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Questions Churches Should Be Asking Here are some additional questions that come out Tony Morgan's talk: As a leader when was the last time you heard from God? What does a fully devoted Christ follower look like at your Church? What...

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Killing Cockroaches and Church Leadership This week I had the opportunity to attend Tony Morgan's Killing Cockroaches tour and hear him speak on vision and leadership.  There were so many great things that I took away from this experience and...

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2010 Budget Vote and Cass Sinkholes This week I voted against the 2010 budget and against some additional funding for the New Cass High School. In the case of the budget it was because the Bartow County school system has received more that...

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County At Risk With No Buyout In Supt. Harper's Contract Last night I voted against extending Dr. Harper's Contract because the buyout provision that was negotiated last year was removed.  This potentially puts the county at risk for his full 3 year salary...

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Five Tests of Team Participation (re-posted from Liberty University) There are many quips and statements about how a team is as strong as its weakest member.  So, what types of things do you look at when choosing team members?  It...

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Questions Churches Should Be Asking

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Bartow County, Christianity, Church, Leadership | Posted on 02-07-2009

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Here are some additional questions that come out Tony Morgan’s talk:

  1. As a leader when was the last time you heard from God?
  2. What does a fully devoted Christ follower look like at your Church?
  3. What do the people NEED to KNOW?
  4. What do the people NEED to DO?
  5. Once saved are your NEXT STEPS clearly defined?
  6. Are we pulling people away from GOD and to the religion of the local church?
  7. Are we taxing our volunteers to the point that their relationship with GOD suffers?

Staff and Volunteers should be asking:

  1. Am I needed?
  2. Will I have input?
  3. Will they keep me in the loop?
  4. Do they care about me or are they using me?
  5. WILL THEY LET ME LEAD?
  6. Will I get to do something significant?

Killing Cockroaches and Church Leadership

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Bartow County, Christianity, Church, Leadership | Posted on 01-07-2009

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This week I had the opportunity to attend Tony Morgan’s Killing Cockroaches tour and hear him speak on vision and leadership.  There were so many great things that I took away from this experience and I wanted to share a few of them with you.  I have to say that I feel Tony is a kindred spirit of sorts because I learned that prior to his time in ministry he was a city manager.  That is very difficult work and an amazing place to sharpen your organizational and leadership skills. 

At one point in my own life I was running a municipal organization and took about half of the master’s classes needed for an MPA (Master’s in Public Administration).  I was convinced that one day I would be a city manager myself.  I ultimately took a different path professionally but I have never lost my passion for people and organizations.

Here are some of the key points that really stood out to me at Tony’s event:

  • Do not settle for less than God’s plan for your life
  • Lack of vision = Division
  • There is a difference between Delegation & True Empowerment
  • Connecting people to areas of church service is REAL worship
  • Do not embrace fear and pride but instead seek humility
  • Are people really “hearing” the message and experiencing life change?
  • Christ without context is confusing to non-believers
  • Churches do to much and allow “complexity creep” to enter into programming

Tony has a great heart for God and a real ability to isolate and break down some of the key issues facing church leaders today.  His non-traditional path to ministry has been a real asset to not only the churches he has served in but the thousands has has touched through his innovative use of social networking.  If you are a church planter just starting out, seasoned pastor retooling your church or anyone in between this would  be a great experience for you and your staff!

You can follow Tony on twitter at www.twitter.com/tonymorganlive

KIllingCR book

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-27

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Twitter | Posted on 27-06-2009

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2010 Budget Vote and Cass Sinkholes

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Bartow County, Education, Leadership, Politics, Republican | Posted on 24-06-2009

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This week I voted against the 2010 budget and against some additional funding for the New Cass High School. In the case of the budget it was because the Bartow County school system has received more that 3.9 million dollars in stimulus money that I just simply do not agree with. I asked Dr. Harper to separate this money into a different line item so that the budget and these federal funds could be voted on separately. This did not happen so on principle I voted against the entire budget.  The amount of money that has been spent by the Obama administration has leveraged the future of this country and put our financial and military security at risk.  I am one person and cannot do much to stem this tide of Socialism that is permeating our country right now. What I can do is stand up using the power of my office to vote my conscience and say “enough is enough!”

