School district’s financial head resigns

Administrator of Business Services for the Maricopa Unified School District Mark Busch is resigning from his post with the Maricopa Unified School District. Busch came to the district in July 2006. He provided inmaricopa.com the following information on his decision:

I have heard that rumors abound as to why I am resigning and moving to a different school district. Though I would have gone quietly, I now feel as though I need to give you the real reasons vs. those being made up by individuals who have no idea what they are speaking about.

I love my staff, and I believe that Dr. Flores is taking the district in the right direction. I am, however, leaving for two reasons. First, I have accepted a promotion to an Assistant Superintendent level. I will be a part of a team dedicated to doing what is right for children.

You only need to read what I hear is being fabricated about my departure to understand the second reason. There are individuals, both outside and within MUSD, who are more focused on destroying the current administration than they are on doing what is right for children. If they put as much effort into the latter as they do the former, our district would have advanced even further in the past year. With everything else that has happened with my family in the past year, this made it no longer enjoyable to work the 60+ hour weeks.

I could go into great detail on the accomplishments of this past year. Highlights include:

· The Superintendent and I (but primarily Dr. Flores) successfully negotiated the deletion of transportation impact fees imposed by the City. That alone saved the District $605,000 last year and millions more as we build new schools. The City also won because the District will not impose fees for City uses of our facilities.

· My expertise and rapport with the School Facilities Board helped them realize how far behind we really were with school construction. They expedited the three schools currently scheduled to open next school year and are poised to build more once land is found.

· My negotiations with SFB also culminated in their Board allowing us to eliminate the original elementary campus and build out the high school, without MUSD having to build 38,000 square feet of like space with bond funds – saving the District $5,000,000.

· For the first time ever, all of my Finance and Human Resources staff spent the first morning of school, at the schools, just helping out wherever they were needed. They all continue to do an outstanding job even though we are understaffed in comparison with other districts of like size.

· For the first time, we had salary discussions with administration, certified and classified staff all in the same room.

· We hired more than 250 staff in the past year and have added a consistency to all hiring decisions and placement, based on Board policies in-place.

There were many more accomplishments at the school level led by Dr. Flores, his department heads, the principals and their staffs.

I hope that our new public relations staff member will be able to get that word out on a consistent and timely basis so the community can see what great things are really going on in our schools. They will no longer have to rely on distorted information by those bent on destruction rather than improvement.

Editor’s note: Contacted by phone, School Board President Jim Chaston responded to Busch’s resignation. “It’s going to be a tremendous loss to the district. Mark Busch has built and developed valuable relationships with the School Facilities Board, with the state and many influential organizations that helped get schools built faster than we expected.”

Photo by Joyce Hollis