Schools

How Jack Dunn Got The Concord School's Business Administrator Job

Part 1: Emails, interviews reveal that sitting board member was kept in the loop about the job.

During the recent business administrator hiring, documents from the district reveal that Jack Dunn was kept in the loop about the process and quickly hired at the end. Since the announcement of Dunn’s hiring as the district’s business administrator, a number of documents, emails, and interviews have been gathered about the process of the hiring.

Many of the requests for records and emails were denied by the district, hidden behind the state’s 91-A personnel protection provision.

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School Superintendent Chris Rath deemed that releasing Dunn’s references or letters of recommendations would be an invasion of privacy, despite the fact that Dunn was an elected school board member and a public figure during the time that he was preparing to be interviewed as the business administrator. Also denied from the request were “preliminary drafts” and “documents not in their final form” which were “not disclosed, circulated or available to a quorum of the Concord School Board,” according to Rath.

The hiring process

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The process started after long-time Business Administrator Michele Croteau gave her notice in March of this year.

Dunn approached Rath in a meeting about applying for the position sometime after Croteau gave her notice but neither Rath nor Dunn could remember the exact date of the meeting.

“I knew of his interest,” she said, “sometime after Michele resigned.”

Dunn said he expressed interest in the job but he hadn’t quite grasped all the responsibilities adding, “I didn’t know if I really wanted to do it.”

Dunn, according to his application letter, started the Southern New Hampshire University’s School Business Administrator Certificate Program on April 2, two weeks after Croteau said she would be leaving.

In 2005, when the position was last open, the district ran a single ad on July 10, in the Concord Monitor. The ad posted minimum qualifications of “education and experience to include a master’s degree in finance, business, or public administration, experience in school business administration and supervision or the equivalent.”

On March 14, Human Resources Director Larry Prince created an advertisement for the position, requesting applicants with “knowledge of governmental accounting and financial reporting standards, government auditing standards, Internal Revenue Codes, state statutes and State Board of Education rules.” Qualifications included a “bachelors degree in business, accounting or finance (Master degree or CPA preferred); 5 years experience in accounting, finance analysis or budget management” with additional years of experience in place of the certification or degrees preferred.

The next day, at Rath's request, Prince changed the job requirements, eliminating all the governmental knowledge, IRS, and state education requirements, as well as the Masters degree and CPA preference, and the additional years request if the degrees or certification were not available. New language inserted into the job description included “relevant experience with supervision and organization of personnel; knowledge and skill in long term planning.”

“[Prince’s] original job description was a draft for me to look at,” Rath said, noting that the district had never asked for a CPA in the past.

The job posting was posted on the Concord School District website and EDjobsNH.com, with an April 13, response deadline.

Hiring committee created

On April 9, Rath assembled a hiring committee which included herself, Assistant Superintendent Donna Palley, School Board President Kass Ardinger, Prince, Matt Cashman, the director of facilities and planning, Concord High School Principal Gene Connolly, Cathy Roark, the district’s business office manager, and others.

On April 13, Roark emailed Rath and inquired whether it was going to be an issue if she wrote a letter of reference for one of the candidates, a man, whose name was redacted from the email, even though she was part of the hiring committee. Rath answered back, “No not at all.”

Less than a week later, on April 19, Rath sent Dunn an email updating him on the process.

Rath wrote, “The Committee is reviewing the resumes of those who have already applied and decided to interview if there were strong candidates in this initial group. The Committee is also aware of your interest in the position as well as my request to you that you not resign from the Board to apply until the Committee evaluates the outside candidates.”

Rath added, “There is a lot of interest on the party of the Committee about your candidacy. The Committee felt that interview outside candidates would give them a better understanding of the position and subsequent discussions with you. I will keep you apprised of the process. I appreciate your patience and continued service to the Board at this time.”

Less than four minutes later, Dunn replied by email, “No problem. Thanks Chris.”

According to Prince, there were 17 candidates who applied for the job. Fifteen of them lived in New Hampshire. Nine had prior business administration or treasurer experience and five were certified business administrators.

The committee interviewed three candidates on May 9.

Others more qualified?

Information about the applicants was not requested of the district and wouldn’t be released even if it were requested due to the personnel provision in 91-A, the state’s open meeting and records laws, which protects applicants in the early part of the interviewing stage.

However, Concord NH Patch sent out an email to every business administrator at school administration units listed on the state’s website as well as finance employees working for municipalities asking if they had applied for the job or knew people who had applied.

Four responded with three offering to share their work experience on condition of anonymity, the same protection offered to employees applying for the jobs under the state’s law.

According to those applicants, they had between nine and 30 years of experience in business administration in three different states, including various levels of education and certification.

One applicant stated that school business administrators communicated about a lot of issues including compliance, finances, and software issues, so there was some discussion about the Concord job opening, which was seen as a prestigious position to access.

