Garcia drops plan to add three administrative posts

By Emily Richmond

Wednesday, May 12, 2004 | 10:58 a.m.

Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia has dropped his plan to add three additional assistant regional superintendents, administrative positions that would have cost the district $300,000 in salaries annually.

Walt Rulffes, deputy superintendent of operations, said Garcia asked him earlier this week to remove the three new positions from the 2004-05 budget. The Clark County School Board is slated to approve the budget at a special meeting May 19.

Garcia's request last month for the positions drew criticism from the public for both the timing and the cost. The district's teachers' union questioned the validity of the need.

Garcia said this morning that his decision to delete the positions was driven by fiscal uncertainties, not the public opposition.

"I know we could have demonstrated the need for these positions, and at a later date we'll come back to the board and do that," he said.

Rulffes said he "had advised him (Garcia) of some uncertainties in the budget and he agreed that in light of what we knew now it wasn't the best moment to add those positions," Rulffes said.

One board member applauded Garcia's move.

"I thought it was ridiculous in the first place," Larry Mason, vice president of the School Board, said this morning. "This (deletion of the positions) is the right decision."