Board will re-evaluate contract offer to superintendent

MUSD superintendent Steve Kennedy (left) and board member Ron Ulibarri listen as Kelley Connell addresses the board. Menifee 24/7 photo: Doug Spoon

The Menifee Union School District Governing Board voted to re-evaluate its contract offer to superintendent Steve Kennedy after hearing harsh criticism from district teachers at a board meeting this week.

Two of the board members were absent, meaning the board barely had a quorum with acting chairman Ron Ulibarri, Reg Bennett and Randall Freeman at the dais. They listened to seven public speakers supported by a large cheering crowd that criticized the proposed three-year contract extension for Kennedy, who has been district superintendent since September 2012.

The school board's contract offer included a base salary of $229,918 for the next year; $236,816 for the year 2018-19; and $243,920 for 2019-20. By the final year of that three-year contract, Kennedy would have received a raise of more than 60 percent over his first full contract in 2013 -- $153,723.

Teachers speaking at the meeting made it clear that didn't sit well with them, considering the Menifee Teachers Association's last two contract negotiations with the district have been bitter ones, with the teachers receiving a raise of 5 percent on a retroactive contract extending from January 2015 to June 2016 and a 3 percent raise for the following year.

Perhaps even more frustrating to those who expressed concern at Tuesday's board meeting was a clause in Kennedy's contract that would've awarded lifetime health benefits for him and any future spouse and dependents.

"After what has happened recently, we agreed we need to rebuild trust within the district," said Shelly Sullivan, vice present of the MTA, during the meeting. "Now you want to approve a raise for Dr. Kennedy with health benefits for life. The timing of this is highly suspect. We implore you to abstain from voting on this today or reject the proposal."

Susan Rood, another teacher in the district, presented the results of research that compared Kennedy's proposed salary to other superintendents in the district. Using a formula that divided each superintendent's salary by the number of students in the district, Rood mentioned three local districts (Moreno Valley, Temecula and Corona-Norco) where the superintendent's salary per student averaged a little under $8. Under the terms of Kennedy's proposed salary, she said his salary would equate to $19.69 per student.

"How is approving this a sound, moral and ethical decision?" Kelley Connell asked board members. "This contradicts the district's stance that it is underfunded."

After the final of the seven speakers during the public comments portion at the start of the meeting, Ulibarri asked for an approval of the agenda. Immediately, Bennett made a motion to pull the Kennedy contract proposal from the agenda. Freeman quickly seconded the motion and it passed, 3-0.

"There are a lot of big decisions we have to make, and sometimes we need to rethink things," Ulibarri told the crowd at the end of the meeting. "Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for what you do."

A new contract for Kennedy cannot be officially discussed until the next school board meeting, scheduled for July 11. It is expected that board president Bob O'Donnell and member Jerry Bowman will be back from vacation then.

In an interview after the meeting adjourned, Ulibarri would not say what impact the public speakers' comments or prior criticism on social media played in the board's quick decision to postpone action on the contract. He did, however, say the board had received several letters from concerned teachers and others.

"We didn't really understand the monetary situation in all this," Ulibarri said. "We all agreed on this originally. Dr. Kennedy has been evaluated in 38 different criteria and has scored above 8 on a 0-9 scale on virtually everything. This is an emotional decision. He has an excellent skill set for this job and we really want to keep him."

Another factor in the board's previous decision to offer the substantial raise and lifetime benefits could be board members' fears that Kennedy will go elsewhere. Ulibarri said two Southern California school districts have recently made verbal inquiries about hiring him away. He also said that by the board's own research, only about 20 percent of district superintendents in Riverside County receive lifetime benefits.

"We do not want to lose him," Ulibarri said. "I understand the feelings of the teachers, and they certainly have a right to express themselves. We decided we need to have all five of us here so we can discuss this further."

After the vote to pull the agenda item, Freeman told those in the audience that "this was not sought by Dr. Kennedy. It was offered by the board. Now we're going to revisit it."

One of the actions approved in the meeting was the district's 2017-18 budget. Projected revenue is $95.8 million and expenditures are listed at $97.8 million for a budget deficit of almost $2 million.