Zoo Problems, Part 2
The recent turmoil surrounding hiring a Director for the Salisbury Zoo is worth a side comment.
Mr. Rapp gave abundant notice that he was resigning. Since then the replacement hiring process has seemed to drag on. There are some bona fide reasons why a search for a specialized job may take a while. There is also the fact that the city administration does not communicate proactively, especially if it does not have something it deems positive to convey.
It has come out that the City previously made offers to two candidates for the position, and received turndowns from those candidates. We are left to the conclusion that they then made an offer to their third choice, who accepted the job before calling five days later to withdraw her acceptance. In fact, due to the length of time the search has taken, Ms. Tate may have been below the third choice since other higher ranked candidates may have taken jobs in the interim. Whether she was third, twelfth, or fortieth is not that important. The information available from the city was pretty thin as to what her current position was and what her credentials actually were, aside from being an 18 year employee.
In the immediate aftermath of her acceptance, information was posted that linked to a lawsuit she filed and won against her previous (current?) (who knows?) employer relating to medical care coverage. It appears that dragging hoses to hose down the cages had caused or aggravated a condition in her arm requiring medical care and possibly leave of absence or modification of duties. On occasion, an employee has to resort to the legal process to get a fair shake. Given that she prevailed, taking her to task for pursuing her legal remedies seems misplaced. If she would be dragging hoses in Salisbury, that may have factored into her final decision.
The announcement that she was declining the job was either an honest statement, in which case we wish her well in regaining good health, or a face saving measure indicating that some sort of buyers or sellers remorse had occurred since her hiring was announced. Fair enough; many new hires don’t stick, regardless of the level of the job. Let’s move on.
Yesterday came the news, via the newspaper, that the city has decided that it wants to overpay for the job because it is so challenging a task to meet the American Zoo and Aquarium specifications for re-accreditation. The article also stated that only about 10% of zoos are accredited by the AZA. Accredited zoos voluntarily hold themselves to a higher standard of care than Federal regulations. Of course, nothing stands in the way of a zoo meeting or exceeding AZA standards without jumping through the accreditation hoops.
Many folks will recall that the city’s police force used to be nationally accredited under a previous leader. Apparently an accredited zoo is now a higher priority than an accredited police force.
Finally, a newspaper poster contended that the offer of $66,400 that was accepted was way too low and didn’t match well with what vice-principals and principals are paid.
What a silly and uninformed statement! I’m not sure how they equate running a little zoo with 14 employees to administering a school with hundreds of students and numerous professional, para-professional, administrative and service employees. NB, this is an opportunity for the wags to make comparisons based on their experiences in their formative years.
In Wicomico County, a vice-principal at a school with between 1 and 39 employees starts at $65, 850; a principal at a same sized school starts at $74,860. These are full-time, year round positions and these individuals have numerous years of verifiable service, earned Masters degrees or more, and various state and/or national credentials. The wage info is posted on the Board of Education website. All of these salaries are well above what normal folks earn in our neck of the woods; in the case of the educators there is a good deal of transparency and accountability associated with their selection, promotion and retention. Their compensation is earned and defensible. Not so at the zoo.
In my view, the City of Salisbury was prepared to grossly overpay in order to try to get someone, anyone, who could give them a fighting chance of holding onto their accreditation. Very few local folks give a hoot about the AZA stamp of approval, and as noted above, even without it the city and zoo commission could choose to actually run a higher quality operation. They just haven’t.
It’s way past time for the city to get out of the zoo business. For a million bucks each and every year they can patch a lot of streets and fix a lot of street lights.
by Pseudolus Erronius
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