Grand Haven Area Public Schools (GHAPS) is on the fringes of another controversy. Although not directly involved, this incident raises concerns regarding actions being taken by public school districts.
Finance director Michael MacDonald was being paid $101.50/hr as a contractor to Kalamazoo Public Schools while employed full time by GHAPS. It looks like MacDonald was hired illegally by Kalamazoo Public Schools and the man that hired him, James English, was recently fired for violating board policy.
In addition to his illegal hiring of Michael MacDonald, James English was involved in starting a Kalamazoo Public School Foundation. The school district was paying the foundation’s expenses while the foundation was busy seeking donations from businesses.
According to the Kalamazoo Public School Administrative Termination Recommendation report for Mr. English, “Over the repeated objections of the District’s Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources, Mr. English retained Mr. MacDonald’s services as the District’s Director of Finance as an outside contractor, signing himself personally a contract with Styrax Financial LLC on November 4, 2022 to have Mr. MacDonald work at the hourly rate of $101.50.”
To make matters worse, Rita Raichoudhuri, the Kalamazoo Superintendent resigned on December 12, 2022. In an email she sent on November 18, 2022 she accused the current board of racism in response to inquiries they made regarding the actions of Mr. English. Raichoudhuri had previously approved of some of English’s expenses.
Michael MacDonald started working for GHAPS in December 2021 right after the discovery of the Wheeler embezzlement. The GHAPS board approved his hiring on Dec 15, 2021. He previously worked at Grandville Public School for a little over a year as the Supervisor of Finance, and prior to Grandville, he worked in the Finance Department at West Ottawa Public Schools.
Michael MacDonald’s boss at West Ottawa was Kyle Barr. Kyle Barr is currently the Director of Finance at West Ottawa and the owner of a financial consulting firm named Styrax Financial LLC. Remember, Michael MacDonald was hired to do financial work for Kalamazoo Public Schools through the consulting firm Styrax.
James English, the man recently fired from Kalamazoo Public Schools, was also previously employed by West Ottawa Public Schools as the Associate Superintendent of Business Services. In addition to hiring Michael MacDonald through Styrax, James English hired Styrax to do account conversion as the Kalamazoo district is going to be converting to new accounting software.
Kalamazoo Public Schools was not the only West Michigan School District to contract with Styrax. Styrax was also contracted by the OAISD. Grand Haven School Board President John Siemion resigned in September 2021, but still serves on the board for the Ottawa Area Intermediate School District (OAISD). The OAISD made five payments to Styrax from January 2022 to June 2022 for $21,248.88.
GHAPS being on the fringes of this incident raises several questions.
What is the role of “School Foundations?” Many schools have them, and lots of money flows through them, yet they offer little transparency to citizens and families who have children attending the schools.
Michael MacDonald graduated from college in 2018. He is only four years past college graduation and already the business director of a major school district. What does this say about school district hiring practices?
Does the administration of West Ottawa Public Schools know that the Finance Director Kyle Barr is the owner of the consulting company Styrax that is subcontracting to other school districts? Is this a conflict of interest?
What happened to all the money collected by John Mosser for the Kalamazoo Public School Foundation?
This may be the end of this story, or it may just be the beginning of a big investigation. We will have to see how this plays out.