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School board states reasons for terminating Burleson's contract

Burke County School Board Controversy

More articles about the Burke County School Board Controversy

From Staff Reports

news@morganton.com

Published: September 9, 2009

Morganton, NC - The Burke County Board of Education on Tuesday night approved this statement on a 4-2 vote (Tim Buff, Rob Hairfield, Tracy Norman and Karen Sain for; Buddy Armour and Sam Wilkinson opposed; John Aulgur absent). The News Herald requested and received this statement today shortly before noon.

For many months now the Burke County Board of Education has remained silent in the face of unprecedented public criticism, regarding the reasons leading to the resignation and contract buy-out of former Superintendent David Burleson. The board of education chose to maintain its silence, believing that going public would serve no useful purpose, and out of respect for the many years Mr. Burleson had worked for the school system.
The board and its members, however, have been widely criticized based on inaccurate information regarding Mr. Burleson's departure, and many have argued that the public should be provided reasons why a majority of the board chose to use public funds to both end the lawsuit Mr. Burleson had filed and to end his employment. This has been and remains an ongoing matter of public concern. Accordingly, the board is now releasing this statement to provide a more complete and balanced explanation of its legitimate and serious concerns regarding Mr. Burleson's performance, leading to the decision.
The board's concerns dealt with the superintendent's performance in areas of leadership, budgeting and finance, decisiveness and decision making, equity in education, and trust.
Management of business and fiscal responsibilities, including several items which are noted in the 2007-08 audit, were previously discussed with the superintendent. The board noted that the superintendent failed to keep it apprised of significant trends in the budget and failed to accurately prepare for and project the district's financial status. Supervision of annual reports and audits was noted as being lacking, even before concerns surfaced regarding the unprecedented late filing of the 2007-08 audit.
The superintendent is responsible for recommending efficient procedures and effective controls for all expenditures and, in the opinion of the board, was not adequately doing so. Evidence of this concern included the budget shortfall in current expense, inappropriate use of child nutrition program funds to run the purchasing operations for the entire school system, failing to account for and request funds for the operating expenses for two new high schools, shortfalls in the exceptional children's program budget, failure to determine funds which should have been available to the board under the Consent Judgment with the Board of Commissioners, and a resulting diminishing fund balance that is now at dangerous levels. As noted in the audit, funds were expended prior to budget amendments' being approved and one account was not properly on our books. In addition, capital budget needs were not adequately determined.
The board had previously noted serious concerns about serving the needs of children in the exceptional children's program and had directed the superintendent to ensure that our education programs are meeting the needs of all children. There was a perceived lack of consistency in resources provided throughout the county, leading to ongoing concerns about overall equity in our education program.
On several occasions, the superintendent's resistance to delegating authority, his failure to act decisively and poor decision making led to problems that escalated and then were not effectively addressed. The board, years ago, authorized and paid for updating and revising its policy manual by the North Carolina School Boards Association. Those policies were returned to the superintendent, who sent them for legal review, but then never brought them to the board.
Communication, trust and confidence are critical to an effective relationship between a board, board members and the superintendent. The episode several years ago in the East Burke High School locker room is a prime example of an incident that eroded such trust and confidence. The superintendent at that time failed to provide complete and honest information to all members of the board, resulting in a breach of trust that tended to widen.
In the past year, the superintendent has publicly and privately accused board members of various transgressions without cause or sat idly while others made accusations he could easily refute.
He has failed to provide timely information to the board and has withheld information from board members and the public at times. At times he shared information with individual board members that was not shared with other board members and would selectively share information with certain faculty, staff and community members. Specific examples include the lack of leadership and direction he provided in the selection of media policy, commitments made to the board regarding specific actions to be taken while that policy was being considered that he then failed to execute, falsely accusing the board and its members of an open-meetings law violation (an accusation refuted under oath by every member of the board at that time), a dishonest response to the board when asked directly in closed session whether he was an applicant for other jobs this past spring and allowing the impression to linger in the public that he had inspected his personnel file and determined that his evaluations had been removed.
As Mr. Burleson later revealed, after months of controversy, he was not aware of anyone removing any documents from his personnel file and never accused anyone of doing so. He acknowledged that the responsibility for maintaining personnel files in the school system is the duty of the superintendent, and that he had received copies of all of his evaluations but never placed them in his own file. Yet, he chose to remain silent and not provide any of this information to the public for several months, allowing accusations to be made in board meetings and elsewhere that left the lingering impression that a board member had illegally removed evaluations from his file.
The board of education sought to take and maintain the "high road" and refused to publicly criticize Mr. Burleson. Unfortunately, this has created more distrust and resentment of the board and its decisions, calling into question the integrity of the board, that of its individual members and its ability to effectively serve the needs of our students.
The board is well aware that no explanation will satisfy everyone and that some will consider this a belated attempt to justify the board's decision. Nearly all of these matters, however, were reviewed and discussed with Mr. Burleson over the past several years and most were included in his evaluations, even dating back to 2004. Mr. Burleson previously agreed to make his evaluations public.
Following this statement, it is the intent of the board to focus its time and energies on the future, on our students and on addressing the concerns raised in the SACS [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] report. We look forward to completing the process of hiring a new superintendent and we are excited to begin a new school year full of hope and promise. We urge everyone to join us, moving forward to a bright new beginning.