SLO County superintendent scolds Paso Robles school board for ‘disappointing’ hiring slip-up
After Paso Robles Joint Unified School District’s board of trustees stopped recording its meeting on Tuesday, the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education’s superintendent scolded trustees and district officials over a hiring slip-up in a surprising outburst.
Jim Brescia, the county superintendent, berated officials Tuesday evening for “disappointing” him after his office had “tried to work with (them)” to appoint a temporary executive secretary for district Superintendent Curt Dubost and the school board.
That person is responsible for “performing the complex clerical support tasks required by the superintendent and the board of trustees,” such as managing schedules, distributing board meeting agendas and maintaining “complex historical and current files,” according to the job description.
The previous executive secretary resigned unexpectedly in November 2020, around the time that a grand jury released a report identifying a list of failures that caused the Paso Robles district’s recent budget crisis.
The district contracted with the County Office of Education to bring in Valerie Kraskey to fill the executive secretary job about three weeks ago, but failed to finalize her official contract.
Instead, confusion arose over the amount Kraskey needed to be paid.
Tensions surfaced during Tuesday’s board meeting when newly elected board member Dorian Baker raised several questions regarding the financial obligations of the executive secretary position.
The Paso Robles district had intended to employ Kraskey for two to six months — until it could find someone else to fill the executive secretary position.
But Baker said the $50,000 budgeted for the position only covers 19 weeks of pay at $62.69 per hour, or $501.55 per day. In reality, the district would need to budget around $62,000 total for the position to factor in travel, meals and other job-related expenses, Dubost said.
The county Office of Education was to pay for Kraskey’s benefits.
The district originally proposed contracting with the county Office of Education to hire Kraskey for the position in its Dec. 15 board meeting. Dubost told trustees on Tuesday that he had asked Brescia for help.
At the December meeting, all board members with the exception of Chris Bausch voted in favor of the hire.
However, at that time, board members only heard only broad details of the position. For example, trustees weren’t told then what Kraskey’s hourly rate would be.
At Tuesday’s meeting, board members declined to approve hiring Kraskey as executive secretary — meaning that she’s no longer an employee of the Paso Robles school district.
Now, the district has no one to fill the executive secretary job.
Brescia waited until after Tuesday’s meeting had stopped recording live on YouTube to scold the board members and district staff over the hiring snafu, leaving them largely speechless in response.
Brescia told The Tribune on Thursday that he was “personally and professionally offended” by the board’s decision Tuesday evening. And he added that it was “frustrating” that the agreement between his office and the district did not work out because he’s “trying to get this school district shored up again so that they can be self sufficient.”
“For however many months they needed, we would cover the costs to help them have this employee. And I would make it work so that it would be less than $50,000,” Brescia said. “I thought they (the school board) understood that. Obviously, I assumed incorrectly.”
“(After) the board meeting, I said, ‘Until you have something presented to me in writing that you’ve approved, I’m no longer providing you services,’ ” Brescia said. “If they should want assistance, then they need to ask and they need to put it in writing.”
According to Dubost, the hiring issue arose because Paso Robles trustees have been closely reviewing the grand jury report, which said in essence that the district previously had not carefully audited who it was hiring and how much those people were getting paid. So when the time came to review the financial obligations of the new executive secretary, the board took another look and found a discrepancy in the salary, Dubost said.
“I didn’t catch the difference between the $50,000 I originally told the board, and the $62,000,” Dubost said.
Without an executive secretary for Dubost, others in the district administration office will have to shoulder extra duties and stress. Meanwhile, the district is trying to handle the challenges that come with offering hybrid and online school instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is coming at a time where we are understaffed and over committed, and we can’t just hire someone willy nilly for 62 grand,” Dubost said.
The district will look to place an employee in the executive secretary position by the board’s next meeting on Jan. 26, Dubost said.
Chris Arend, the president of the district board, said that it was “unfortunate that it went down the way it did.”
“Dorian Baker could have asked those questions an hour before and gotten answers,” he said. “But she asked them during the meeting, the district know the answers so it threw us back on our heels. Now we’re in a bit of a pickle.”
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 7:27 AM.
