Former School Board President Scott Zeidman says that the School District will be losing a gem in a time of crisis when Chief Financial Officer Ali Delawalla bids farewell one week from tomorrow.
“Ali is incredibly good at what he does,” says Mr. Zeidman, a businessman-lawyer who appreciates the art of keeping complicated, constantly changing books.
“He was certainly overworked. We were in the process of hiring an assistant for him” when Mr. Zeidman lost his re-election bid in November.
“Losing Patti Jaffe as our Superintendent is tremendous. The Ali loss is equally tremendous. It is awful.
“The administration is so understaffed that you need one person to do the job of three. Ali did the job of five.”
Making Complexities Clear
Mr. Zeidman and Mr. Delawalla worked closely during the former’s term on the School Board. He admired the Assistant Superintendent for Business Services’ ability to strand together arcane information and translate it into comprehensible language.
“ Ali was able to take a diminishing budget, to explain it to the Board, to make sense out of it, and to advise us how to make our budgets work every year.
“This year – and I don’t remember the exact number – I believe we have $5 million extra that our Board left. He was able to do that and plan accordingly. He was able to give us a bigger reserve, and explain to us why a larger reserve was necessary; so that when tough financial times come, we have some money and don’t have to do layoffs. He was a forward thinker.
“Where most people are concerned about their re-election, most people are concerned with right now, how much can we pay somebody?, Ali was concerned about the general health of the District, not only this year, not only next year, but five and 10 years along.
“Finding an employee like that,” said Mr. Zeidman, “is next to impossible.
“This is a huge loss.”
There was another side of Mr. Dfelawalla.
Offstage
Both Ms. Jaffe and her predecessor Dr. Myrna Rivera Coté had a rule, Mr. Zeidman recalled, whereby Board members were not allowed to contact assistant supers or any staff member without first clearing the request.
“The rationale behind the rule was so that Patti would know what was going on,” Mr. Zeidman said.
“On occasion, I had to call Ali directly. “I would tell him ‘I do not have Patti’s permission yet. I couldn’t reach her. However, this is what I am looking for. Can you help me on this?
“‘I don’t need it today. I need it a week from Thursday. If you can’t do it, let me know.’
“In almost all School Board meetings, you probably never saw me question a budget item. It’s not that I didn’t read them. I would call up Ali ahead of time and ask, ‘What about this item? It looks weird.’
“When there was a problem, I would go through Patti or Myrna to the assistant superintendent and say ‘I don’t understand this. Let’s fix this.’”
For Mr. Zeidman, this was about doing his homework.
Instead of pointing out seeming quirks or problems at Board meetings, he would have settled the issue with Mr. Delawalla in advance. “Rather than saying at this meeting ‘This is wrong and this is wrong,’ I would say, ‘I have submitted changes. Please let me know which ones are not acceptable.’”
And soon, both gentlemen will be gone.
