Scott Shine costs district six figures

That was the sentiment a letter writer to the Times Union had.

From the Times Union:

Costly dispute with Duval school

teacher could have been avoided

When Duval school teacher/blogger Christopher Guerrieri and his attorneys cash the $60,000 check they will receive from the district, they have two folks they need to graciously thank: School Board Member Scott Shine and the city’s Office of General Counsel.

The ineptitude of Shine and the city’s legal office is staggering, and someone should be held accountable for this trivial yet expensive miscalculation. If Shine had just swallowed his pride and apologized for his unnecessary comments about Guerrieri — or if he had he gotten intelligent, sensible legal direction from the Office of General Counsel — the hard-working taxpayers of this county would not be ponying up the $60,000 to settle this mess.

That $60,000, by the way, could have been spent on an additional teacher salary — or for much-needed school security personnel.

http://www.jacksonville.com/opinion/20180416/monday-letters-views-on-sen-bill-nelson-violence-in-popular-culture-trumps-big-spending-and-costly-dispute-with-teacher

I agree with the writer except 60k is not all the expenses incurred by the district. When we settled my suit the district also settled a public records lawsuit for ten thousand and paid five thousand in legal fees to the union. Then they took all the mediation costs which I believe was at least five thousand more and we are just getting started. 

Then there is the cost of hiring a Tallahassee law firm to investigate several grievances which couldn't have been cheap and the cost of the district's lawyer fees. 

Then think about all the high salaried district employees who had to work on this for over a year. It's true that money may be hard to quantify but it is without a doubt dozens of hours lost and that lost productivity has to add up as well. 

I don't have any invoices in front of me but I believe this entire episode cost the district at least 120,000 dollars and likewise believe whatever the final tally is it falls at Scott Shine's feet. I hope the media does a thorough investigation into how much money was spent because the taxpayers deserve to know.

People may not like me or my blog or think I deserve a penny but at the end of the day I did not cost the district six figures, the antics of a school board member did.

Finally I think we should all be glad we have a superintendent and a majority of the board who recognized that this needed to be settled rather than continue to fight a losing battle which is seemingly, based on his comments in the Times Union, what Mr. shine wanted to do.