Please see The Daily Tribune article for more on the budget

Please see The Daily Tribune article for more on Cass High School

As far as the New Cass High school is concerned my views on this are well documented.  We handled this property completely differently than any piece of property that we ever looked at for Cass High school.  I believe these sinkhole problems are connected to that ”rush to buy” and the taxpayers continue to foot the bill on the most expensive piece of property that we had to choose from in our search for Cass High’s location.  I lay these problems at the feet of those people who knowingly made a poor decision based on everything other than the facts that we were presented with.  Here are some thoughts I had back in 2007 when this process was ongoing:

 http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/monday-mind-dump/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/does-this-seem-like-a-good-deal-to-you/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/whats-wrong-with-this-picture/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/cass-parents-students-voters-lose-with-55-million-dollar-splost-mistake/

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-20

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Twitter | Posted on 20-06-2009

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County At Risk With No Buyout In Supt. Harper’s Contract

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Bartow County, Education, Politics | Posted on 16-06-2009

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Last night I voted against extending Dr. Harper’s Contract because the buyout provision that was negotiated last year was removed.  This potentially puts the county at risk for his full 3 year salary and I was not prepared to vote for that at this time. I needed more time to evaluate the system and our progress before I felt comfortable guaranteeing that kind of money to the Superintendent.  Here is the story from The Daily Tribune.

Bartow board extends Harper’s contract

Bartow County Schools Superintendent John Harper can potentially remain in his position until the middle of 2012 under a new contract approved by school board members at their meeting Monday night.

Board Chairman Lamar Grizzle said the contract negotiation with Harper came as a part of the board’s annual evaluation of its superintendent. The new three-year contract does not raise Harper’s base salary of $145,000, but does come with two benefits — his annuity was upped from 5 percent to 10 percent and his annual vacation days increased from 10 to 15 days; Harper’s predecessor, Abbe Boring, also earned 15 days vacation each year on her contract.

“We should be evaluating the superintendent every year by our policy, and we did the evaluation and looked at the salary at that time,” Grizzle said. “Dr. Harper understands that the economy is bad now and didn’t request a raise. [The pay] is quite low compared to other superintendents of [systems of] the same size, as far as his base salary goes.

“I think it’s a good contract for the school system, the taxpayers and Dr. Harper.”

Harper took the reins of the system as interim superintendent at the start of last year following Boring’s departure to take the superintendent/CEO position of the Georgetown Independent School District in Georgetown, Texas. In April of that year, Harper was officially hired for the top job after the board held a superintendent search. At the time, he signed a three-year contract retroactive to the start of the calendar year and running until December 2010.

The new contract will begin July 1 and run until June 30, 2012.

“I was very pleased that the board had the confidence to issue a three-year contract to me,” Harper said. “I think we’ve got a good team here at the board office, a lot of people that are very bright and working very hard, so it’s very exciting for me to serve them over the next three years. I’m looking forward to a good tenure here and us continuing to make the academic improvement that I know we’re capable of making.

“[The board and I] have worked together now for quite some time, and I’m very pleased with the work with them, they’re very straightforward and upfront with me with the concerns and issues they have. We’ve formed a good team.”

The new contract was approved by a 4-1 vote, with Matt Shultz voting against it. Shultz gave his reasons for the dissenting vote to The Daily Tribune News after Monday’s meeting.

One reason Shultz gave was the removal of a six-month buyout clause, which would have required the board to pay Harper six months of his salary should his contract be terminated.

“In his new contract, there is no provision for a buyout. I just wasn’t comfortable with the fact that the school system would be on the hook for the full three years of his salary or benefits should for some reason we need to part ways,” Shultz said, adding that he had pushed for increasing the buyout length to one year.

Another reason for Shultz’s vote against the contract was language in it that said the contract would be extended by one year if Harper was not notified in writing of the board’s intention to either extend the contract or let it expire. “In my view, the fact there’s that automatic renewal period in the third year, the board is ceding its authority as it relates to employing the superintendent, and I just wasn’t real happy about that provision, either,” he said.

With the school system expected to deal with state funding cuts in the 2009-2010 school year, Harper said that if teachers are furloughed due to actions taken by the state Legislature, he expected his pay to take the same hit. He said Board Attorney Boyd Pettit told him he expects the Legislature to consider possible action in August.

