Sunday, December 27, 2009

Turmelle on the schools' new director

The NHRs Luther Turmelle reports on the schools' new Director of Management Services:

School officials say they’re not concerned that the district’s new director of management services background includes experience with a financial services company that went into bankruptcy 10 years ago...

“His references, his co-workers, were all very positive about him,” Florio said.

Brittingham said that after looking into Masciana’s background and talking with him, “my impression is that he brought order to chaos at his old company.”


Tim White

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Brittingham said that after looking into Masciana’s background and talking with him, “my impression is that he brought order to chaos at his old company.”

So, was this just another out of context quote or should we all be cheering because now the BOE has a highly paid expert in business chaos associated with bankruptcy? Of course on the other hand he doesn't seem to have much experience in issues associated with the education of kids K-12.

What next? This selection just doesn't resonate with many parents.

Anonymous said...

People should be nervous...we finally have a qualified non-educator running the operations side of the school system. He's hired as a Director of Management Services...not an assistant superintendent. Read the job description.

More importantly, is he for or against turf? I can live with the bankruptcy experience but if he's for turf then this decision is going too far. ;-)

Get over it.

Anonymous said...

My concern is not with Masciana's previous experience or background, but more so with Florio and what he will expect from him. If anyone hasn't noticed, Florio has a quick temper and if someone speaks against him or doesn't go with his ideas it could get ugly. In other words, is Masciana going to be just another "yes" man?

Anonymous said...

I'm certain Masciana has support from some of the BOE members when it comes to standing up to Florio. Florio received unanimous support from the BOE regarding Masciana so it would be unwise for Florio get out of line...with any employee.

The flip-side to Florio's decision on Masciana...is that with the #3 spot now tucked away and focused solely on non-educational operations...there's no successor to Florio.

Anonymous said...

No experience, filling 1/2 a job and starting at $120,000? How did he even hear of this job? I'll bet this is a big raise for him.

He must have a real friend in Florio.

Tony Perugini said...

I interviewed Mr. Masciana and voted in favor of hiring him for the position. I have a lot of information regarding the position, his qualifications, experience, etc. Too much to write here but please feel free to call me and I'll try to answer your questions or concerns on this topic. My phone is 203-699-9828. The revised job description should also be posted in our policies (http://www.policy.cabe.org/cheshire/). It's policy #2132 but it references the old job description. I'll check into that.

I support this position, we need it and we need someone dedicated to it that can focus 100% on operations. This is not a knock against Dr. Florio or his staff. We tend to forget that there's an operations aspect to our school system outside of the classrooms and I believe we need someone with solid operations experience in that role. This role sat vacant for all of this year and I think it hurt us in some ways. We need it.

Contact me if you need more info.

Thanks,
Tony Perugini
BOE

Anonymous said...

We need a non-educrat in one of the top positions to bring some sense of common sense to the party. What the new guy is doing has nothing to do with what goes on in the classroom, this guy should really be the one to develop the budget, not Florio. We will see, if Florio continues to "manage" the budget and the meetings and the new guy does not participate then we know what is going on.

Anonymous said...

excuse me for saying this but it really doesn't seem as though the person selected for the job has very much applicable experience. In fact it is pretty clear that the person has accepted a high level dead end job. Just why would someone even take what has all the appearances of a dead end job in the first place? Can anyone see the BOE allowing this individual to be promoted a couple of pay grades up to the current superintendents slot?

Anonymous said...

$120,000 is probably the reason he took the job...reason enough I would say.

Anonymous said...

If he is good he should be able to save his salary and 10% of the BOE budget if they let him do his job. If he doesn't, time to say goodbye. That budget is so bloated it should be a snap.

Anonymous said...

411 the bloated budget receives much of its inflation (or shall we call it bloat) from the new hires hiring source, the superintendent. Therefore it is more likely that the newly minted junior town government executive will only help to heap on more and more expense into the school system.

Of course the school system doesn't appear to be growing where it counts either.

Just how much is the student head count going up in town over the last 4 or 5 years anyway?

Parents in town would like to see an understandable 1 or 2 page detailed description of exactly what specific things this new position is responsible for and just what the deliverables are by say month 6 and month 12. Included should be an estimate of the real value of each deliverable too.

Anonymous said...

"I interviewed Mr. Masciana and voted in favor of hiring him for the position"

Did everyone know he would be getting $120,000?

Why can't we find qualified, experienced people for a lot less?

Anonymous said...

"Why can't we find qualified, experienced people for a lot less?"

Agreed, this should be a non-paid position. How dare the school system hire a very experienced, COO of a public corporation to fill this role. What are they thinking?!?