Lafayette Superintendent Dr. Pat Cooper is challenging what he characterizes as a culture of out-of-control political patronage within custodial/maintenance operations for the parish’s public school system — a culture he argues is rearing its head in opposition via the school board to his hire of Thad Welch, who is tasked with overseeing and reforming operations.
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| Dr. Pat Cooper |
Board members questioned Welch’s qualifications to hold the post, which according to the school system’s job description requires a high school diploma. Welch has no diploma. Cooper told The Daily Advertiser recently that through his past experience working with Welch in McComb, Miss., he believes Welch is qualified for the post. In a letter to the editor submitted to The IND and other media outlets, Cooper takes aim at what he believes is the real root of opposition to Welch’s hire: an exploitative maintenance and custodial operation upset that it is finally being held to account.
Cooper writes:
It is inevitable when one is restructuring a school system a nerve will be hit, business as usual will be disrupted, and the good ol’ boys will be annoyed. The people in the district and the community who once benefitted from the Lafayette Parish School System through tactics of power, control and taking advantage of the materials, equipment, resources and political patronage are now officially annoyed and mad. We have hit the nerve.
Hiding behind the guise of an omitted word in a job description, for which I, as superintendent, take full responsibility, they are coming out full-force to discredit our efforts. It is important that the citizens of Lafayette know the rest of the story behind the headlines.
The man I brought in to help reform facilities, maintenance, custodial, and transportation operations has no formal degree but he has over 30 years of successful experience. He can supervise those with degrees because of the experience and type of man he is: honest, straightforward, hard working. He can stand toe to toe with those reportedly stealing from the system. He expects everyone to do an honest day’s work, regardless of with whom they are friends or to whom they are related. One of our finest state superintendents of education was Louis Michot. Mr. Michot had no college degree, yet he supervised thousands of employees, most of whom had college degrees. School board members are not required to have a high school diploma yet they supervise superintendents with doctorates. Are they not capable?
The man I brought in replaced two individuals who were responsible for the custodians and maintenance operations. One made over $120,000 and the other made over $85,000. My choice, at only $76,000, has saved the taxpayers $130,000 with better job performance.
I arrived a year ago, and I found, in my professional opinion, the most dysfunctional and dishonest custodial and maintenance operation I have ever seen in my 42 year career and in some areas an intellectually dishonest central office system. There was a social club mentality. Employees were not working full shifts, clocking in early, drinking coffee and charging to overtime pay while honest employees were reporting that others were stealing resources and using district property, equipment and vehicles for personal use. We stopped those practices, fired or offered resignation to those engaging in those activities and put in systems to eliminate those practices from continuing.
The public and the school board either want to go back to the appalling practices that were here before or demand that we — the superintendent, the guy with no degree, and the other thousands of good, decent employees of LPSS — continue the reform path we have taken.
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MAY 20 Here's a post in the Baptist Message from an alumnus of Louisiana College. The author, Larry Burgess, calls on the leadership of the private school to take care of some pressing problems. Physical plant issues are critical and unaddressed, some faculty make so little they need government health care, and there is an atmosphere that does not encourage honest discussion, he writes. It's time to get things back in order, he says.
MAY 20 This post in Gambit tells of a benefit concert scheduled to raise money for the 19 people shot during a Mother's Day second line on Frenchmen Street in NOLA. Among them was Gambit blogger Deb Cotton, who spoke frequently about violence in the city and reported on the city's second line culture. Gambit's foundation, along with other NOLA non-profits, also is selling t-shirts to raise money for the victims.
MAY 20 Blogger Robert Mann is critical of the personal interest some legislators take in their work here, sharing the comments one NOLA solon made in explaining his decision to vote against a bill that would require people to stop discriminating against female workers. His wife might lose some salary, so he was going to have to vote against the equal pay bill, Conrad Appel said. Appel and everyone who heard him should have been ashamed, but they weren't, and that's what is wrong in that building, Mann argues.
MAY 20 American Press columnist Jim Beam writes about the budget again here, urging kudos for the House and its efforts to try to fix the budget as opposed to passing on a flawed and messy rubber-stamped document as it usually does. The Senate already is poo-pooing the effort, but instead Senators should be trying to find a way to improve it as well, Beam argues. He also has some predictions in here from LABI and CABL.
MAY 20 Here's a link to the photo gallery from Tulane's graduation this past weekend. Dr. John and Allen Toussaint played together and received honorary degrees. The Dalai Lama was so entranced by their performance he got up from his seat and walked across the stage to stand next to them. He even participated in a second line with his own personal, saffron-colored umbrella. To the graduates, he urged them to think about creating a peaceful, hopeful life and society.
MAY 20 This Picayune story questions the rhetoric of NOLA officials who say the city, aside from having a "murder problem," is safe. The talking points generally are that the criminals are killing each other, but everything else is OK. The police chief there says that even Lafayette is more dangerous than NOLA. But crime experts interviewed here say that NOLA's numbers indicate one of two things: either people are so used to violence they don't report it, or somebody's "fudging the numbers."
MAY 20 The Advocate's Mark Ballard writes about some of the background maneuvering that took place during the development of budget alternatives in the Legislature. From Rep. Joel Robideaux being called a "tax and spend liberal" to robo-call influence, Ballard lets us in on some of the work that happens behind the scenes but usually doesn't make it into the Advocate's daily coverage of the session.
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