured prominently in the allegations in the P1 lawsuit and every evidence of it was included in the e-mails back and forth between Huff and the P1 Group and the other documents that were filed in connection with the case.
@ 2:22 He's an HR man, what do you want? Can't wait to see who is actually going to take this Super. job. Who would want to start their tenure here, saddled with Uncle Norm's 5-year plan? Including a BOE who demands that they follow it.
The $2.5 million settlement is kind of like a wisp of smoke. That's as close to a smoking gun as you will see.
I fail to understand why we are having all of this talk about smoking guns. There have never been any accusations of any crimes, just gross incompetence and waste of taxpayers' money. When you combine the information contained in the e-mails from the lawsuit with Paul Barr's talk of "might-as-well" spending, the number of other lawsuits involving C. J. and his people, there isn't any way anyone can seriously defend C. J. against any of those accusations. In this case alone, the district is out at least $3.6 million to this point (with more legal bills to come). And I can guarantee we have not come anywhere close to learning just how much damage he did to this school district.
Randy you are correct...Norm's help compliments of Banwart and the Jasper appointees did not/has NOT helped much.Joplin deserved better than Knows Everything Norm.
I work with commercial construction. All overtime is agreed to by the owner. Million of dollars in overtime is unheard of in school construction. The district told the contractor cost was no factor and had to settle for 2.5 million dollars. In the industry we all marvel at how lame the process was in construction oversight from Joplin. Many million of dollars foolishly spent. CJ was so focused on a second round of fame by opening JHS on Time. Senseless.
Not defending C.J., Randy. I'm still just trying to wrap my head around this could happen in a public entity that's supposed to leave a paper trail a mile long, especially when spending millions of taxpayers' money. Forgive me if I've missed something, but I never read where the district actually said a legal and binding "yes" to the extra charges. Somewhere, sometime,it did. I refuse to believe P1 would agree on a handshake with millions on the line. That's why I'm interested in how this was authorized and why that bit of into has not come to light.
Thank you, 8:45, for your insights from within the business. How'd you like to become the district's guy in charge of building projects?
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