{"id":3101,"date":"2010-12-29T17:41:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-29T22:41:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3101"},"modified":"2010-12-29T17:41:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-29T22:41:21","slug":"letter-points-fingers-at-top-officials-in-county%e2%80%99s-head-start-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=3101","title":{"rendered":"Letter Points Fingers At Top Officials In County\u2019s Head Start Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, the Sentinel<\/em><\/strong> received an email that raised several concerns about the Hillsborough County Head Start Program. A head start parent, who wished to remain anonymous, also contacted the Sentinel<\/em><\/strong> to advise that another meeting of the Head Start Policy Council is scheduled for Thursday, December 30th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Ms. Kymberly McMaken-Baker,<\/strong> former Chairman of the Head Start Policy Council, allegedly signed the letter. The letter stated that she is coming forward with the information now because \u201cI\u00a0am no longer a Policy Council Executive or General Board Member and therefore I can no longer be pushed into hiding information.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, when the Sentinel<\/em><\/strong> attempted to contact Ms. McMaken-Baker<\/strong> by email, she did not respond.<\/p>\n

Copies of the letter were also emailed to Mike Merrill,<\/strong> County Administrator; Dave Rogoff,<\/strong> Department Director; Robert Sheehan,<\/strong> Chief Investigator; and several others.<\/p>\n

Telephone calls from the Sentinel<\/em><\/strong> to Merrill <\/strong>and Sheehan <\/strong>were not returned as of press time.<\/p>\n

The author of the letter stated she has been personally involved in several of the issues currently being discussed. She also said she has been a board member since 2007.<\/p>\n

The author of the letter wrote, \u201cI had the opportunity as the Chair to review the report written by Mr. Bob Sheehan, <\/strong>(Chief Investigator) that has been posted all over the Internet, given to parents and citizens by our County Leadership.\u00a0\u00a0I in fact met personally on several different occasions with Mr. Mike Merrill,<\/strong> and Mr. Dave Rogoff. <\/strong>I was also involved with\u00a0the Executive Policy Council\u2019s investigations of these cases in June and July of this year and our findings were put together in a report that was requested by Mr. Merrill<\/strong> the then Acting County Administrator as well as to Mr. Sheehan<\/strong> the[private] Chief Investigator.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026Mr. Merrill<\/strong> chose to never submit this report to the media or any other individuals to my knowledge.\u00a0 Mr. Sheehan, <\/strong>to this day, has never even bothered to speak with me personally, although I have copied him on several different emails while holding the position as Chair and being in the middle of these allegations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is disturbing to me about the report is that for the past several months County officials have made concerted efforts to discredit\u00a0the Head Start Policy Council\u2019s Executive Board, our Head Start Parents, and the Head Start Leadership.\u00a0 As your previous chair, I was instructed\u00a0to suppress public information\u00a0regarding the termination of the non-classified employee Dawn Dasher <\/strong>by Mr. Dave Rogoff<\/strong> to my executive board and interrupting the process, which we are, required to uphold on the termination\u00a0process of our Head Start Policy Council, which to date is still not resolved.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026These\u00a0interviews that were conducted on current and previous employees clearly show why the employee turnover rate under Ms. Dasher<\/strong> was at the extremely high rate that\u00a0originally caught our attention as a board.<\/p>\n

The author continued, \u201cWe directed Mr. Rogoff<\/strong> as the new\u00a0Director to find out what was going on with employee turnover.\u00a0 Mr. Rogoff<\/strong> took it upon himself to handle Ms. Dasher.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The author alleges that the Executive Board Members were never given information needed to vote on terminating Ms. Dasher <\/strong>and that Ms. Dasher <\/strong>remains a County Employee.<\/p>\n

Memorandum Addresses Source Of Book Complaint<\/strong><\/p>\n

However, an internal report \u00a0pertaining to the investigation into the book issue stated, \u201cOn November 3, 2010, Dawn Dasher<\/strong> was interviewed at Compliance Services concerning Dasher\u2019s <\/strong>allegation that she was going to be terminated due to retaliation for reporting misconduct.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring her interview, Dasher <\/strong>stated that Head Start Fiscal Manager had diverted grant funds to the purchase of a book authored by the Fiscal Manager\u2019s wife,\u201d the Memorandum stated.<\/p>\n

The report also stated that during an interview, Louis Finney<\/strong> stated that he knew Jimenez was married, but did not know his wife\u2019s name.<\/p>\n

During his interview, Finney <\/strong>stated that any Head Start purchases under $10,000 are signed off internally, any purchase over that amount are handled by Procurement.<\/p>\n

Letter Writer Makes Other Allegations<\/strong><\/p>\n

The writer also alleges, \u201cCounty Leader (Dave Rogoff) <\/strong>gave a reporter a termination letter of two Head Start employees, prior to them ever being consulted or given the opportunity for true judgment. I was at the Head Start Policy Council meeting on December 16th, 2010\u00a0when he addressed the Policy Council Board and guests as to Ms. (Marie) Mason<\/strong> and Mr. (Michael) Jimenez\u2019s<\/strong> suspension without pay and asked that we not discuss this situation until he had an opportunity to speak to Ms. Mason<\/strong> first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis after he had already given the reporter a termination letter for both employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

She then outlined several other areas of concern a former Policy Board member complaining about Alpha Phi Alpha receiving special treatment and funds, and allegations of inappropriate expenditures that were false; complaints about Louis Finney <\/strong>that were reportedly false or unfounded.<\/p>\n

The writer stated, \u201cIt is my opinion that this board and\u00a0community cannot just stand by and allow our Program and Leadership in this Program to be attacked, and slandered in the Media.\u201d<\/p>\n

The author concluded the letter stating, \u201c\u2026I feel I have been used by Mr. Rogoff<\/strong> as well as Mr. Merrill,<\/strong> I feel\u00a0I was deliberately misled, lied to and I want to make sure as an Executive Board and General Policy Council Board members \u00a0are fully aware of my experiences before you make\u00a0any determinations based on their information alone.\u201d[\/private]<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, the Sentinel received an email that raised several concerns about the Hillsborough County Head Start Program. A head start parent, who wished to remain anonymous, also contacted the Sentinel to advise that another meeting of the Head Start Policy Council is scheduled for Thursday, December 30th. Ms. Kymberly McMaken-Baker, former Chairman of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}