For four years, Fred Shuback has followed the money for the Oxford school district, but he decided he didn’t like where it led.
So, he’s resigning as the district’s controller on May 14. His letter explains why.
‘While I have no reason specified by the contract to terminate the contract immediately, I want to let it be known that I no longer feel comfortable working in an environment where significant expenditures continue to be made which I feel provide no benefit or virtually no benefit to the students,? Shuback wrote in his March 16 resignation letter.
Included in the expenditures were:
n’Whereas other notices of superintendent retirements throughout the state have been given as effective at the end of the fiscal year (at the end of June 30), our district has granted our superintendent retirement effective September 1. This provides for 30 days of vacation, 12 days of personal illness and two days of personal leave in the next fiscal year. If all these days were needed and/or used in the first two months of the next fiscal year, this could hypothetically obligate the district for two months of pay without the superintendent working during those two months. And in any case, it obligates the district to pay an additional 30 days of vacation and at least 60 percent of the 12 personal illness days (at the BA/BS base of the OEA salary schedule) over what it would have to pay if retirement was as of June 30.”
n ‘Payment for prior year homeless transportation which the transportation provider agreed that we had no legal obligation to pay.”
n “Excessive cell phone data roaming charges.?
n ‘Strategic planning”
n ‘Population study.?
‘Furthermore,? Shuback continued, ‘when the public is told in an open forum that Weiming pays for all our trips to China and we have China flight charges coming through our credit cards and our financial statement accounts, I have trouble continuing to work in an atmosphere where I cannot be sure if what is being told to me is correct and proper or not.?
Shuback noted he is ‘grateful? to have worked for Oxford.
‘The work has been very rewarding, and I have been able to work with many wonderful people whom I feel that I can call not only my co-workers, but my friends.?
Shuback did not wish to comment on his letter at this point, other than to respond to anything Superintendent Dr. William Skilling had to say about it.
Kallie Roesner-Meyers, one of the leaders of TEAM 20, a local group that’s been questioning and challenging the school district’s actions, said she became very suspicious that the district had some financial issues going on, following a discussion she had with former Chief Operations Officer Pam Anstey, who parted ways with the district last week.
‘I did more digging, and spoke to a lot of TEAM 20 members, and concluded that something happened and the administration was not being honest and forthcoming. So TEAM 20 wrote a FOIA requesting any documentation related to his departure from our district,? Roesner-Meyers said. ‘If TEAM 20 did not FOIA those documents, we would have never known about this letter.?
Skilling’s response
According to Skilling, Shuback’s letter came as a ‘surprise.?
‘To honest with you, he’s never spoken to me about any of these (issues),? he told this reporter. ‘So, I don’t know how to respond to you.?
On the contrary, Shuback did speak to Skilling via e-mail concerning three of the issues brought up in his resignation later.
As for Shuback’s comment concerning the superintendent’s retirement, Skilling said prior to receiving the resignation, he had already informed Deputy Superintendent Tim Throne and Board President Jim Reis that he wasn’t going to take any vacation or sick days as a part of his newly-negotiated consultant contract (see story on Page 2).
While Shuback has no idea when Skilling discussed his retirement, he knows he only heard about Skilling giving up his vacation and sick days for the last couple months, after his letter of resignation was submitted.
‘And while I was concerned with the vacation and sick days, that was only half of my concern,? he added. ? My other half was that he was being paid through August 31, while many other superintendents were leaving as of the end of the fiscal year, June 30, especially when we planned all along to have a new superintendent on July 1.?
Skilling has since decided to retire on June 30 (see story on Page 2).
One hot-button issue for Shuback is the payment that went to a neighboring school district for transportation of a homeless child.
Skilling explained that typically when a district transports a homeless child to another district, they set up some sort of payment agreement.
However, because they did not get notified about it until the end of the year, Oxford was under no obligation to pay for that transportation.
‘It was recommended by our special (education)) department to not pay it and Fred agreed,? Skilling said.
But because the student had been driven by the neighboring district all year long, Skilling felt like Oxford at least owed them something, so after talking with some board members, they agreed to pay $9,000 of the $18,000 cost.
