Where is Jason Taylor?
Taylor, one of former state superintendent Michael Sentance’s most controversial hires, was brought into Montgomery by the Alabama State Department of Education to serve as chief financial officer for the Montgomery Public School system during the ongoing state intervention.
Taylor, the CFO in the Huntsville system at the time, signed a three-year, $708,000 contract and resigned from Huntsville.
Now, Taylor has mysteriously vanished from MPS.
But the $19,500 monthly checks continue to roll in.
Multiple sources within MPS, including two school board members, told APR that Taylor hasn’t been with the system “for several weeks.” MPS spokesman Tom Salter said it was his understanding that Taylor had been “reassigned” by ALSDE.
Where Taylor was reassigned is unclear. APR reached out to ALSDE to ask about Taylor and his whereabouts but received no response.
Wherever Taylor is, he’s well compensated.
The Alabama Open Checkbook — an online database of all payments made by state departments — shows North Bar Strategic Partners, which Taylor formed specifically to take the ALSDE contract, received its most recent $19,500 check on Sept. 13. Since signing the original contract in March 2017, Northbay has been paid $346,875 by the state.
The Northbay contract, and Taylor’s departure from HCS, was controversial from the start.
The company was formed by Taylor a little more than a month before it received the ALSDE contract for Montgomery. It was also formed while Taylor was still working in the Huntsville system.
Taylor’s time working with MPS was fairly unremarkable. He managed to shuffle funds between accounts to add to the system’s bottom line, but his proposed budgets also called for massive personnel cuts and/or outsourcing of custodian and other service jobs in MPS.
