In a sterling example of revisionist history and incredible display of chutzpah, Dr. Hargens said "this study caused employees to feel unvalued and underappreciated. It also caused significant stress between employees at different levels."
Really, the STUDY did that?
Since the study is back in the news, and it appears Dr. Hargens and her administration are attempting to a reset on the events of last year, let's look at some unanswered questions surrounding the salary study. Some of these are repeats from questions I asked in April of last year.
- What was the rationale behind who was chosen for the Community Advisory Team, and on whose recommendation(s) were the members chosen?
- When were the members chosen, and what information was given to them in advance of their meeting(s)?
- Why was one of the Community Advisory Team members Jim Smith, an attorney characterized by JCPS unions and others as anti-union?
- Why were the meetings not open to the public or official notice given about them?
- Why are there no notes from these meetings? NOTE: Regaring 3 and 4, JCPS indicates "this was not a meeting of a group as defined by Kentucky Open Meetings Law." It would be interesting to get the Attorney General's opinion on this, as opinion 16ORD101 mentions a very similar situation regarding the University of Kentucky Healthcare Compensation Planning Committee who tried to make a similar argument that they were not subject to the law. The AG advised that the UK group was indeed subject to the law.
- How many meetings were there of the Community Advisory Team, how long were they, and who was in attendance there, not including the named members?
- If, as an Open Records Request has indicated, there was only one CAT meeting, held on April 1, 2016, how was the CAT able to come to an informed decision if the Final Report was not issued until May 6, 2016?
- If there was only one CAT meeting, why does MAG mention a three day workshop with the CAT members in its letter explaining its position on the error?
- If, as MAG says, the error was contained in supplemental reports issued between April 2016 and January 2017, how did the error make its way into a formal recommendation by the CAT team if they only met once, on April 1st?
- When exactly was the error communicated by MAG to JCPS, and why isn't that date spelled out in the MAG letter?
- Why did the CAT move forward with its recommendations a month before an official report was issued, if the RFP called for a final report to be issued?
- Why is JCPS taking the position that draft materials from MAG that the CAT used to generate their recommendations do not have to be shared because "Pursuant to KRS 61.878(1)[(i)-(j)], “Preliminary drafts, notes, correspondence with private individuals, other than correspondence which is intended to give notice of final action of a public agency; (and) Preliminary recommendations, and preliminary memoranda in which opinions are expressed or policies formulated or recommended” are exempt from disclosure." Does JCPS realize that their 4/26/16 materials presented to the public are clearly marked "DRAFT". Is there something being hidden in those original documents that changed AFTER the CAT recommendations?
- Are the documents that were supposedly provided for free by MAG considered exempt from disclosure by JCPS?
- Tom Hudson's presentation of the CAT recommendations included slides from MAG. Where is the full presentation from MAG that this was pulled from and has it been made public?
- What is the reason there was so little transparency in data, meetings, and information surrounding this entire study and the CAT team?
- Given the cost of the study, the outcry of staff and others that the data was suspect, and the very public black eye JCPS took from the recommendations based on the study, why didn't Dr. Hargens, Tom Hudson, or Cordelia Hardin attempt to validate the data prior to January of 2017? Was any review of the methodology, assumptions, or other data within the study ever done, and if so, when and by whom?
- If MAG's work items promised under the RFP are indeed figured correctly, then how exactly did JCPS make such a catastrophic error?
- Why didn't MAG speak out at or after the 4/26/16 work session if there was an error in what was presented from a data perspective?
- MAG indicates that JCPS asked them on 4/26/16 to include local market updates when JCPS made it available to MAG. They indicate they did not receive this info until January of 2017. Why did this take 8 months?
- Will JCPS be seeking compensation from MAG or pursuing legal action if none is forthcoming? If not, why? Are the public actions of both MAG and JCPS in this matter authentic, or simply show so neither has to take any blame?
- Will Dr. Hargens and her administration be apologizing for this error to the staff and faculty impacted by it?
The more you look into this, the more something seems fishy. I call on the Board of Education to seek a full and open accounting of the actions before, during, and after the salary study to get to the bottom of this.