Mr. Skala's voting for enormous teacher pay increases that ended up with his wife (D-158 teacher) receiving more than a 50% pay raise over four years was incredibly irresponsible. More incredible is Mr. Skala's willingness to mislead voters about what his true voting record is.
Imagine if you walked into your boss's office and told him/her that your
getting a 50% pay raise over four years would prove your boss is being fiscally
conservative with the company's money.
This is similar to Mr. Skala's behavior during his tax hike campaign. He said
one thing after another, insisting they were true, when they were absolutely
false. And if anyone objected to, or questioned, the "factual reality",
which was presented to voters, they were labeled "mean-spirited"
and "anti-education."
It is difficult for residents to develop a trust for our Board of Education
when Mr. Skala is on the board continuing his practice of now saying he's
'fiscally conservative", after leading the charge to jack up everyone's
property taxes a lot. Mr. Skala has successfully gotten away with deceiving
voters in the past. This time I am calling it to voters' attention.
By Mr. Skala's standards, when he voted for budgets that caused deficit spending,
he was really showing you what he meant by "fiscally conservative."
Imagine what it would be like if he was a bit fiscally liberal? What would
that mean?!
This fundamentally underscores why there were differences at our public meetings.
Mr. Skala's version of reality and facts is/was so completely distorted and
opposite from what, I believe, reasonable people would agree on. Many of the
discussions we have at Board meetings are the result of trying to reach an
agreement of what the facts are. Some board members get rather flustered and
upset when I persuade a board majority to use facts that you and I would agree
on, and not their convoluted, just-the-opposite interpretation of what the
facts really are. Some try to make this questioning process appear "negative"
by labeling it "in-fighting." Most of it would never have to occur,
if Mr. Skala didn't attempt to have conclusions and recommendations be presented
as tail backwards "facts."
After former school board member Mr. Stewart resigned from the COO (Chief
Operations Officer) position, the sources of factual based conflict dropped
off sharply. You can interpret this as a complete coincidence or you can connect
the dots that Mr. Skala had special reasons why he wanted his unemployed,
loyal friend in that over $100,000 administrator position.
Hopefully you can see how, when our teachers union tells the Board how a 30%
pay increase for next year is "reasonable," they know Mr. Skala
is willing to endorse incredible interpretations of words such as "fiscally
conservative" and "reasonable."
We need honest oversight and straight talk by at least part of our Board,
so our community can have some basic trust that what the Board says without
dispute is grounded in reality. I bring these values and contributions to
a Board of Education that has shown, it very much needs them.
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