“Times are tough, and we’re still trying to guess what the state’s going to do with the number of teacher work days, so that’s subject to change,” Harper added.

The board will meet again Monday, June 22, at 6 p.m. to approve the district’s fiscal year 2010 budget. Board members are slated to consider adopting a budget of $119,234,773 — down from the $122,909,471 FY2009 budget.

Fueling the proposed 2010 budget is an estimated $115,966,276 in revenues, leaving more than a $3.2 million difference between revenues and expenses. Plans call for the difference to be covered by the district’s reserve fund, which currently has a balance of $17,038,301.

Board members during Monday’s meeting also approved 11 bid and contract packages, many of them renewals of current agreements.

Seven approved items were bids for various foods and products for the district’s School Nutrition Service department — all of them extensions of previous bids. The cost of each bid will vary depending on student enrollment.

Another extended bid was for transportation parts and supplies through several companies at a cost of about $186,000. Board members also approved a $150,000 contract with Waste Industries for trash removal services.

Two approved contract items have a more direct impact to students. One is for third-party special education-related services — speech/language pathologists, occupational therapists and sign language interpreters — to accommodate the district’s vacancies in those areas. The other approved item was renewal of a contract with The Morgan Consulting Group Inc. for consultative support to 11 schools that participate in Effective Behavior and Instructional Supports activities.

Five Tests of Team Participation

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Christianity, Leadership | Posted on 15-06-2009

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(re-posted from Liberty University)

There are many quips and statements about how a team is as strong as its weakest member.  So, what types of things do you look at when choosing team members?  It is often true that the effectiveness of a leader is directly related to the people that surround him/her (because often those people were directly invited on the team by the leader).
An analysis of Luke 5 uncovers five “tests” a leader and potential team member must pass to be effective participants:

  • Bias toward Action – Teamwork requires energy (emotional, physical, relational) – vs 3
  • Ability to Follow Directions – Teamwork requires submission to process – vs 4
  • Designating the Credit – Teamwork is not a “solo” job – vs 8 (”credit hogs feed on pride”)
  • Values/Mission/Vision – Teamwork requires a focus on others – vs 10
  • Heart of Commitment - Teamwork requires sacrifice – vs 11

 

 

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-06-13

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Twitter | Posted on 13-06-2009

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Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Christianity, Church, Leadership | Posted on 08-06-2009

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This book fills in the gaps that may have been left open in Lencioni’s original book The Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  The original book sought to work through common team issues through a fictional set of characters and their progression through the various steps laid out in Lencioni’s book.  This new field guide moves past the fictional story and gives leaders practical steps on how to move through of the five dysfunctions. This concrete tool serves as a key resource in team development and provides the strategies needed along the way.  For those ready to move from theoretical to real team building this book offers a new pathway for executives to travel with the members of their teams.

The key to achieving the goal of becoming a team free of the five dysfunctions is regular attention to the team “scoreboard” to ensure that all agreed goals and operating norms are being met. Only through constant reevaluation of the entire process can true teambuilding occur.  Through breaking down the interpersonal barriers that have always existed in the boardroom teams can achieve more than they ever thought possible.

          This book is must reading for those people who have been placed in new positions of leadership.  If there is a management version of a coffee table book then Lencioni hits the mark with the five dysfunctions field guide.  This book gets to the heart of the issues that impact the success of teams and provides concrete direction on how to transition to true team development.  Lencioni cautions that this process will wrought with internal reflection and periods of discomfort on the part of the team members but eases those concerns by praising the possible achievement team status could provide. Lencioni has done the near impossible by catching lighting in a bottle twice with essentially the same book but presenting the information in two completely different formats.  This book fills in the gaps and answers many of the questions that left readers asking for more in the original book.  Leaders now have a resource that they can sit down and map out the process of leading the collection of skilled individuals into the teams that will drive their success moving forward.

 

 

5-dysfunctions

Reserves to help cover Bartow County School System’s budget shortfall

Posted by mattshultz | Posted in Bartow County, Education, Politics | Posted on 07-06-2009

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Jon Gargis (re-posted from The Daily-Tribune)
Staff Writer
Sunday, Jun 07, 2009

The elimination of nearly 80 positions has been one measure Bartow County Schools officials have taken to reduce the district’s expenses amid cuts to state funding. But the job cuts alone are not enough to absorb the shortfall, and officials may look at other cost-saving measures before next year’s budget is approved later this month.

