Pinkerton Responds to Grand Jury Report

Stephens County Board of Education Chair Dr. Elizabeth Pinkerton is also responding to the grand jury report.

She echoed the thought that the report contained no surprises.

“I guess it was mostly as was expected,” said Pinkerton.

In its report Tuesday, the grand jury said it believes a combination of leadership missteps and external circumstances resulted in a loss of management control resulting in the financial problems now faced by the Stephens County school system.

The grand jury said it feels Board of Education members relied too much on the Superintendent and were hesitant to ask questions about the finances because they did not want to micro-manage.

The result, the grand jury said, was a lack of ownership by the board and a lack of understanding of the financial position of the school system.

Pinkerton said there is a fine line between questions and micro-managing and adds that she feels having different personnel in place is the key to fixing these problems and making sure they do not happen in the future.

“I think we still have to be very careful about micro-managing,” said Pinkerton. “I feel like we did what we were supposed to do and now have found people who are more able to take care of the problems.”

She credited Dorsey for finding and working to fix the financial problems.

As for all of the recommendations made by the grand jury, Pinkerton said she feels those are reasonable and echoes Dorsey that some of them are already taking place.

However, she noted fixing all of the problems will likely take time.

“We do feel like this is going to take more than one year to resolve all of the issues,” said Pinkerton.

Pinkerton said she also appreciates the grand jury looking into and adds that she felt the grand jury took its time to try to figure it all out and did its job well.