Members of the CAM School District’s Board of Education Monday evening, discussed the sharing of a Superintendent with the Coon Rapids-Bayard Community School District. Last week it was announced CR-B Superintendent Rich Stoffers would be resigning in an effort to save his district money. Stoffers said he’s taken an early retirement package in order to save thousands of dollars for the district next year.

During Monday night’s CAM School Board meeting, Superintendent Steve Pelzer said he’d received a call March 24^th, asking if he would be interested in sharing his position at CAM, with the CR-B District. He said he didn’t answer the question, and has deferred until he had a chance to discuss the matter with CAM Board President Gary Dinkla and the rest of the Board in Monday’s Special Meeting.

School Districts sharing a Superintendent is nothing new. Several area districts share a Superintendent in an effort to save costs during times of declining enrollment and mounting expenses. Pelzer says Governor Branstad, Monday, signed into law a bill pertaining to Operational Sharing, which provides incentive monies to districts for just such purposes. CAM Board President Gary Dinkla said he and Pelzer spoke with CR-B School Board President Joel Davis about the possibility of sharing.

He said Davis had been in contact with other districts about a 60-40 split in the Superintendent’s time – meaning the home district would use that person 60-percent of the time. Dinkla said Davis’ Board didn’t want to jeopardize talks with other possible districts by asking for a 50-percent share. Dinkla said Davis was going to talk more with other districts and come up a timeline. Pelzer said the CR-B Board is having a meeting Wednesday night to discuss progress on those talks and the process for sharing.

As for Pelzer, he told the CAM Board he has no interest in sharing his job with another district…which is something he’s done before.. but it’s something CAM could consider in the future. That’s because there are significant financial incentives and possible saving for the district. He said he would consider stepping down and having the Board pursue other options, he wants to sit down with them and discuss a severance package, because he hadn’t planned on early retirement.

Gary Dinkla said there are no plans to pursue options such as sharing a superintendent, but talks will continue with CR-B to see if there is a mutual, beneficial interest in doing so.