Change of Heart: City School District of New Rochelle Decides to Reinstate Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources

Written By: Talk of the Sound News

After communicating to the public the elimination of the Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources position as a cost saving measure, it appears that the City School District had concurrently placed an add to fill the eliminated position. The add can be found on the educational job posting website http://olasjobs.org/. It reads as follows:


Job Detail for NRON0045606-0056

Job Title: Assistant to the Superintendent for HR
District Name: New Rochelle
Post Date: 5/7/2011
Start Date: 7/1/2011
End Date: 5/31/2011
Description: Responsible for the effective administration and management of the certified and classified personnel areas of the District, as well as overseeing the District’s benefits programs. -Assure compliance with State and Federal laws pertaining to education Commissioner’s Regulations, Board of Education policies and regulations and requirements of negotiated contracts with District employees; establish, maintain, and supervise the staff recruitment program for the School District; evaluate pedagogic personnel and prepare tenure recommendations for review by the Superintendent of Schools; supervise and maintain all personnel records of the District’s pedagogic employees, including certification, attendance, and in-service training; advise the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools on procedures and proposals for negotiations with the representative units of the School District; Direct the District staff benefits program. NYS Certification: School District Administrator/School district Leader.
Driving Distance:

Page two of School News- Special Budget Edition May 2011 states:

The Proposed Budget Includes the Following Cost Reductions:

• A 0% increase in salary for our FUSE members in the 2011-12 school year

• A salary freeze for the Superintendent, Assistant Superintendents, Managerial & Confidential unit members

• The elimination of the Assistant Superintendent-Human Resources position

• A savings of $247,000 in our Metro Card purchases by converting to monthly purchasing

• A reduction of $850,000 in our overall transportation budget

• A reduction of more than $485,000 in supplies and maintenance expenses

• A savings of $170,000 in sewer expenses• Various refinancing bonds creating a savings of $30,000 in interest annually

The third bullet clearly states that the Assistant Superintendent for HR position has been eliminated. The add above was posted on May 7th; ten days before the school budget vote. The School News was published around the the same time give or take a week.

It must be noted that this is the second bullet in this list that seems to have come under some doubt. Some of the Talk of  the Sound readers have previously read Adam Egelberg’s series “A Financial Analyst’s View of the New Rochelle School System.” In part five of this series Mr. Egelberg points out:

Finally, the Administration announced in March that the Superintendents would be taking a pay freeze in the upcoming year. The final budget approved by the Board left the originally planned salary increases intact.

Some of the questions for us here are: How do we reconcile these conflicting pieces of information? Did the Superintendent ever have intentions to freeze his salary? Was the Board really serious about eliminating the Assistant Superintendent for HR? Has the public been deceived? Or, is it just an innocent clerical mistake?