For some New Mexico school districts, potential budget cuts related to the economic downturn have led to conservation measures and hiring freezes. But for the Española School Board, they were an excuse to meddle in the District’s administration, and for Superintendent David Cockerham, an opportunity to pat his administration on the back.
Cockerham has twice said in public meetings he fears the state legislature could cut school district budgets when it convenes in January. Superintendents in three smaller Rio Arriba County school districts said they are reviewing ways to cut back their districts’ expenses. And larger school districts in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho announced hiring freezes and reduced spending on travel, stipends and supplies.
The Española Board has not announced a job hiring freeze nor spending cuts, but has responded by freezing all contracts as of Dec. 11. Cockerham responded by issuing an e-mail that was intended to reassure District staff but instead drew ridicule from them.
“After review of our mid-term budget, we believe we will have the funds to pay for all salaries and benefits until the end of the school year,” Cockerham wrote in the first sentence of his e-mail.
Cockerham later said the lack of certainty in that sentence was unintentional.
“We do have the money. No one should be worried about finances in the District,” he said. “That’s just how I talk. I always use that word (believe), I don’t know why.”
The rest of the e-mail is unfailingly positive. Cockerham commends the Board for being fiscally conservative, and states that, as a result, “the District is in much better financial shape than most districts throughout the state.”
“(The e-mail) just filled me with confidence,” high school science teacher Damon McGinn said, laughing. “Really, I have no idea where it came from or what the point of it was.”
Other teachers made similar comments, and high school math teacher Brian Every likened the e-mail to Cockerham’s resignation letter, in which the superintendent took credit for accomplishments that were not altogether his own and which contained factual errors.
Cockerham’s e-mail was answered by high school social worker Dennis Galvan, who said the District does have money, it should just stop paying overtime to central office employees and lavishing raises on “favorite superintendent staff at central office without credentials, licenses, certificates.”
Galvan also took the opportunity to chide Cockerham for “incorrectly purposely” preparing social workers’ contracts, short-changing them on the state-mandated 2-percent raise for this school year and failing to fill vacancies for additional social workers. In his e-mail, which he forwarded to state Education Secretary Veronica Garcia, he cites three laws, one of which has since been repealed and two more that are not clearly related to his message, as well as policies of the now-defunct state Board of Education.
“It’s bogus, simple as that,” Cockerham said of Galvan’s e-mail.
As for the Board’s decision to freeze all contracts, it was as much a political decision as it was financial one.
Board member Leonard Valerio, who put the freeze on the Board’s Dec. 11 agenda, said it was partly intended to keep Cockerham from issuing multi-year contracts to specific employees before retiring in June — or earlier. Valerio said he has heard rumors that Cockerham would leave the District to work for a private consulting company before his contract expires. Cockerham denied the rumors.
“I don’t want the next superintendent’s hands to be tied with contracts past this year,” Valerio said.
The move leaves the District unable to issue contracts for next school year until the Board lifts the freeze, but the District can still make new hires, Board President Joe Romero said.
Cockerham gave Assistant Superintendent Dorothy Sanchez a two-year contract, effective July 1, earlier this year.
In 2005, former superintendent Vernon Jaramillo drew criticism when he gave two-year contracts to select administrators and principals just months before his contract expired.
Valerio argued the freeze is a fiscally conservative measure.
“It means (Cockerham) can’t put anything through without coming through the Board,” Valerio said. “He’s been approving contracts ahead of time and then expecting us to rubber-stamp them.”
Cockerham said the freeze could affect operations in the Maintenance and Special Education departments, which rely heavily on contract services. Projects Manager Paul Salas said the Maintenance Department already has in place most of the contracts it needs for this year.
But Valerio said Salas objected privately, saying, “You guys want to control everything $5,000 and over? $5,000 and over go through this office like water out of a faucet.”