Schools chief in McDonald resigns

The board of education in the financially strapped district plans to make more cuts today.

BY MARY SMITH

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

McDONALD — McDonald schools Superintendent Michael Wasser announced his resignation Sunday after serving seven years as schools chief.

School board president Jeff Hughes said the board accepted Wasser’s resignation, which takes effect July 31.

“My reaction is disappointment,” Hughes said, adding, “He feels he can help the district better at this time by removing himself.”

Hughes said he encouraged Wasser to stay in his post despite the school district’s budgetary problems that led to its state-designated status of fiscal emergency.

“I feel that if you are part of the problem, you should be part of the solution,” Hughes said.

“But I respect his decision to move on,” the board president added.

The board also met in executive session Sunday to continue planning an additional $400,000 in cuts the state Financial Planning and Supervision Commission seeks. The board is scheduled to meet again this morning to take action on those cuts in time for the commission’s meeting this afternoon.

Wasser, who earns $80,755 annually, gave back a 2.5 percent wage increase of $2,000 he had already been approved to receive last August because of the deficit. He said he had expected that employee negotiations would start early, but that didn’t happen.

The superintendent was also to voluntarily give back a supplemental position of open enrollment coordinator, which paid $7,045 annually as part of the district’s cost-reduction plan.

Wasser said he would absorb the work as part of duties of superintendent.

The school board has already presented a plan to the commission listing $518,497 in cuts, but the commission said it wanted more cuts before it could take the plan to the state superintendent to approve it.

The plan included the $518,497 in cuts and a proposal to place a five-year, 6-mill emergency operating levy on the ballot to raise $1.6 million over five years.

Even with those two factors, the district would still face an anticipated deficit of $629,879 in 2014.

The district was declared in state fiscal emergency in October 2009 and has received a $2 million loan from the state to cover a $2 million deficit projected for this fiscal year.