The school board at its Aug. 20 meeting approved a job description for a newly created position of director of fiscal services, following a 3-2 vote.
The position moved forward toward being listed on the district’s job portal. It has a starting base salary of $189,696 and other costs include health, dental and vision insurance benefits.
The decision to approve the position comes amid concerns about transparency within the two-school district and controversy regarding the expansion of the district office in recent years.
The motion to approve the job description was put forward by board vice president Steve Chen and seconded by clerk Alex Schultz. They voted in favor of the motion along with president Misty Davies, while trustees Katherine Tseng and Theresa Bond voted against it.
The approval of the position came after the board unanimously approved a new salary schedule for certificated administrators and classified management on June 25, which included an 8% raise for all district employees, including teachers, classified staff such as clerks and custodians and administrators.
During the Aug. 20 vote, ASB president and student board member senior Alan Cai also entered a preferential vote of “opposed,” although a mistake in proceedings meant that he disclosed his vote only after the Board announced their votes, instead of before.
“I think the purpose of district level jobs is to bring more benefits to the students and to serve the community,” Cai said. “In my opinion, I wasn’t fully convinced of the necessity of the job.”
The approval of this job description is equivalent to a statement of need, with the end goal of hiring someone for the position. Once the job description is posted, the applicant will be screened, interviewed and recommended by superintendent Bill W. Sanderson, after which the board will hold a final vote to confirm someone in the position.
According to the official description, the job “requires the ability to set up and maintain a fiscal record system in a school setting; establish and maintain effective budget monitoring and controls; … and understand and prepare all Federal and State financial reports.”
At the meeting, Sanderson cited multiple situations that the district considers as rationale for adding the position, including dealing with the additional funding from the recently approved parcel tax, a bond measure and new state demands on districts. He said the purpose of the position is to keep up with these additions by expanding the business services department.
He pointed out that in the transition period following the retirement of the previous Chief Business Officer (CBO), Dolores Perley, an audit report revealed that the district had missed an opportunity to receive over $300,000 in state funding.
However, the need for another administrator remains a point of controversy.
Los Gatos High art and music teacher Thad Smith, who has worked in the district for 21 years, said he disagrees with the superintendent’s reasoning. He believes that the situation described in the audit report was a single isolated incident and does not call for the creation of a new position.
“Ultimately, I feel like this position is being created because people on the business team either don’t want to do certain work, can’t do certain work, or are overwhelmed,” Smith said. “The CBO — who’s in charge of the business office — should be able to oversee this.”
Smith, a frequent critic of the board in recent years, also believes that the district’s expansion rate is neither mandated by state regulations, nor is it keeping pace with the size of the Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School district.
The district, which enrolled 3,261 students last year, currently employs three assistant superintendents: Deepa Mukherjee, who oversees curriculum and instruction; chief business officer Ruben Fernandez, who oversees business operations; and Heath Rocha, who oversees student services. These positions start at a salary of $221,178 a year, according to the district website.
Working within these categories at the district office in Los Gatos are four directors: Dagmar Derickson, the director of human resources, Toby Mockler, the director of maintenance, transportation and facilities, Julie Grenier, director of technology and Patrick Bernhardt, director of continuous improvement and accountability. This new position would be the fifth director in the district.
By contrast, the nearby Mountain View Los Altos High School District, serving the same number of schools but enrolling a total of 4,430 students last year, employs four directors, including a director of fiscal services, and three associate superintendents.
This is also not the first time the district has added a new or rebranded position in recent years. In July 2023, the same process created the director of continued improvement and accountability position to complement the work of the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction. Also added in 2022 was the position of public information and engagement officer held by Tanya De la Cruz.
Smith’s main concern in the current situation is what he describes as the lack of transparency from the district throughout the process of creating the fiscal services position.
Although the district argued that the money allocated for this position’s salary was already accounted for in the budget, Smith believes that the lack of discussion about the unanimously approved budget amendment in June caused the vote to go under the radar and it was lost amid developments with teacher salaries and the parcel tax. Smith argues that it should have been brought up more in a more public way.
Additionally, he fears that since the district will likely go through the entire hiring process before bringing any discussion about the position back to the board, hiring whichever candidate the district chooses will be a foregone conclusion.
Asked about the new position, principal Greg Louie told The Falcon he believes that in an effort to run the district in a more efficient and coordinated way, new positions will sometimes be needed.
“It’s not always a popular thing to have another staff member on the district leadership,” Louie said. “But there’s a trust that the fiscally responsible thing will be done until proven otherwise.”
