Eleven years ago, Larry Gruber walked into the vacant financial director’s empty office at the Lake Orion School District administration office.
First order of business was to work with superintendent Bob Bass to figure out how to eliminate a $1.5 million deficient.
Gruber admitted he left the Huron Valley School District because he was offered the challenge of digging Lake Orion out of its financial woes.
“The (Huron Valley) business office was run so efficiently that there was no challenge left,” he added.
Since that day in 1992, Gruber, in partnership with Bass, cleaned up the deficient mess, saw the school district experience rapid growth, spearheaded bond drives that allowed numerous new buildings to be built and watched as an administration building burned to the ground.
Now he said, it’s time to leave Lake Orion and move on to another challenge — taking over the Linden School District business office.
Linden’s administrators hope to use Gruber’s expertise. They desperately need a bond issue passed so a new school can be constructed.
“Linden is like we were in 1992-93. They’re facing a lot of growth. They have portable classrooms and administration is in a pole barn,” he said.
One of the first things Gruber did as Lake Orion’s financial director, was battle the district’s auditors.
“They were draining us. The bill was $28,000 and it should have been $14,000 to $18,000. We refused to pay it and finally ended up paying less,” he said.
Gruber went out for auditing bids and the old company was replaced. He trained his staff to work with the new auditors, which helped the auditing process go much smoother.
Another problem in the district that Gruber soon discovered was no bidding took place on services and equipment. “It was just a good ol’ boy network. Bids were never done before,” he added.
And Gruber made sure that school board members received more financial information.
“It got cleaned up in a year and we saved the district lots of money,” he said.
It was discovered there was also abuse taking place involving workman’s comp.
Gruber told a story of one employee who had a heart attack in his shower. His wife quickly put him into their car and drove him to a school, so the district would have to pay workman’s comp. The couple’s deceit was soon discovered.
Then came the years of the successful bond issue elections. According to Gruber, the bond election of 1993-94 was a good example of the transition (mix of older and newer families) of the community — where the momentum swung from voting no on every proposal to voting yes.
Gruber admitted that Bass’ threatening to start double shifts at the elementary schools unless the bond issue passed might have had some influence on the outcome of the election.
The yes vote on adding a pool to the high school surprised many. Voters laughed at the suggestion in previous years. Why the success in 1996? I started approaching senior citizens and told them it was good exercise,’ Gruber said.
The passing of the bond issues (except the pool) led the school district into the glory years.
All of those paid for enhancements and buses. That took the pressure off of general funds,” Gruber said. “We could afford schools of choice and lots of different programs. Bob was good at organizing and listening to what parents and staff wanted.
It was about that time that Gruber predicted the school district would reach a peak in three or four years as far as funding was concerned.
Gruber called the district administration building burning down in 1997 as “a blessing in disguise because we got a new building.”
At one of the first group meetings after the fire, Gruber brought one of his assistant’s (Mary Johnston) melted shoes. The shoes had been stored in a file cabinet.
“Mary can buy new shoes,” he told his co-workers. “And we can build a new building.”
Administrators quickly moved into the Ehman Center next door and some luck came their way. “We literally pulled a computer, similar to ours, off the assembly. In two weeks it was up and running and people got checks,” he said. “We’re still using the same computer.”
“One staff member had taken the payroll list home to review it so we didn’t skip a payroll. And a lot of backup data had been stored in the bank the Thursday before the fire.”
The worst thing Gruber lost in the fire was some pictures of his children
Last year, school superintendent Dr. Craig Younkman asked Gruber to become an operation’s manager and help assistant superintendent Chris Lehman with personnel.
“The union (support staff) was saying no administrator was working with it in a timely fashion,” he added.
As part of his new job, Gruber was also attempting to rekindle interest in the Lake Orion Foundation, a group of volunteers interested in raising funds to support mini-grants to teachers and schools throughout the district.
Gruber expects to be with the Linden School District for five years before retiring.