Did you ever get a $42,000 a year raise? FL education CEO did.

[madfloridian]

Then resigned leaving behind a huge accounting mess. Another Florida outrage involving education.

A Well-Paid `Loyal Soldier'

SNIP...."That kind of money raised eyebrows even in Tallahassee -- especially since Horne reportedly didn't bother to inform the Board of Education before rewarding his loyal employee.

Presumably, the raise was given in the spirit of Gov. Jeb Bush's "Service First" plan, which gives officials leeway to amply reward their top employees. And never mind that Wood's raise was apparently given without benefit of formal merit review....."

SNIP...."But now, reports The Palm Beach Post, Wood has resigned -and without explanation. When he departs next month, he will leave behind his boss and a department reeling from a messy voucherfraud scandal that is undermining public confidence in the controversial program pushed so enthusiastically by the governor.

Horne, in an e-mail to the board, said that Wood "has served as one of my trusted advisers and loyal soldiers in the fight to reform and improve education in the state of Florida. Dedication and loyalty such as his is seldom found, and he will not be easily replaced."END SNIP

If good loyal soldiers leave this kind of mess behind, wonder what those not so loyal leave?

I find myself wondering just what in the world did this Larry Wood do for Florida education to deserve an extra $42,000 a year??

[Katarina]

1. Not $42,000 but...

this year our superintendent got a nice little raise of $30,000 ($105,000 to $130,000 with a $6,500 bonus this coming year). Nice little chunk of change, no? The worst part was that it was hidden in the agenda in a list of consent items. If it had not been brought up by our newspaper before the school board meeting his raise would have been $45,000 and would have been put through automatically as consent items are voted in as a whole.

Here's an article pertaining to it. http://www.n-jcenter.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Flagler/03FlaglerFLAG01082703.htm
(Sorry, I don't know how to make shorter links on here.)

Unfortunately it's just going to keep going until people pull their heads out of the sand and take notice. Speaking for my own county, there is just not enough public outcry about education. The people don't pay enough attention to things like this.

[madfloridian]

2. I wonder how many more cases like this there are?

Those are just plain huge raises, too huge to make sense at all.

I did find some more on Larry Wood and the McKay voucher controversy back in July. How no one in Tallahassee would even talk to the press with his permission.

[newyawker99]

3. Hi Katarina!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: