By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The SAD 1 board of directors voted last Wednesday night to contract with the Maine School Management Association (MSMA) to assist in the search for a new superintendent. Gehrig Johnson, who has been the superintendent for 30 years, will retire Dec. 31.
Directors held a superintendent search workshop last Monday night to discuss the process of finding Johnson’s successor, and the consensus was that MSMA would do a thorough, professional job in finding candidates.
“They’re the experts in this process,” said Jim Bubar. “All of us sitting here are rookies.”
“I think we’d be in good hands [by letting them conduct the search],” said Julie Freeman.
Recognizing that MSMA charges a service fee of $150 per hour — plus the cost of advertising — board chair Lucy Richard said the district has the necessary funds to contract with the organization.
“We’re all very sensitive to the fact that we don’t want to take money away from programming for the kids,” she said. “There is money built into the budget so that we will have funds available to cover MSMA costs and SAD 1’s interview expenses.
“The great thing with MSMA is they can do all, some or part of the process,” said Richard. “It’s set up as an a la carte. The things that we can do ourselves, I think we should, which would help save some money.”
At the workshop, directors discussed the importance of having the superintendent live in the district.
“I think that should be a must,” said Curtis Culberson. “I think if our CEO is going to be employed by this district, they should live in the district.”
Richard agreed.
“I think it shows more commitment. I think if you’re just traveling to Presque Isle during the work week it doesn’t show the commitment we’re looking for,” she said.
Johnson said that he thought it was a good idea, but not a common practice. Just four school systems in the state require their superintendent to live in the district.
“When I located here 30 years ago, the board asked me if I would live in the district and bring my family, and I said, ‘Yes,’” he said. “They included it in my first contract that I would move my family here within one year.
“It was a decision of the board at the time, and we’ve adhered to it since,” said Johnson.
The board agreed to include the residency requirement in the job description.
“I think we should say upfront that that’s what we want, said Richard. “Worst case scenario is we don’t have the right candidate and we go back to Square One.”
The base salary for the superintendent position is $117,000.
“The package gives us something to work with,” said director Terry Sandusky. “The range of what we do within that package depends on our candidates. It really comes down to the quality and credentials of the candidate and how much experience he or she has.”
Directors also agreed to establish a six-member search committee.
“I don’t see how we can go too much further with 17 members on the search committee,” said Richard of the 17-member school board. “We’ll all be a part of the process in the final stages because the school board will be involved in interviews with final candidates.
“I would suggest that we consider having members of the finance and negotiation committees serve as the search committee. The finance committee are people that are elected, and while the negotiation committee members are appointed, they are senior members of the board who have lots of experience in negotiations with employee groups.”
After minimal discussion, directors agreed to have Culberson, Bubar, Richard, Sandusky, Robert Cawley and Lori Kenneson serve on the search committee. This committee will do all the preliminary work and then recommend to the school board a slate of finalists.
Wanting to be sensitive to the thoughts of those who have worked in SAD 1 for many years and who may have apprehension about the hiring of the new superintendent, it was agreed that the search committee would give the employees an informal opportunity to have input into the process.
“Listening to the internal folks is very important to me because they are all directly or indirectly supervised by the superintendent, and hearing from them would be helpful,” said Sandusky.
The search committee will next meet Monday, Feb. 24 at 5:30 p.m. in the board conference room at Presque Isle High School. The meeting will be open to the public.
