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There’s a nasty new wrinkle in the size-fight over the Omaha school board.
Sen. Scott Lautenbaugh, who wants to shrink the 12 member board, thinks OPS isn’t playing fair—while OPS thinks its search for a new superintendent is being mucked up at a “crucial time.”
According to Lautenbaugh OPS is using its “taxpayer-paid lobbyist” to protect the seats of several board members who might be out if the board is slimmed down.
On Wednesday the Government Committee voted 5-3 to move the bill to the full Legislature with several key changes.
Lautenbaugh wanted the 12 member board trimmed to five, paying each member $20,000 with a limit of two consecutive four year terms.
The committee dumped the salary and term limits and set the board size at seven.
The bill heads for debate as four school board incumbents have decided not to run for re-election and the superintendent search is in high gear.
According to Lautenbaugh those developments make this the perfect time to resize the board. At the same time though Lautenbaugh, who says he’s okay with the changes in the bill, tells Nebraska Watchdog that he questions if OPS should fighting back with tax dollars.
“This is solely a decision to be made by the Legislature, and I don’t think the board should be spending taxpayer dollars to protect the seats of individual board members,” says Lautenbaugh. ”This has become another illustration of why change is overdue at OPS.”
Told of Lautenbaugh’s comments school board President Freddie Gray tells Nebraska Watchdog that the five committee members who voted to move the bill forward, “none of whom represent the Omaha Public Schools,” are disrupting the superintendent search.
Gray adds she is “hopeful that the majority of the Legislature will understand what a crucial time this is.”
Reported by Joe Jordan, joe@nebraskawatchdog.org
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