Rep. Sheila Klinker on running in ‘22: ‘One more, and that’s probably it’
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Rep. Sheila Klinker on running in ‘22: ‘One more, and that’s probably it’
Plus, with a new WL superintendent in the wings, a board member balks at salary proposal. And as verdict in Teising trial awaits, Wabash Township residents take firefighting budget complaint to state
Some serious this and that on a Saturday morning …
‘ONE MORE’ FOR SHEILA KLINKER: This probably would be bigger news if state Rep. Sheila Klinker, a Lafayette Democrat first elected to the Indiana House in 1982, said she wasn’t going to run for re-election in 2022.
Then, again, every two years, Klinker says to check in – “just to be sure.”
On Friday, Klinker confirmed what has come to be obvious.
“I’ve been talking to folks in town and in the party, to make sure they’re OK with me running, again,” Klinker said. “I would like to run one more time. One more, and that’s probably it, I think.”
Klinker would be 83 by the time of the November 2022 election. But she remains a fixture at events in Lafayette, hitting as many as she can each day. (The old running joke, taken from The Gospel According to Sheila, still seems true: Where two or more are gathered in Lafayette, she is there.)
This would be her 21st campaign, the first coming with an upset victory over Republican incumbent Bill Long, who had been chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee at the time. She won in 2020 with 62% of the vote over Republican Jim Hass. Klinker ran unopposed in 2018.
“I feel that, fortunately, I’m healthy,” Klinker said. “I’ve given it a lot of thought. I’ve discussed it with my family. I feel I can still do the job. And I still want to do the job and I like doing it. So, yes, one more time.”
No challenger has emerged in House District 27, as of Friday. The start of the filing period for the 2022 primary is Jan. 5.
WEST SIDE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER QUESTIONS INCOMING SUPERINTENDENT SALARY, SEARCH PROCESS: The West Lafayette school board is expected to welcome a new superintendent Monday, ending a search that started with the retirement of Rocky Killion at the end of June.
Debate over how open the search was – or how open some parents say it should have been – continued to roil earlier this week, as the board detailed a proposed contract with a finalist they haven’t named … but has been publicly speculated about repeatedly in Facebook forums and the like.
A hearing Monday had parents, again, divided among those demanding the board present the finalist to allow them time to give the future superintendent a once-over and others defending the board’s process, so far.
Alan Karpick and Karen Springer, board members who helped lead the search, repeated the board’s stance: The district gave candidates the option of confidentiality in an effort to get the broadest pool of contenders they could, and they planned to abide by that. They said the board has stuck to search plans, including taking public input at the beginning of the process, laid out in July.
(I’ll post the video from that meeting below, in case you want to see how all that went.)
For more on the back-and-forth, the petitions and how the sides have lined up in the waning days of the search, here’s a primer:
But one school board member already was balking at the proposed salary of the incoming superintendent. Yue Yin, who has been at odds with the rest of the seven-member board about the transparency of the search, argued that West Side was overpaying for a candidate who had a lot learn about running a district like West Lafayette Community School Corp. She also said the board made a mistake by narrowing the finalists to one before locking in a contract, if for no other reason than to keep the district’s options open.
According to a contract posted on the West Lafayette school site, the new superintendent would start Feb. 1, with a salary of $160,000 that would escalate by 3% over the next two years. The total, first-year package – once insurance, a car allowance, moving expenses and more are factored in – would be worth $243,149.
“The candidate’s district is very different than ours,” Yin said. “We don’t need to go all the way to $160,000 to attract a finalist.”
Yin did not publicly name the finalist, either during Monday’s meeting or in a follow-up conversation. Though, the demographics she shared that night, and again in a PowerPoint presentation posted at the Friends of WL Schools Open Forum page on Facebook, mirrored those of South Montgomery School Corp.
Leaders of the West Lafayette Coalition for Anti-Racist Education, who have joined in criticism of the board, widely posted that they’d received confirmation that the finalists included Shawn Greiner, South Montgomery Community School Corp. superintendent, and Alicia Clevenger, a Lafayette School Corp. assistant superintendent. (Ila Chaubey, a WL CARE organizer, declined to say where she got those names.)
Yin previously had posted – and then deleted – that Clevenger, an assistant superintendent, had written to her to thank the board for its time during the search. Greiner did not immediately respond to messages to confirm whether he’d interviewed for the West Lafayette post.
Yin said that giving an incoming superintendent essentially the same amount the Killion was earning after 14 years in West Lafayette was a bad move. She said the finalist’s current salary is $127,000. She suggested a $145,000 salary and removing automatic raises in favor of more incentive clauses.
“Our hardworking but underpaid teachers are not promised (an automatic raise),” Yin said.
