Dearest Reader,
Well. Sometimes a receipt arrives while one is still composing the very post it belongs in.
Based on a breadcrumb I received earlier today, this Author had been quietly looking into the hiring of Hemlock Public School District's school nurse, Becky Killingbeck. Wife, as regular readers will recall, of Superintendent Don Killingbeck.
Then, entirely independently, a reader sent an email exchange dated December 28, 2021.
The reader had inquired of the district regarding the newly filled nursing position. Whether it was newly created, whether an application process had taken place, and where further information might be found. The response, penned by then-Board President Matt Wesener, answered a fair portion of those questions.
He wrote that the position was posted, and that the selection process and interviews were conducted without the involvement of the superintendent.
An important piece of context, Dear Reader, and one that belongs in the ledger without delay.
But so, too, does the sentence that came immediately before it.
Wesener also wrote that the nursing position had been addressed at the prior board meeting by the superintendent himself, and subsequently approved by the Board.
Which leaves this Author with a rather narrower question.
Hemlock's own personnel policy, in effect at the time, held the superintendent "exclusively responsible for recommending all personnel decisions for Board consideration." So if Superintendent Killingbeck was indeed excluded from the selection process and interviews involving his own wife, as the Board President states, who, precisely, made the recommendation to the Board that Becky Killingbeck be hired?
There was, too, another line in that 2021 email that caught this Author's ever-watchful eye: the position, Wesener noted, was being funded by federal dollars.
That answers a question this Author had been chasing through the financial records for some time. But it opens, in its place, another breadcrumb entirely.
Which federal program, Dear Reader, was paying for the position?
Hemlock was receiving considerable federal COVID-relief funding during this very period, though "federal dollars" need not mean COVID dollars, and this Author has, as yet, found no receipt establishing precisely which program footed the bill.
But, it has been claimed in a couple of receipts, that this position was grant funded. So, if it was, what happened when the grants ran out?
Mrs. Killingbeck remains Hemlock's school nurse to this day.
So, if the position was originally funded by temporary federal dollars, is it federally funded still? If not, when did that funding lapse? And what fund carries the position today?
No accusation is required here, Dear Reader, quite the contrary. The 2021 email offers the district a point rather in its favor: the Board President himself attests that the superintendent took no part in the selection process or interviews.
This Author is simply following the remaining breadcrumbs where they lead.
Who made the employment recommendation to the Board?
Which federal program funded the position?
And where does the money come from today?
Should Hemlock possess records answering these questions, this Author's ledger has ample room to receive them.
With receipts and respect,
Lady Budgetdown
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