A special meeting of the District 150 Board of Education is planned for Tuesday night. There’s only one item of public business on the agenda:

APPROVAL OF CONTRACT WITH HAZARD, YOUNG, ATTEA & ASSOCIATES
Proposed Action: That the Contract with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates covering the Superintendent search and the Controller/Treasurer search be approved. Further, that the Community Superintendent Search Committee’s proposed total budget of $45,000 be approved and that the timeline for commencing the candidate search be changed to August/September, 2009.

The district’s search committee recommended the firm to the board last month. A March 25 Journal Star article reported, “Cost to hire the firm is about $21,000, not including travel costs and office fees.” Apparently travel costs and office fees are no small expense, based on the $45,000 to be budgeted for the search committee.

Current superintendent Ken Hinton plans to retire June 30, 2010.

UPDATE: I received this additional information from School Board member Jim Stowell:

The first story didn’t anticipate them doing a search for Controller/Treasurer as well. Dr. Durflinger and Dr. Butts highly recommended a search firm who might “draw out” better applicants than what applied to our posting on several sources, including all of the “free” postings offered through the state. I had suggested the same firm recommended by the supt. search committee, if they were willing to do it for a reduced fee (and possibly seize on some economies of scale or interest from a duo who might like to work together). The Board saw a list of applicants and will discuss whether to go the search route.