School Board to review raises

Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 | 11:02 a.m.

The Clark County School Board will hold a special closed-session meeting Thursday to discuss whether Superintendent Carlos Garcia overstepped his authority by giving 10 percent raises to two top administrators.

The meeting was called by School Board member Shirley Barber, who said she was "furious" last week when she learned of the pay increases for Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction, and Bill Hoffman, senior counsel for the district. Orci's salary increased to $132,424 and Hoffman's to $123,456.

Barber said she was upset that the School Board had not been notified that the raises were coming and that the pay increases were given in a year when the rest of the district's employees received only 2 percent pay hikes.

"I have a real problem with how this happened," Barber said. "I want some answers and I want someone to tell me we aren't going to see this happen again."

District regulations allow the superintendent to authorize pay increases for certain key personnel, according to Ann Bersi, a lawyer for the School Board.

A tougher question to answer will be whether the board believes Garcia complied with the regulation stating he will "not permit the board to be uninformed or unsupported in its work."

"This is very subjective and each board member may have a different perception," Bersi said Monday. "Regulations say (Garcia) must communicate with and support the board. They are going to have to decide as a group whether they believe he has done that."

Garcia said this morning that while he believed he was within his rights to give the raises to Hoffman and Orci he regretted not informing the School Board as a whole about his decision.

"I should have done a better job communicating and in the future I absolutely will," Garcia said. "(Thursday's meeting) will give us the opportunity to discuss the situation and possibly establish some new guidelines for communication."

Barber said she wants to know whether Garcia was required to tell the board about the raises, either before or after the fact. And if he was not, Barber said, she will push for a new regulation requiring the superintendent to get board approval on raises for central administrators.

The raises did not sit well with representatives of the district's support employees union and teachers union.

"I think it sets a terrible tone," Mary Ella Holloway, Clark County Education Association president, said. "We've got teachers scraping to get by and these kinds of perks to upper management just flies in the face of that."

The majority of the district's 28,000 employees have their salaries set through contract negotiations, which must be approved by the School Board. But as members of the district's negotiating team -- which works with the three major bargaining groups to hammer out contracts -- Orci and Hoffman are exempt, said George Ann Rice, associate superintendent of human resources for the district.

Joe Furtado, executive director of the Education Support Employees Association, said he questioned exempting Orci and Hoffman on the basis of status as members of the negotiating team.

"I've seen neither of those gentlemen at any bargaining session," Furtado said. "If the district wants to reopen negotiations, we would be happy to accept 10 percent increases for all our employees."

Last week Garcia told the Sun he had authorized the raises last month and made the order retroactive to July. The pay hikes were intended to bring parity to the pay scale for members of his cabinet, Garcia said. Three years ago Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations, was given a significant raise when the district learned he was considering other employment, Garcia said. At that time the School Board was told similar increases would be necessary for other administrators, Garcia said.

Even if no district regulations have been violated, Garcia's unilateral action appears unsavory, said Craig Walton, professor of ethics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. With public education advocates demanding more funding and critics already scrutinizing how taxpayer dollars are being spent, extra effort should be taken to avoid even the faintest suggestion of impropriety, Walton said.

"There should be job descriptions and criteria by which these guys are all evaluated," Walton said. "It should be nowhere secret. After all, the money we're talking about is ours, every nickel."

School Board member Denise Brodsky said the pay increases surprised her.

"I know the superintendent has said he mentioned the raises would be necessary when we talked about Dr. Rulffes' situation," Brodsky said. "But that was three years ago. It would have been nice to have an update."

At least two School Board officials say they did know the raises were in the works -- President Susan Brager-Wellman and member Mary Beth Scow.

Brager-Wellman said she did not believe Garcia had exceeded his authority.

"The superintendent has made some excellent decisions on our behalf," Brager-Wellman said. "Dr. Orci and Mr. Hoffman are essential employees and we need to keep our salaries competitive if we are to retain them."

Scow said she remembered Garcia mentioning the possibility of the raises at an earlier meeting, although she wasn't sure of the exact date.

"Communication is the key," Scow said. "If we decide (Thursday) we want the superintendent to tell us about these kinds of things ahead of time, then we need to give him specific instructions to that effect."

The closed-door session will be followed by an open meeting during which the School Board will announce its conclusions.

Three years ago the School Board adopted a system known as policy governance. The superintendent operates like the chief executive officer of a corporation and the School Board members function as the board of directors. Authority is delegated to the superintendent with specific limits put on what he can and cannot do. At its closed session Thursday the School Board will decide whether Garcia stayed within those boundaries.

Clint Richards, associate professor at UNLV's College of Business, said the School Board should make sure its regulations are in keeping with how much authority they actually intend to delegate to the superintendent.

"If he has to keep them informed beforehand or if they have the power of veto, it suggests it isn't really within his power to make these kinds of decisions," said Richards, who has taught management and business ethics for more than 25 years at UNLV. "If you're going to hold a CEO ultimately accountable for performance, to put too many constraints on him seems inconsistent."