‘Apparently, he wasn’t pleased with that,? Skilling said. ‘He never told me about it until I saw it (in his letter), but I did know his original stance was that we shouldn’t pay it.?
Skilling said he considered making the payment to be an ‘ethical obligation.?
In response to that, Shuback said, ‘My duty is to protect the money that we have for our students.?
To Shuback, the ‘moral responsibility to keep all of our money for our children? is ‘higher than an ethical responsibility.?
According to Oxford Schools 2013-14 District Administrator Out-of-State Travel Information in the transparency section of the school’s website, the district paid $2,792 in ‘communication charges? for Skilling during a five-day trip to the Confucius Institute Conference in Beijing, Chinia from Dec. 6-11.
Skilling said the large charge was due to a ‘back-to-back? trips to China. In November, he said he was visiting Weiming and meeting about the proposed dormitory project. When he sent a power point file to the architects, it activated the roaming feature on his cell phone and he didn’t realize it.
In a Feb. 14, 2014 e-mail, Shuback asked Skilling if the cell phone bill was so high due to the roaming charges and if the payment should be taken out of a different account as opposed to charging it to the central office?
‘No, I have no other account. I spoke to Tim Throne about it. It has to do with data roaming charges,? Skilling replied in his e-mail. ‘In the future, I will turn my phone off and turn it on only periodically when I travel abroad.?
As far as trips to China and the cost, Skilling said Weiming pays for all the trips for student interviews and selection.
‘We do have expenses (related) to China, but it’s minimal and some of the expenses (are covered by) grants,? Skilling said. ‘I don’t think having international trips in and of themselves (is) necessarily a negative thing, or even expensive, because most of our costs, by far, are covered by our school partners or through Hanban or through the Confucius classroom.?
Skilling used the example of the district’s sister schools in Mexico. For the past three years, he said they’ve sent students to visit there and it has been the responsibility of the students to pay their own airfare (as well as 100 percent of the cost of the trip and chaperons airfare is covered by the district.) But once they arrive, the cost of (the chaperons) meals, transportation and accommodations is picked up by the sister schools. In return, when students come to Oxford from Mexico, lodging and meals (of the chaperons) are paid by the district.
However, this year, he noted, chaperons from Mexico will stay with Oxford host families to help further offset some of the cost.
‘That’s something schools do to help save (on) cost and to help create these exchange programs,? he said ‘I feel we’ve done a really good job in terms of keeping the costs minimal.
The other thing to keep in mind is we use our tuition dollars (from foreign students) and the budget that comes from there as well. My global collaboration budget is just out the general fund budget and it’s a $10,000 annual budget.?
He noted that they also have a ‘travel budget,? which is in the OIRA budget and is paid through tuition dollars.
So far this year, Skilling said he’s gone to China twice and it only cost the district $977 for tickets. That has included not only a trip to meet with Weiming, but also the district’s sister school, Northeast Yucai Oxford International High School.
Shuback said any money spent to go China to meet with Weiming does not appear to be consistent with what Tim Throne said in a Nov. 13, 2014 community forum where he was asked who pays for all the trips to China and he responded that Weiming did.
As for the strategic planning and population study, Skilling didn’t know why those were on Shuback’s list.
Shuback said he thought both offer a minimal return on investment.
‘During the budget process, everyone got together and said here are investments we can make and here are things we (can) take away (in order) to get to a balanced budget,? he added. ‘We then prioritized the items that if we had money, here is what we would do. Strategic planning was not a priority. Several other things were higher in the queue than strategic planning. For us now to spend money on that (to hire an outsider) when we had someone internally, who was responsible for strategic planning . . . in my mind, it’s not money that was beneficial to the kids.?
Some of things Shuback listed as priorities included science lab tech, maintenance items district-wide, a middle school counselor, cameras in the buses and more lockers at the high school.
Despite Shuback’s letter, Skilling still praised him.
‘All I can say is Fred has been the best controller I’ve ever worked with and he’s really, really good at what he does,? he added. ‘I hate to see him leave because he is really outstanding and he did such a great job helping us select our information systems, which is another expertise that he has that you normally wouldn’t find (in a) controller. So, not only was he a CPA, he’s extremely knowledgeable on information systems and (had) consulted in that area with our district before we contracted him.?