Posted on 11/20/2002 10:11:31 AM PST by hsmomx3
The woman made a mistake, but it was one apparently born out of care and concern for a child in her charge. For this, she gets fired.
The man, too, made a mistake. In fact, he made a bunch of them, born out of care and concern, not for the children in his charge but for someone infinitely more precious: himself. For this, he gets a three-month paid vacation and nearly $160,000 in extra cash, courtesy of taxpayers.
The moral of the story, of course, is clear:
It's best not to feed other people's kids, but it is OK, apparently, to feed off of them.
It's difficult not to compare the stories. An Ahwatukee day care worker nurses a baby left in her care. It was stupid, but it was apparently done out of concern for the child, who was sick.
If only Bill Hill had the same level of concern for the 30,000 northwest Valley children left in his care.
Hill is perhaps the best-known school superintendent in Arizona and for all the wrong reasons. This is the guy who misused public money, manipulated an election and, in general, squeezed every dime he could out of the Deer Valley Unified School District.
This is a guy who got a $3,600 annual car allowance and yet drove a district-issued car and filled it with district-supplied gas.
Who spent $25,000 to produce posters, brochures and newsletters, all featuring himself, to run for president of the American Association of School Administrators. Eventually, he reimbursed the district but not before trying to pass off the posters et al as staff recruitment tools. "We want the best," Hill said. "Certainly a lot of that is tied to the image of the superintendent."
Certainly and sadly.
This, after all, is a guy who never got an Arizona driver's license, registered his cars in Oregon to save a few bucks and took unauthorized advances on his pay - a curious habit for which he is being investigated.
This is also a guy who told his staff to keep quiet about a mounting budget crisis until after the November election. He says he was simply awaiting details, but it no doubt had more to do with torpedoing the campaign of a School Board critic who was running for re-election on a claim that Hill had mismanaged the budget. After the man lost, the public was let in on a nasty little secret: a $1.6 million deficit.
Clearly, this is a guy who should have had the bottom side of a boot applied to his behind long ago. Instead, Bill Hill strolls away smiling, thanks to a School Board that gave him a 22 percent raise last year and a jaw-dropping guarantee of seven years of insurance plus a sick day for every five days worked.
On Oct. 8, Hill announced that he would resign on Dec. 31, just as the board was pondering whether to fire him for his latest financial fast one: the pay advances. The board has since dropped the idea, saying it would take months anyway.
So he's home now on administrative leave, collecting his $574-a-day salary for doing nothing and counting the days until Dec. 31 when he'll collect $158,245 for unused vacation, 177 days of unused sick leave and future insurance premiums.
Meanwhile, the school district faces a $1.6 million shortfall.
Despite it all, board President Susan Burke says Hill was a good educator. "He was very, very good. He just made some very bad decisions, and they all seem to center around money."
If he's so good, I'd suggest putting him to work instead of allowing him to sit home drawing checks. Maybe he could work in special ed. One of the many proposed budget cuts on the table would take $100,000 from summer programs for Deer Valley's disabled kids. That's just about what Hill will collect for all those unused sick days. Why not let him get to know the kids who might not be getting services next summer?
Maybe it'll be enough to actually make him sick.
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