SF School District

Nepotism or Standard Operating Procedure? (H/T – Alice15)

l3wis July 21, 2011 22Comments

So how does the daughter of the SF school district’s super get a job with SE Tech? (who is also in charge of SE TECH) Just curious?

I’m all for family members helping each other out in private industry, but when it comes to public money, this kind of crap is unacceptable.

Is her daughter qualified? Sure. Maybe. Who knows? Doesn’t matter, it stinks, and Pam should know better, or maybe she doesn’t?

I encourage everyone to email Betsy and her mother and ask them how this deal works?

While education funding is in the crapper, Debbie Hoffman bellies up to the trough

l3wis July 19, 2011 16Comments

“Maybe I can invoice the SF School District for the time it takes me to eat my free lunch?”

This of course doesn’t surprise me;

SIOUX FALLS, SD – How much would someone have to pay you to do a TV interview?

KELOLAND News doesn’t offer compensation for interviews, but South Dakota school districts do offer compensation for board members who are interviewed, or doing anything on behalf of the district outside of official meetings.  It turns out an interview KELOLAND News did with a former board member this spring cost taxpayers $75.

On March 21, then-school board member Debbie Hoffman came to the KELOLAND studios for an interview about a policy to allow for teacher searches on school grounds.

A month later, on April 25, Hoffman submitted her time to the school board and was approved for compensation. Turns out, it’s perfectly legal.

“State law allows school board members to turn in for up to $75 a day for school board meetings or events or meetings related to school board business,” current School Board President Kent Alberty said.

When Hoffman sat on the last EC task force, she never showed up for a meeting until the end when they needed to start making decisions, and she acted like she had all the answers. While education is extremely underfunded, and school kids in SF get FREE and reduced lunches, Debbie thinks she should be paid for a 5 minute interview. I hope she takes that $75 check, rolls it up really tight and shoves it straight up her  . . .

Vote Centers and the SF School Board election

l3wis May 20, 2011 0Comments

As I posted about a few weeks back, the SF School District will be using Super Precincts or Vote Centers, whatever you want to call them, for the School Board election on Tuesday (May 24). Didn’t hear about it? Probably not. Besides a couple of stories in our local rag, there hasn’t been much fanfare. This election is important, because they will be testing a new system.

The School Board will hold its Election to fill one vacancy when the term of Debbie D. Hoffman expires in July.  The School District’s annual Election will be held May 24, 2010 from 7:00 A.M. until 7:00 P.M.  The District will conduct its Election in using 10 polling locations.  SDCL 13-7-28 allows the District to use electronic pollbooks and Vote Centers for its 2011 election.  With the use of the electronic pollbooks and Vote Centers, voters registered in the Sioux Falls School District will be allowed to vote in any one of the ten locations (for more information please click here (Changes in Voting Procedures for 2011).

If you read the PDF, you will see that you can vote AT ANY location as long as you have a valid ID. This is a great idea, long past due and something our city clerk, Debra Owen has been working on for awhile. And while this is great news to make voting easier I’m puzzled why there has been little to no media about it. Talk about mass confusion come Tuesday. Besides the media saying little about it, the school district has done little to publicize it either. I think they should have sent out a postcard to all the registered voters explaining the new election process. This probably wouldn’t have cost them over $10,000. But I guess in this democracy called Sioux Falls informing voters is a waste of money. Unfortunate really. It’s not like voter turnout is ever that high during school board elections, we have a history of low voter turnout, and not informing voters about Vote Centers will only make the turnout lower IMO. We’ll see on Tuesday, I guess.