Bartow County School Board members and Superintendent John Harper met in a called meeting Thursday night to discuss highlights of the 2008-2009 school year and the fiscal year 2010 budget, which covers the 2009-2010 school year.

Board members are slated to consider adopting the budget at a June 22 called meeting. The tentative budget they examined at Thursday’s meeting totals $119,234,773 — down from the $122,909,471 FY2009 budget.

Fueling the proposed 2010 budget is an estimated $115,966,276 in revenues, leaving more than a $3.2 million difference between revenues and expenses. Plans call for the difference to be covered by the district’s reserve fund, which currently has a balance of $17,038,301.

Harper said using the district’s reserves outweighed other alternatives, such as cutting more positions or raising the district’s 17.90 millage rate.

“What do we do? We go up here and get some of that [reserve], [or] we lay more people off, or raise the millage rate,” Harper said. “You will not have a recommendation from me to increase that.”

Increasing the millage was an option board members also did not want to take, Harper added.

“In all my conversations with this board, that was not an option for them, and they weren’t going to get that recommendation from me, either,” he said. “Times are tough, and when you say, ‘You’re going to have to pay more taxes,’ well, that’s all we’re hearing about lately, and that’s not what we want to do to our citizens. We’ve been able to save some money and that’s what we’re going to use it for.”

The district has gotten some help from the state and federal government, as it will receive almost $4 million in economic stimulus funds. “Had we not gotten that $3.9 million or whatever it was, you guys would have been pounded for the number of people you would’ve had to let go in the system to be able to even come close to where we are,” Harper said.

On the flip side, Harper said the district has lost about $8 million through austerity cuts and the loss of equalization funds. Austerity cuts reduce the amount of money all districts receive from the state, while equalization funds go toward the less-wealthy districts.

Harper warned that more state funding cuts could be on the way.

“We’ve made substantial employment cuts in the system, and there may be some other things we can do to try to reduce that total expenditure of $119 million,” Harper said.

“We keep hearing that rumor that the state’s going to do some other things with regard to the number of instructional days, so the difference between those two numbers may shrink based on what the Legislature does this summer for us, but of course we’d like to see them do whatever they’re going to do in a hurry so we can go ahead and make the adjustments we need to make.”

Harper added that the worst could be yet to come. “We can work on this year, but 2010-11 is where the real heartache is going to come,” he said.

Board member Matt Shultz was optimistic that local tax funding could ease some of the district’s budget pain.

“I know obviously we’re in difficult times, but there are still people buying land, houses and different things,” he said. “I would be shocked if [the local tax digest] actually comes in at 0 percent [this year].

“This year may be dicey, but I really see us turning this thing around in 2011 to the point where I think our growth in digest will rebound. Maybe not 6 percent, but I think it’ll be better than we expect.”

Harper said the 2010 budget is based on no change being made to employees’ contract lengths. He said the district is waiting for the state to take the lead on the furlough issue before enacting such cuts.

Harper said the district made job cuts in elementary instruction, special education, human resources and the technology department. Staff reductions also included parent involvement coordinators, clerks, paraprofessionals and bus monitors.

“We tried to cut wherever we could find a cut to continue good instruction for our children. When the budgets get cut as much as they’ve gotten cut, you really don’t have any options,” Harper said.

Some teacher cuts came as a result of an increase in student-teacher ratios. The ratio increase could tie into one measure district officials could undertake to reduce more system expenses — relocation of pre-kindergarten classes from STARS Pre-K to elementary schools. The district has already moved some classes to the elementary schools students would attend in kindergarten.

“We have enough room in our schools to accommodate the seven classrooms that we have remaining [at STARS],” Harper said. “Will there be room at each home school? Probably not.

“The reason the Pre-K center was developed a number of years ago because there was no space in our schools — all the rooms were taken with regular instruction. Because the student-teacher ratios have been ratcheted up by two, that’s where some of those elementary positions were created. If I can provide a pre-K class in Pine Log, and those parents have those children close by them, they would prefer that as opposed to the Pre-K center.”

In addition to discussing the budget, board members approved appointment of Allatoona Elementary Principal Robb Kittle to Principal of Emerson Elementary School. Kittle succeeds Denise Welker, who will remain with the system in a teaching position.