Grand Haven Area Public Schools, through its finance director, has been on the fringes of a controversy centered around Kalamazoo Public Schools’ creation of a foundation. Kalamazoo Assistant Superintendent James English was terminated for collecting donations for the new school foundation, while the school district itself was paying the foundation’s expenses. In addition, English hired GHAPS Director of Finance Michael MacDonald as a contractor without Kalamazoo Public School (KPS) board approval. This controversy has led to the termination/resignation of at least four people in the Kalamazoo area and has been the subject of four recent MLive articles.
Termination/Resignations
12/12/22-Kalamazoo Superintendent Rita Raichoudhuri resigns
12/28/22-Kalamazoo Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance James English terminated
A few days later - Michael MacDonald resigns from his contract from Styrax
1/5/2023- Western Michigan University School of Medicine Associate Dean John Mosser resigned (WMed)
MLive Articles
Former Kalamazoo schools superintendent accused board of creating ‘hostile’ environment, emails show – January 6, 2023
2 resignations, 1 termination: What we know so far from Kalamazoo Public Schools turmoil - February 9, 2023
Read the email exchange about controversial finance director hire at Kalamazoo Public Schools – February 11, 2023
Kalamazoo schools needed to hire a finance director. It did not end well. – February 9, 2023
Michael MacDonald was hired as a contractor to be the Finance Director for KPS. The hiring of MacDonald as a contractor circumvented the normal procedure of obtaining board approval as a requirement for employment. According to the MLive articles, key participants involved in the MacDonald hiring provided inconsistent information regarding his start date and desire to be a district employee (versus a contractor).
Interestingly, Michael MacDonald created his own companies to provide consulting and accounting services. In August 2021 Michael MacDonald created the company Second Summit Solutions, LLC. About a year later, in October 2022, he created another company, Second Summit Consulting, LLC.
According to the MLive articles, MacDonald intended to work as the KPS finance director as a contract employee of Styrax, performing code conversion tasks. The MLive articles do not mention either of MacDonald’s Second Summit businesses. Curiously, there is an email obtained through FOIA sent from James English to Second Summit Consulting (dated November 2, 2022) providing instructions for upcoming accounting work. Did MacDonald originally plan to use his own company as the subcontractor, but later changed his mind?
Styrax is owned by Kyle Barr who is the Finance Director for West Ottawa Public Schools and MacDonald’s former boss. It appears MacDonald considered subcontracting his skills through his own company, but ultimately decided to provide services to KPS through Styrax employment.
When an individual is a subcontractor rather than a district employee, his relationship within the organization is altered. School board members must approve the hiring of all district employees, but do not necessarily approve contractors. Hiring employees as contractors removes a layer of public transparency.
Isn’t it odd that so many school district employees are creating consulting companies and then providing services through those companies back to school districts?