The Rest of the Story

In December, the Board of Education accepted the resignation of Comptroller Stacie Talbert. Talbert came to District 158 in the summer of 2007 and made tremendous improvements to the fiscal office during her short tenure. All board members and administrators agreed that Talbert would be sorely missed in the fiscal office. In fact, after accepting the resignation, board member Aileen Seedorf actually stood up out of her chair and shook Stacy’s hand and said, “I’ll really miss you.”

THE REST OF THE STORY

While Talbert’s letter of resignation was very professional and respectful, she left no doubt that she was leaving because of the ongoing antics of Larry Snow and Aileen Seedorf. In the letter, she said that she had seen her colleagues in the fiscal office treated very badly and felt like a sitting duck, wondering when it was going to be her turn. With her professional reputation on the line, Talbert said she felt she had no choice but to move to a working environment where her credibility was not at risk of being destroyed by some of the board members for which she worked. Similar comments were made by Talbert to reporters for both the Northwest Herald and the Daily Herald.

The district’s Financial Advisory Committee made a statement at the January building and finance committee meeting and expressed sincere concern for the future of the fiscal office. Interestingly, Seedorf’s political running mate Linda Moore, whose school board bid was financed by Larry Snow, was the only member of the FAC who felt the statement should not be read.

The long term affects of Snow’s and Seedorf’s ongoing attacks against employees, board members and other volunteers are taking shape. In plain and simple terms, the result is an inability to attract and retain high quality people. Proof of this was shown just within the last few weeks, when the top candidate as Stacie’s replacement decided at the last minute not to take the job even though the district was willing to pay him about $30,000 MORE than what Talbert earned.

It will be very interesting to see how much taxpayer money Snow and Seedorf have wasted with their vendetta against the District 158 fiscal office, when a new, quite possibly less qualified, yet much more expensive replacement for Talbert is eventually hired.

Top notch school finance professionals are hard to find mid-year. The best of the best are already under contract at other districts. District 158 will now have to create next year’s budget without the guidance of a chief finance official. And even though Snow is the main reason why we don’t have a leader in the fiscal office right now, he has already lashed out publicly about the first draft of the new budget.

“I’ll really miss you?” Interesting statement by Aileen Seedorf when you consider that she was one of the two people who pushed Talbert out the door.