Tammy Greer, executive director of the Escambia Children’s Trust, has notified her board that she will not attend today’s emergency board meeting unless asked to be there. After submitting a 60-day notice, she expects the board to relieve her of her duties today.
Good afternoon. I understand that this afternoon’s meeting is to relieve me of my duties immediately. I understand the rationale and do not plan to attend unless asked specifically to be there. Please know that I am not angry or disgruntled in any way. I respect the ECT staff and you all and love the mission. I will do whatever is asked of me to make this transition as smooth as possible and have told the staff to call me if they need anything.
Thank you for your leadership and faith in me. I’m sorry that I let you down. I sincerely hope you find a new ED who will slow down and let everyone catch their breath. I’m still very proud of all the great things we have done and hope the future of the Trust is amazingly bright! Best wishes to each of you. Thank you again.
Behind The Scenes
I’ve received texts, phone calls, and office visits regarding my suggestion that Dr. Kim Krupa be named interim director. I do not know if she is interested and have not had a conversation with Dr. Krupa, but I believe the most logical and least disruptive choice is someone on the staff.
- Finance Director Tammy Abrams also has been suggested.
Plan B
If the staff has been scared off from assuming the interim position, the board should allow a minimum of two weeks for people to submit applications for the interim position with the understanding that their role is to oversee the Trust until a new executive director is hired. They might be surprised who would step up and help.
- It would not be a good sign if the Trust doesn’t have anyone on staff willing to take over during a crisis. The board may need a new personnel committee.
The fun begins at 3:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on the county’s website.
It’s a relief that something is going to run semi-proper to form with a staff member assuming the interim role.
That Dr. Krupa didn’t want it herself, and wasn’t willing to step in during a time of crisis, speaks volumes about her commitment; that she didn’t even speak herself to address her reasons speaks volumes about the potential for continued issues with how staff and the Trust as a whole operates; that “it had already been decided” among key members of the Board and staff before a full discussion of the Board says everything about why this Trust will continue to fail in its obligations to children in need if there aren’t serious changes to the way both the Board and staff conduct their business.
WHY does the Trust Board seem to think that it’s SOP to have these rushed meetings making public input awkward just to ratify decisions that have already been made in the background?
Nobody even blinks or blushes at it. And then the complaint is that the public isn’t engaged. Why on earth would they be? This Board doesn’t even seem to require public meetings to get their business done, let alone public input; the votes scream of nothing but optics, as if they’re a metaphorical signature on a decision already hammered out prior to the meeting.
I mean, there’s walking the halls and a general sense of where things might land prior to public discussion, and then there is this Children’s Trust reality on public display that EVERYTHING is already decided by the time anyone hits the dais. That’s exactly why we checked out of our advocacy there at an earlier juncture: there was zero point to any public being there yesterday; and actually there was not much point to the public meeting of the Board, either, other than for Commissioner May to make sure that it was in the motion not to make any new hires during interim. Thank God for that small favor.
As I underlined in my speaking yesterday, the agenda continues to be a mess, with items not in the proper order, confusion over whether agenda items will even take public comment, and random categories of “Board Comments” to close out an agenda. There were three separate actions piled under one agenda item. But of course, it really doesn’t matter how anything appears on the agenda, when it has all been decided in the background anyway.
It simply *baffles* me that Ms. Hightower continues to defend the ridiculous committee structure, yesterday going so far as to state that it was analogous to departments in the School District vetting things before it comes to the School Policy board. She then claimed that the Children’s Trust board needs to decide whether it is really a policy board or simply an operational board. Seriously? How many years has this been in operation now? If that’s not clear to every person sitting on that dais already, whose fault is that? The policy committee, or one of the other absurd redundant layers that are nothing but a strategy to keep the decisions away from public discussion and vetting in front of a full board discussion and *real* votes?
The most uncomfortable part of the meeting was when Chairwoman Woods spoke about her private job being threatened. At first when she was looking at Kevin and me, I had the sense that she was focusing on us because she recognized us as an empathetic audience on that note. I hope that was the case, because she was correct if so–nobody should have to put up with that garbage. As Commissioner May pointed out, however, it comes with the territory. We don’t get paid for our advocacy and community engagement either–was there anybody else in the audience that doesn’t get paid something for community engagement? that’s a real question–and have to put up with no end of personal grief and harassment of various kinds.
So while we empathize wholeheartedly with Ms. Woods, she can at least have the assurance that “microaggression” along racial and gender lines isn’t the throughline on that type of experience. And because she was looking at us, it occurred to me that other people would think that she was *addressing* us. So it is probably necessary to say that we had no idea what she was talking about, and don’t know anything about Ms. Woods’s employment, what her company does, or who her superiors are.
This is the point where the Trust sinks or swims. The current construction of the now all important personnel committee isn’t even updated on the website. So currently there is nothing at all in place to give anyone the idea or assurance that the disaster of the last hiring won’t be replicated, with a handful of key board members having the hire wrapped up by the time it ever comes to a full meeting of the Board. And that’s exactly how we came to this mess to begin with.
Channel 3 has reported that Greer is terminated and Abrams made the Interim Executive Director. I don’t know why Greer was selected for the job but the first time I heard her speak my “B.S.” radar was activated. Her November 2022 self-assessment was embarrassing and unprofessional also ending with a multi-colored script “Thank you.” It seemed childlike. She boasts of her self-described “stellar” career before this job from which she is now fired. I suspect that a more independent review of her past record might have been far less glowing. In a book I recently read, a CEO described that he would often jump on a plane and go see what he could find out in person about someone being considered for a top appointment. Sometimes he was thrilled; sometimes not. In her self-assessment, one especially surprising “whine” was Greer’s complaint about the “unexpected obstacles” of operating in compliance with Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law. Is she new to Florida? The self-assessment was titled “Summary of Major Accomplishments and Unanticipated Challenges.” I saw nothing that rose to the level of a major accomplishment and no reasonable explanation as to why so-called “challenges” such as “connecting with a couple of Board members” was even a challenge let alone unanticipated. Greer was a bad hire and should have been terminated no later than her one-year mark. That said, what type of amateur submits such a self-serving resignation letter and by “e-mail.” The resignation letter should have been very brief, in letter format, signed and hand-delivered to the board chairperson. “Then,” she adds insult to injury as described above writing that she “understand[s]” that today’s meeting is to relieve me of her duties immediately.” She should have had the moral courage to be present at the meeting, face the music and offer to assist in a smooth transition to whomever was to take her place. Her actual reason for resigning seems to be that she is offended board members and others have questioned her bad judgment and bad advice. This sorry soap opera drama should be developed into a case study for students in UWF’s MPA program.