Sunday, August 03, 2014

C. J. Huff fires secretaries; spends $108 for cookies for departing administrator

When the C. J. Huff Administration began firing secretaries, bus drivers, and custodians at the end of the 2013-2014 school year in an effort to alleviate the financial crisis brought on by massive overspending, not only did it cut loyal employees without warning, but it also fought efforts by the former employees to get unemployment benefits

But when one of their own is the one who is leaving, not due to retirement after many years of loyal service or due to illness, but according to an e-mail she sent, she left to start her own business, well, that's a different matter.

According to a check listed in the board packet for the Joplin R-8 Board of Education for its July meeting, taxpayers paid $108 for cookies for a reception for Klista Rader, who was leaving after only a couple of years as director of technology and who had been with the district for 11 years.

Whether any other taxpayer money was spent on the reception was not clear, but at a time when teachers, secretaries, custodians, bus drivers, and others, the ones who are the heart and soul of a school district are being fired without as much as a thank you, you would have at least thought with that many highly-paid administrators in the bunker at 32nd and Duquesne, they could have taken up a collection and paid for the cookies.

And who says administrators can't bake cookies from time to time. They certainly have a lot of experience going through taxpayers' dough.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just when you think they've gone as low as they can go, they prove you wrong. This is the worse possible way to start a new year. With the same jackass at the head of the herd.

Anonymous said...

I think every staff person should just get up and walk out when CJ or the board prez starts talking. They have no respect for us. We should repay in kind.

Anonymous said...

This ranks up there with the Easter egg hunt at Central Office last spring. Get the damn pitchforks and torches.

Anonymous said...

I can't stand these people. I really can't.

Anonymous said...

I hope someone has introduced Schweich to the Turner Report. There's a wealth of information here.

Anonymous said...

Hey, you got to give the woman some credit. She was Angie's right hand when it came to twisting arms to get that stupid computer and ipad mess going in the schools. Can't wait to see the scores this year. Maybe she ran while the getting was good before more evidence of a failed idea becomes public.

Anonymous said...

R8 is a toxic work environment.

Anonymous said...

I wonder if the culinary arts class couldn't have made them cheaper. Just a thought.

Or skip it altogether. I bet no other departing employee was recognized. If you read the post before this one, you know they weren't.

Anonymous said...

R8 sucks

Disgusted taxpayer said...

Pathetic R8. Send good employees packing because you do not know how to manage money and then fight to keep from them the unemployment benefits they deserve. What.scum you truly are.

Anonymous said...

Before Angie Besendorfer, we had an asst. super who DID bake cookies for these little ventures in order to save money. And that person was a staff of 1 1/2 people, not the fleet that bumbles around in that department now.

When it becomes obvious that tax dollars are being wasted, access to those dollars should be taken away.

Anonymous said...

Even if he couldn't have baked the cookies himself, how about at least just paying for them out of his own pocket the way that all of the teachers do?
As I teacher, I have already spent hundreds of my own dollars on my class just this summer alone. Most of us will spend several thousand dollars each year on our own classrooms.

Anonymous said...

Who is Carhy Mock

Anonymous said...

It shows the check for the cookies was written to Cathy Mock. Curious ??? Apparently not a storefront bakery