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Cost-saving supervisor gets ax
(by Dave Lange - July 29, 2009)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Cost-saving supervisor gets ax
My friend Allan Paradise, of Auburn, is out of work again. His position is being eliminated in the wake of a scathing state auditor's report that said the Warrensville Heights School District spends too much money. The auditors said the district's average salary of $51,767 was 24 percent higher than those in comparable districts elsewhere in Ohio.
Actually, it's not likely that Mr. Paradise's position as transportation supervisor will be eliminated. Bus drivers and maintenance personnel do not supervise themselves. Bus schedules and routes do not magically materialize.
His replacement probably will cost more. Mr. Paradise's salary is $46,000 per year, the lowest among Warrensville Heights school administrators, lower than many of the teachers, lower than some of the bus drivers he supervises. Not only that, since he worked out an agreement to drop his discrimination case when he was being forced out two years ago, he retired and was rehired, thus saving the district $18,000 a year in benefits.
Mr. Paradise is a white man who probably knows the predominantly black Warrensville Heights School District better than anyone. He attended school there for 13 years and has worked in the district's bus garage for 38 years, 20 of them as supervisor. Many of the current teachers, some of the administrators and a couple school board members were his bus passengers when they were students.
Although the school superintendent recommended Mr. Paradise for a new two-year contract, the school board voted 4-1 against it. The official justification was that the district doesn't hire retirees. The superintendent is retired from the Cleveland School District. Some of the bus drivers were rehired after retiring.
Mr. Paradise has learned that his color is the reason for this termination, just as it was for the previous attempt in 2007.
The state audit said the cost of busing in the Warrensville Heights district was $14 per mile, compared to $4 per mile for similar districts.
Mr. Paradise learned that the Perrysburg School District south of Toledo was used for comparison. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, Perrysburg High School has 1,304 white students and 24 black students. It listed 411 blacks and two whites at Warrensville Heights High School. The median household income in Perrysburg is over $70,000, compared to about $42,000 in Warrensville Heights. Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs are very different from the affluent suburbs of Toledo.
By administrative design, Warrensville Heights school buses have been running half empty, according to Mr. Paradise, to help drivers contend with behavior problems. In addition, bus routes must be accelerated throughout the district to deliver students to school 20 minutes early for free breakfasts each morning. Furthermore, because of Warrensville's poor performance on state-mandated tests, buses run four nights a week for special tutoring, with high-seniority drivers getting paid at time and a half. Free breakfasts and night tutoring do not inflate Perrysburg's transportation budget.
After Mr. Paradise proposed a plan to eliminate two buses and 12 bus routes for a savings of $177,000 next year and another $90,000 the following year, he was informed that his services no longer are needed.
The state audit found that "poor planning and oversight has contributed to higher-than-necessary costs and services" for the Warrensville Heights School District. The auditors got that right.
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