There is clearly a difference in recommending someone for a position and exerting pressure for an ally to be appointed. When I had appointments as county executive, I often received recommendations from members of the County Commission. But I cannot remember a case where any member of the commission tried to pressure me.
At Jeannine Alday’s recent retirement reception on the courthouse rotunda, I revealed that former commissioner Floyd “Flop” Fuller recommended her to me. I valued Flop’s views and interviewed her. I appointed her, and she served more than 30 years with great distinction.
That’s the way it should be. But I am no longer sure that’s how it is with superintendent and school board appointments. After reading the Times Free Press interview with departing school Superintendent Jim Scales, I can believe that part of his falling out with the school board and commission was due to resisting inappropriate pressures to hire or appoint certain principals and other personnel. This clearly, under state law, is the responsibility of the superintendent and board.
If new superintendent Rick Smith yields to this kind of pressure, he will be superintendent in name only. He will be constantly appointing people with no loyalty to him. Their loyalty will be to whoever finagles their appointment.
But it goes far beyond loyalty. If those who have the responsibility to run the system do not have the power, lines of administrative authority will be broken, and there will be no one but the superintendent himself to answer for bad decisions.