Pontiac School District Takes Control

The Interim Superintendent for the Pontiac School District, Walter Burt, has recently received the approval of the board for the reorganization plans that he believes will help the school district to take on more control of the human resources department. By doing so, the school district will be able to work in a much more efficient and effective manner, which ultimately helps the employees, staff and most importantly, the students. It will also help the school district to come up with a budget, as the budget is already $39 million less than the budget that was set for the school year of 2007 through 2008. Burt believe that reorganizing will help to put things into place and make sure that the students still receive what they need, even though the budget is a lot tighter than it was before.

Burt says that the board meeting was quite powerful, which is something he appreciated. He said that he came up with a reorganization chart that could be used on the school district, especially during a period in time when the school district is expected to adopt a new budget, one that means less money is available. His plan is to reorganize the district and many of the administrative positions that are already in existence. With the chart he created put into place, key managers will be expected to report back to the superintendent at all times instead of reporting back to an assistant, which is something that they used to be able to do.

The Superintended is Thomas Maridada III and the assistant superintendent is Jumanne Sledge, who was taking on the responsibilities of human resources and finances and was also reporting back to Maridada. Sledge, however, got caught up in controversy and has been charged with embezzlement of about $236,000. Both his bank account and his car were taken away by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI is still doing investigations for the district and its finances to figure out if any other wrongdoing took place which means that there is always a possibility for new charges to be made.

The Pontiac School District is in need of about $56.8 million for the budget of the 2012-2013 school years, as a way of being able to afford everything. However, with the budget cuts, there is only about $42.7 million available, meaning that there is a deficit of a little more than $14 million. The budget for the previous school year was considerably higher, at around $69 million, which shows that reorganizing is necessary, especially since millions of dollars are being cut from the budget, which would generally become a cause for concern. However, with Burt’s new plan, it is possible that the school district can take control and make the budget work.