DPS (Update: Mr. Roberts / Well Played)

Detroit schools' progress cited as emergency manager Roy Roberts announces retirement

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Roy Roberts / Andre J. Jackson/Detroit Free Press

By Chastity Pratt Dawsey

Detroit Free Press Education Writer

May 2, 2013

After two years as the emergency manager for Detroit Public Schools, state-appointee Roy Roberts will retire in the next two weeks from his job at the helm of the state’s largest school district.

Roberts, 74, said in an interview with the Free Press that he will step down when his contract expires May 16.

He said recent financial and academic progress, capped with the announcement earlier this month of the five-year strategic plan developed with input from 600 participants, has put the district on a path toward self-governance. Roberts expects the financial emergency will be over in the next three years.

“I’m confident that what we have put together is meaningful. ... If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t leave,” Roberts said. “The deficit-elimination plan says we’re going to get rid of the deficit at the end of the 2015-16 school year — and we’re on track for that — and get out of here and turn (DPS) back over to the local people to run it.”

With his departure, Roberts said, chief financial officer Bill Aldridge will take on more responsibilities and become the chief financial and administrative officer, partly to ensure that some stability and institutional knowledge remain. Aldridge will oversee the procurement and logistics department, as well as technology and information services.

Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, appointed Roberts, a Democrat, to the job in May 2011 for one year, then reappointed him last year. Snyder has not committed to a time line for when he will announce Roberts’ replacement.

“Detroiters and Michiganders alike can be thankful for Roy’s leadership,” Snyder said in a written statement.

“He has been successful in restoring fiscal responsibility, including reducing spending, saving money and balancing budgets. The plan that Roy and his team have implemented is working and it is making a difference in students’ lives. Today, more resources are being directed in the classroom so teachers can focus on teaching. Schools are safer, more parents are involved, attendance is up, test scores are improving across the board, and more seniors are graduating.”

■ Related: Snyder: $1.5-million grant will support students, neighborhoods

Roberts recommended a successor, but declined to name the person. “I would be honored if they saw fit to to take somebody from this staff,” Roberts said of his administration. “But it’s not my decision, and I don’t have the authority. ... The governor does.”

Before Roberts arrived, a plan was in place to shrink Detroit Public Schools into a smaller district and close more schools because of declining enrollment. Roberts, at the behest of the governor, signed an interlocal agreement that created a separate state reform district in 2011 and relinquished 15 low-performing schools to the new district last fall.

He also reduced the district deficit from $327 million to about $76 million by selling more than $200 million in bonds, increasing long-term debt even though the deficit was cut. He used 10% wage cuts, school closures and layoffs to help cut spending.

The estimated $76-million deficit lingers, and the school district continues to lose students, but Roberts ended the past two years’ budgets with more money left over in the coffers than expected. Instead of using it to pay down the deficit, he gave some of it out as 2% bonuses last December to build good faith among disenchanted employees.

Under Roberts, DPS’s scores on the state’s standardized MEAP tests increased this year; however, the achievement gap between Detroit’s scores and the state averages since 2009 has worsened, data show.

Over the past two years, Roberts largely ignored the school board. He used his power over hiring and payroll to deny the board the academic authority it had under a prior emergency financial manager law. A court battle with the board ensured and Roberts lost, but a new emergency manager law restored all powers to the emergency manager in March.

Union and school board members who heard about the leadership change in a closed meeting with Roberts this morning were stunned.

Keith Johnson, president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers, said he had expected Roberts to discuss Monday’s upcoming visit by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

“When he said, ‘I’m stepping down,’ all of our mouths just dropped,” Johnson said. “I can’t say it’s a bad day. I can’t say it’s a good day, because we don’t know who’s coming next.”

Roberts also told those gathered that when he arrived at DPS, he was told to “blow up” the district and dismantle it, Johnson said.

“Blow it up — those were his exact words,” Detroit School Board member Tawanna Simpson confirmed.

At a news conference today, Roberts said the governor never instructed him to dismantle DPS, but factions from Lansing to Detroit, from community members to educators, had wanted him to make wholesale changes in DPS and “blow it up,” figuratively speaking.

“They had totally given up,” Roberts said. “But we can make it work.”

Aldridge, the new chief financial and administrative officer, said one of the best outcomes during Roberts’ administration was the U.S. Department of Education’s decision last week to release DPS from “high risk” status. In 2008, the USDE’s Office of Inspector General slapped the district with financial restrictions and oversight after a kickback scandal that would land the former executive director of the Risk Management Department in jail in 2011.

DPS was one of only two districts in the nation under high-risk status, Aldridge said.

Aldridge is in his third stint as a top administrator for Detroit Public Schools. In 1988, he worked as divisional director of financial planning and budget and chief accounting officer until 1992. From 1996 to 2000, he returned to the school system to serve as chief financial officer and chief operating officer. He played the lead role in negotiating a Detroit Federation of Teachers contract that established the union’s first financial performance-based compensation bonus, the district said. He also established the district’s first rainy day fund of over $40 million.

In his new role, Aldridge expects to replace the decade-old computer system used by human resources and financial departments with a new, more efficient one. “It’s going to change the face of DPS. There’s too much paper and pencil, manual human intervention now. (A new system) will allow me to take some of the costs out of the district,” he said.

Prior to coming to the district, Roberts was known for having become the highest-ranking African-American executive in the U.S. automobile industry when he was promoted to group vice president for North American Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing of General Motors.

“If somebody comes to my funeral,” Roberts said, “I would rather they say, ‘He did all he could for the children of the city of Detroit.’ That’s more important than saying, ‘He was the highest-ranking African American in the auto industry.’ We touched lives here.”