CCSD chief to step down
Skorkowsky to leave in June, plans to speak freely on financial crisis
Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky, at the center of a swirling controversy over the Clark County School District’s growing budget deficit, announced Thursday that he will step down when his contract concludes at the end of June 2018.
“I am not resigning. I am leaving on my terms,” he said at news conference at Bracken STEAM Academy, a Las Vegas elementary school.
“This will allow me to confront problems — and problem-makers — head on, without holding back.”
Skorkowsky, whose salary
is $280,788 this year, stressed that his retirement was his decision, and did not link it to the furor surrounding the district’s budget shortfall, currently estimated at between $50 million and
$60 million.
But Skorkowsky, 53, said the move will make it easier for him to respond to critics and address what he sees as the underlying reason for the financial crisis: an unfair state funding scheme for education.
RETIREMENT
“The decision today allows me greater freedom to deal with those attacks and address the real issues,” Skorkowsky said. “I have nothing to lose, and you can be guaranteed that I will speak my mind.”
By June, Skorkowsky will have spent five years as the superintendent and 30 years total in the Clark County School District. That will make him eligible for the maximum pension benefit through the Nevada Public Employees Retirement System, which means he would make 75 percent of the average of his 36 highest-paid consecutive months.
His announcement came just days after he was harshly criticized by union officials over the district’s deficit, which was first announced on July 5.
At that time, district officials said the deficit was estimated at $34.5 million. The number has grown since then to reach the current estimate of $50 million to $60 million. The district has said the funding gap will continue to grow until it is fully addressed, and could ultimately require between $70 million and $80 million in cuts.
The teacher’s union has called for a forensic audit of the district and the administrator’s union sent a scathing four-page letter earlier this week.
Both blamed Skorkowsky and his team for the crisis.
“The superintendent’s financial decision-making reflects a repeated disregard for the guiding principles of effective budget management and has resulted in a budget deficit approaching $80 million and growing,” wrote Stephen Augspurger, executive director of the administrator’s union, which represents the district’s principals. “This decision-making will now deprive many CCSD students of a quality education and many employees of their livelihood.”
The teacher’s union also blamed
Skorkowsky for turmoil in the budgeting process, pointing out the district has “churned through” three chief financial officers in less than a year.
‘It’s unacceptable’
“It’s unacceptable for CCSD to scare the public and educators with such a cavalier approach to budgeting,” union officials said.
Skorkowsky fired back at the unions in an email on Wednesday, accusing them of capitalizing on the district’s budget issues for political gain.
At the same time, he took responsibility for the deficit and issued an apology to staff, trustees, politicians and the media.
“I take responsibility for not seeing the confluence of events and the severity of this crisis until July 2017. I apologize to you and to our community for that,” he wrote. “However, even if we had known about this series of events sooner, we still would have had to reduce costs in the 201718 budget.”
Combative and apologetic
Skorkowsky maintained that alternatively combative and apologetic tone at Thursday’s news conference, reiterating that his staff should have spotted the budget crisis months earlier but also saying he would not let critics pin the shortfall on him.
“Not because I’m unwilling to take the responsibility for what happened — I certainly am and I will continue to do so,” he said. “But resting the fault of this budget shortfall entirely on me misses the real culprit: a chronic underfunding of the system.”
Skorkowsky was referring to Nevada’s formula for funding education, which he described as an outdated relic from 1967.
Skorkowsky also called on the unions to bring forward solutions. But then he fired back at the teachers union, saying that if it wants a forensic audit of the district, it also should be willing to conduct one of its embattled Teachers Health Trust, which manages health care for the district’s teachers.
“They need to come forward and let us see what they are truly going through before we even think about giving them more money,” he said.
Two trustees not invited
Two trustees who’ve been vocal critics of Skorkowsky’s handling of finances — Chris Garvey and Kevin Child — said they were not invited to the news conference or aware of his decision to retire.
Both Garvey and Child have raised concerns about the budgeting process. Child said he has filed a public records request for emails between the district’s accounting director and Skorkowsky, which could show if the district knew about the shortfall even earlier than July.
“Yes, I understand that the state didn’t give us a certain amount of money,” Child said. “But why would you count money you don’t have?”