From the BCCT.
Business administrator named
BY MANASEE WAGH
The Morrisville School Board voted to make Paul DeAngelo the district’s new business administrator Wednesday.
DeAngelo will assume the role on Nov. 17 at an annual salary of $102,000. He replaces Reba Dunford, who served in the position for about three and a half years. She left on Oct. 18 to become business administrator at North Montgomery County Vocational Technical High School. An interim business administrator is now filling the job.
DeAngelo has been the business administrator at the approximately 10,000-student Coatesville Area School District for four years. In comparison, Morrisville’s public schools teach about 1,040 students.
“The district is very lucky to have Mr. Paul DeAngelo as our new business administrator. His experience with the Coatesville School District will serve him well in his new capacity. He also has experience in the business world prior to Coatesville. He’ll be able to bring both perspectives to the job,” said Superintendent Elizabeth Yonson.
Board member Robin Reithmeyer was also pleased with the pick.
“I think he’s a good guy. He brings good ideas to the table,” she said.
The board interviewed eight candidates for the job.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
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2 comments:
Sounds like a decent pick, like he's not just Hellmann's "I know a guy" guy. Hope he stands up to any and all fiscal monkey business.
Just wanted to jot down a couple other things I gathered from the meeting:
1. A Mr. Rago was the first speaker. He was on the printed agenda but not in the advertizing for this special meeting. He's an architect/engineer, and he provided some info on the role of an "owners representative" overseeing/assisting with construction projects. He's serving in this role on the new K-8 school currently under construction in Bristol Boro. He was asked by Bill Hellmann to provide a proposal to work in a similar capacity on Morrisville's renovation effort, which is already in motion and, in my opinion, being handled poorly and haphazardly. I'll give you an example:
One of the things Mr. Rago mentioned as something an owners rep might assist with was "not rushing to judgment" about whether to repair or replace something. He gave the example of replacing water piping without say, flush testing it first to see if it was still OK. He said he has black pipe in his 110-year old house that's still good.
This is ironic because at the regular board meeting just 1 week before (Oct. 22), the board voted to spend $54,000 for piping replacement at the Middle-High School, with another $54,000 in "work associated with piping replacement". Someone at the meeting, possibly Mr. Hellmann, said it was 50-year old pipe, and that it was going to be replaced without even testing it, just assuming that it was shot. I believe it was Mr. Lastichen who said it was mostly black pipe, with copper near fixtures.
Now if you thought the new school was a waste of money, why would you spend $108,000 on replacing piping that may not even be bad, without even testing it?
A reputable, responsible architect/engineer, even an owner's rep. if desired, should have been brought in up front, before the board started haphazardly spending money on cheap inadequate studies, and forging ahead with piecemeal repairs/renovations without an overall plan prepared by somebody who really knows what they're talking about, not someone who thinks they do because they installed their home hot water heater or wired-up a ceiling fan in their bedroom.
2. The electrical bids, which were tabled at the Oct. 22 meeting and supposed to have been voted on at the Oct. 29 meeting, were tabled again. Mr. Fitzpatrick explained something about the bid specs having been prepared by outgoing Business Mgr. Reba Dunford, and first opened on Oct. 14, and the bids ranged from $220,000-$532,000, and they wanted to make sure the low bid was responsive and responsible, and the vote was tabled again because the bids have a 90 day fuse from first opening. He mentioned a Mr. Paddon (sp.?), and I don't know who he is.
3. Regarding the board's rejection of the state's PLANCON process, by which the district could be reimbursed for a portion of renovation expenditures, Mr. Fitzpatrick cited an email to Mr. Hellmann from Vitetta, an architectural/engineering firm that's the prime designer/constructor of the above-mentioned Bristol K-8 school.
As Mr. Fitzpatrick described it, the email said something like not every project is geared to PLANCON, and it may not be cost-effective to follow PLANCON on some projects.
That seemed good enough to him and Mr. Hellmann and his loyal board members, but not to me. Why not do a little more due diligence and get an estimate of how much PLANCON reimbursement we might get, and how much it might cost to get it, on this particular work? We could be rejecting hundreds of thousands of dollars for not nearly that much in effort.
Also, Robin Reithmeyer asked for a copy of this email. She obviously wasn't ever provided a copy before. Gotta love that transparency!
Oh, I guess I also learned something else. Architects don't just build new - they can renovate too. Especially if they're "your" architects. Wow!
Now if we can only find an architect who can design and build a field-based learning system.
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