“There were some heavy hitters who applied for this position,” noted one.

One applicant stated that they had more than three decades of business administration experience in two states and was certified in three states.

Another applicant, with more than 12 years of business administration experience in New Hampshire, didn’t even receive an invitation to be interviewed. That applicant surmised that it might have been because of the lack of certification but was able to find another position not long after applying for the Concord position, at a smaller school district.

Some were surprised that someone without any school business experience or other qualifications connected to a large district like Concord would be hired for the job.

Rath said she didn’t recall all of the experience of the other applicants and both she and Ardinger challenged the experience stated by the applicants.

Rath said the hiring committee came up with criteria for the position before looking at the resumes and interviewing potential candidates. She said that sometimes, candidates on paper don’t come across well in interviews or might not be the right fit for the job.

“I tell all the search committees the same thing,” she said. “We’re looking for the best match … you see a lot of people with good resumes but they’re not the perfect fit, within the team … they’re not people you want to see everyday.”

“Personality is not on a resume but it is a factor,” Ardinger added.

Rath said there was no guarantee that Dunn would work out.

“The proof will be in the performance,” she said. “There are no guarantees … but he’s got the skills that this group was looking for, at that time.”

Dunn, according to his resume, described himself as the vice president of operations and finance for Long Island Pipe Supply of Salem, the storefront of a Garden City, N.Y., company, with a number of subsidiaries around the northeast.

However, there is limited information about Dunn’s employment in the public sphere: A filing at the Secretary of State’s Office listed him as director of the Salem location; a listing in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce website has him as a comptroller, describing the company as only having two employees; and Dunn’s LinkedIn account stated he was the operations manager of the Salem location.

Rath said no one in the district confirmed Dunn’s employment with the company, either before or after he was hired for the job. No firm was hired to check out any of the candidates and only some of the references of the candidates were called and spoken to, she said.

Robert Moss, the president of Long Island Pipe Supply, did not return calls requesting confirmation of Dunn’s employment or position.

“They won’t,” Dunn said, when asked why the company wouldn’t confirm his employment even after he had left the job.

When asked why there was no information about him being a vice president and limited information about his role in the company, Dunn said, “I did what I did for them … it’s a private company. I don’t have Facebook, I don’t have Twitter, I don’t have any of it, I don’t have LinkedIn. I just did what I had to do.”

Dunn didn't respond to an email that pointed out to him that he did have a LinkedIn account and it didn't describe him as a vice president at the company.

The decision on Dunn

Sometime between the interviews of May 9 and May 14, the committee decided to interview Dunn for the position.

On May 14, Rath emailed Ardinger and asked if she had had a chance to “talk with Jack and Board members about our desire to interview Jack?”

Ardinger emailed back that she had “spoken to Jack, who is willing to do whatever is best for you.” According to Ardinger, Dunn said, “moving ahead sooner rather than later would be better for him …” with other information redacted, seemingly about his current employment situation. Ardinger continued, “He told me he is second below the company’s owner, and supervises a staff of well over 100 people.”

Over the course of the next two days, Rath and board members discussed how the matter should be handled, with Rath wanting to book Dunn for an interview on May 22. She noted in an email that Dunn would resign from the board in order to apply for the position.

Glahn didn’t think that Dunn should resign because it would be “a lose lose situation” if the committee didn’t agree he was qualified, he said in an email on May 15.

Rath countered, “We just felt with all the stir about ethics (Watrous etc) that to do this totally transparently is best” suggesting that Dunn could be reappointed by the board if it didn’t work out.

Two other interview dates were floated with Rath adding, “I believe our potential candidate is talking with (the) Board president today or tomorrow.”

Glahn chose May 29, adding, “But I’m least important as I know Jack well.”

On May 16, Rath sent out an email to the hiring committee members that she wanted to re-post the position “and indicate open until filled.” She indicated to the committee that she wanted to contact one of the candidates to let them know that he wouldn’t be hired while the second candidate would be told that the position was being reopened, adding that the committee liked one of the candidates “enough to keep his candidacy alive.”

On May 17, the May 29 date was set.

On May 25, Rath informed the hiring committee that “Jack informed Kass today that he is resigning from the Board for personal and professional reasons.”

to Rath on that day, stating he was applying for the position that was advertised on March 15, and the public found out about his resignation the next day.

The hiring committee met with Dunn at 5 p.m. on May 29, and apparently quickly made a decision to hire him: At 7:23 p.m., Rath sent an email to the hiring committee members notifying them that she would be meeting with Dunn the next day, to go over the next steps, timeline, and contract details.

On June 1, a press release was sent to the Monitor about the hire. The public - and Concord NH Patch - found out about the hire in the newspaper the next day.


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