Another reason to eliminate ESD's

Did you catch wind of the tawdry goings-on at Willamette ESD? Just another example of why ESD's have to go: the people who run them think they are their own private feifdoms.

The short story: the migrant education director, Nicolasa Mohs, was a disaster of an employee. Nepotism, padded expense reports, misuse of ESD resources - you name it. The ESD had the good sense to fire her.

So she filed an "intent to sue" letter, which claimed she was the victim of favoritism paid to her co-worker, who she claimed was having a lesbian affair with the ESD superintendent. The super decided she better settle, and so gave the woman a consulting contract for $8,000+ a month, and paid her attorney fees!

[Update 11-22: The Statesman Journal has a follow-up article discussing what possible official action might be taken against the ESD Superintendent. For some reason, while explaining what happened, the S/J left out the very significant detail that the "intent to sue" letter charged that the Sup't was having a lesbian affair with the co-worker. This is relevant because it goes directly to the question of why the sup't would settle so quickly a discrimination case that seems so weak. Why would the S/J leave that out?]

Now it's all blowing up in their faces, as it well should. One board member resigned, because the super never consulted the board on the settlement.

This kind of stuff is all too common at ESD's. The problem is that ESD's fly under the radar screen of public awareness. Most people have very little idea what they do, who runs them, and how they operate, so the administrators usually do what they want and are never held accountable.

The "leaders" of ESD's make a good deal of money. They are compensated like school district superintendents, yet the job is nowhere near as difficult, time consuming or stressful. ESD's receive direct funds from the state in the neighborhood of $100 million per year - yet there is very little public scrutiny or even awareness of what they do with the funds.

What DO they do? Well, lots of things. ESD's provide all sorts of services to school districts. Data management, payroll, nursing, itinerant special education, ESL, and a host of other things. For the money the ESD's get from the state, they are supposed to provide a basket of services to districts that are negotiated. These are called "resolution services."

For services not on the resolution services list, ESD's charge fees to districts. They also get grants for various projects they run. A publicly elected board is supposed to oversee them.

Here's the deal: why do we provide direct funding to ESD's in the first place? It makes no sense to give the money to the ESD's, and then have them negotiate with all the school districts in their territory to decide what services to provide.

Why not just send that money to the school districts, and if they need to purchase those services, they can negotiate with the ESD's (or another provider) for them? That would force the ESD's compete for the business. If they are the best provider, great. If not, they shouldn't be guaranteed the contracts.

There is no reason why ESD superintendents should make $130,000 a year with annuity, car allowance, expense accounts, etc. These positions are really pretty much functionary. Mid-level bureaucrats. Yet they run around as if they are big shot education leaders - it would be funny if it was not the taxpayer dime. You can bet your bottom dollar if the ESD's had to compete, provide services at a competitive price, they wouldn't be blowing their budgets on overpaid bureaucrats, which is precisely what most ESD superintendents are.

I've pitched this idea in the legislature, and never got much traction. Every session there are bills to "consolidate" ESD's, supposedly to get better efficiency. That misses the point - ESD's should be ended as we know them.

Make them compete. If they provide valuable services, then school districts will pay for them. If not, they don't deserve the money.