Ortman feels up to the challenge
Posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008
Sunday photography by David Frank Dempsey Leroy Ortman, right spoke recently with Hazel Burnett, Arkansas Department of Education’s Coordinator for Fiscal Distress, Financial Accountability and Reporting.
DECATUR - Former Gravette School District superintendent Leroy Ortman has stepped into the challenge of leading the Decatur School District as it strives to get back on its feet.
Ortman was named superintendent on Aug. 7 by Ken James, commissioner of the Arkansas Department of Education. The district will no longer have a school board, and Ortman will answer directly to James.
The State Board of Education placed the district in fiscal distress on July 14 and voted July 31 to take control of the district.
As he works to bring the district back to financial health, Ortman will face a formidable task. The district ended the 2008 school year with a negative balance. The most recent figures show the school will be $ 510, 000 in the red by the end of next year. In addition, the district's bank accounts haven't been balanced since 2005, and there have been no accurate financial statements for some time.
With 49 years of experience in education and a love for crunching numbers, Ortman has the expertise to help Decatur throughout the difficult process of getting back on track, James said.
"If this job can be done, I have the background and skills to do it," Ortman said.
Ortman graduated from Southern State Teachers College in South Dakota in 1959 with a double major in English and business. After a few years of teaching, he earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Nebraska.
Ortman bypassed the role of principal, becoming the youngest superintendent in Nebraska at the age of 25. Since then, he's served as superintendent of small school districts in Nebraska, Iowa and most recently in Gravette, where he retired in 2005.
"Really, I'm a small-town boy," he said.
During Ortman's brief retirement, he has enjoyed working outdoors, caring for his exotic fish pond, landscaping and spending time with his seven grandchildren. But now he is ready for the exhilaration and excitement of a challenge.
"I will have a lot more to worry about now," he said.
Ortman is already familiar with Decatur's financial problems because he served the school as a consultant for three weeks in July. During that time, Ortman said he became friends with former school board president Michael Wilkins and began to feel he needed to come and help the district.
"I felt a calling to do this, " Ortman said.
Financially, Ortman said, he will begin with preparing an accurate budget for the 2008-09 school year. Then he will develop a cash-flow chart and reduce the district's expenditures.
Ortman said he enjoys working with numbers and can even be entertained by them. He said he is eager to balance his bank statement each month and finds comfort in the exactness of mathematics.
During the Aug. 7 news conference, Ortman said his chief order of business will be to schedule a meeting with the district's principals to put strategies in place to improve the schools' academics, one of the issues brought up at the July 31 State Board of Education meeting.
In his experience, Ortman said, expectations from teachers, parents, families and the community have been the biggest factor in a student's success.
"When the children know it's expected, and the teachers know it's expected, they deliver," he said.
As for management, Ortman believes there is strength in diversity. A team of people with many different viewpoints and ways of thinking may take longer to come up with a solution, but they will come up with a better solution, Ortman said.
"It's time to start seeing some good things happen in Decatur. In this instance, failure is not an option," he said.
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