School board to evaluate Krenz

Published 5:00 pm Saturday, March 12, 2011

It’s not glamorous work, but the Austin Public School board will be taking care of policy business and evaluating David Krenz, the district’s superintendent, Monday.

The board will conduct an annual superintendent evaluation on Monday before its monthly meeting. While in previous years board members chose different methods to evaluate the superintendent, a new process was decided upon in January.

The new process involves giving out a 360 review, which is a feedback survey given to employees. It’s commonly used by human resource professionals, according to Mary Burroughs, the district’s human resource director.

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The 360 review allows district employees who work closely with Krenz to give their opinions on how well the superintendent does his job without revealing themselves. The board chair and superintendent chose who to send out 360 reviews to. These 360 reviews are meant for feedback, as the board will go through a final review process after receiving the 360 review results.

Board members will also consider budget business during Monday’s meeting. While the board usually looks at amended versions of the current budget and takes an early look at next year’s budget every March, board members also have the important task of allowing district officials to start spending part of next year’s budget on construction projects and other things as soon as the school year lets out.

“We start incurring some costs right now,” said Mark Stotts, the district’s finance and operations director.

Stotts will ask the board to allocate 90 percent of this year’s budget for next year, which will allow district officials to start making orders on anything from paper to the HVAC renovations taking place at Sumner and Neveln Elementary Schools this summer.

The board will set a final budget for next school year in June. District officials are anxiously awaiting budget decisions from the state Legislature, which is currently grappling with a $5 billion deficit. It doesn’t look like K-12 education will be significantly cut during the next two years, as proposals by Gov. Mark Dayton and GOP senators leave education largely intact, with Dayton’s plan slightly increasing education funding.