She also questioned whether the new superintendent would be ready for an enrollment with as much racial and ethnic diversity as West Lafayette has or for the advanced academic setting and expectations in the district.
Board member Brad Marley pointed out that Killion hadn’t been a superintendent when he was hired at West Lafayette, and his starting compensation reflected that.
Karpick told Yin her points were important but that the board had asked questions of the candidates during the interview process. He said the name of the finalist’s name would remain confidential until the search was over.
That comes Monday.
This was the scene, more than 45 minutes of it, at Monday’s West Lafayette school board meeting:
If you go: The West Lafayette school board is scheduled to vote on a new superintendent during a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 20, at the West Lafayette Intermediate School, 1828 N. Salisbury St. To livestream the meeting: https://www.voutube.com/watch?v=WQ1pCQSsVe
AND … STILL WAITING ON A VERDICT IN WABASH TOWNSHIP TRUSTEE TRIAL: Testimony wrapped up Wednesday in Wabash Township Trustee Jennifer Teising’s felony theft trial. As of the end of Friday, Tippecanoe Superior 5 Judge Kristen McVey had not scheduled a hearing to announce a verdict.
Meanwhile, on Friday afternoon, the state’s Department of Local Government Finance held 75-minute hearing about Wabash Township’s firefighting budget, after residents petitioned the state agency saying the $27,000 allocated by Teising 2022 wasn’t adequate to hire three paid firefighters the trustees said she was prepared to bring on.
Eric Hoppenjans, who helped organize the petition, told state officials that residents were concerned that firefighter layoffs in June had compromised the safety of the unincorporated portion of the township, just outside West Lafayette. He said residents were pressing use remaining money from a $440,000 emergency loan the township had in 2021 – specifically meant to pay for firefighters, but not all used once they were let go in June – and a $500,000 fund transfer the Wabash Township Board approved this year to bring firefighters back.
Wabash Township Board President Angel Valentin told the DLGF the board backed the residents’ request. Jim Lewis, Wabash Township deputy fire chief, told state officials that the department had documented six missed emergency runs in the second half of the year. He chalked that up to not having a paid staff at the fire station. He said the cuts had increased response times by 50% to 100%, in some cases, as volunteer firefighters picked up more of the load.
A week earlier, Teising had told residents during an online town forum that she was prepared to do what they asked, once she had a contract settled with the Wabash Township Firefighters Association. She’d pleaded with them to call off the DLGF meeting so she wouldn’t have to pay the township attorney to be there. Hoppenjans told her at the time: “No offense to you, but there's a certain lack of trust from the past year and all the things that have gone on. It would be great to have a third party, a knowledgeable third party such as DLGF, to issue their opinion in public.”
Teising did not speak at Friday’s meeting with the DLGF. It wasn’t clear from the online session whether she was on the call, though her name did not appear in the participant list.
David Marusarz, DLGF deputy general counsel, said the state agency would continue to take public comment on the firefighter budget request through Tuesday, Dec. 21. (Though, Marusarz said the agency was well aware of the legal issues surrounding the trustee, so those weren’t essential to deciding the budget issues raised Friday.) Comments may be sent to: dmarusarz@dlgf.in.gov
For more on the trial: Until the judge files a ruling, and in case you missed recent coverage, here’s a wrap up from the final day of the three-day trial, with links to the first two days’ testimony.
50 YEARS, GETTING THEM READY TO VOTE: Joe Bumbleburg, a retired Lafayette attorney, was honored this month with the Indiana Election Division’s Lifetime Achievement Award, delivered to him Friday by the Tippecanoe County Election Board. The award recognized the work Bumbleburg, a Democratic appointee to the board for more than 50 years, has done to help oversee elections in that time. Bumbleburg told about how when starting to work with the Election Board in the 1960s, the Democratic member of the board was Ted Smith, a lawyer in the Lafayette.
“He gave me some advice,” Bumbleburg said. “He said, ‘Young man, in this job on the Election Board, your job is not to make it as tough for everybody to vote. Your job is to make as easy for everyone to vote.’ I’m pleased to say, I think I lived up to Ted’s admonition. And I know serving with this board and previous boards, that’s been kind of our unwritten rule.”
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Rep. Sheila Klinker on running in ‘22: ‘One more, and that’s probably it’
Rep. Sheila Klinker is a state treasure. Like Sonya Margerum, Rep. Klinker demonstrates the ideal of a dedicated public servant. Both women served our community with pride and dignity, as opposed to Coles and Teising who serve their own egos. As always, thank you Mr. Bangert for YOUR service to our community in your continued coverage of important events.
Very Dickens. A perfect holiday name. Joe Bumbleburg.