Bill Tillotson
Phone: 817-690-0556
Current roles
To our knowledge, Bill Tillotson isn't in any organizations at the moment.
Former roles
Pegasus News campaign survey (March 31, 2007)
What is the one greatest thing that the Mansfield ISD Board of Trustees has achieved in the past year?
Managing the growth, in particular the construction of new schools, has been done very well. New schools are coming in on budget and on schedule. The bond money entrusted to the District is being well spent.
What is the single biggest improvement that the Mansfield ISD Board of Trustees needs?
I believe the Board needs to focus on running the District more like a business. We need to rigorously oversee the income and expenditure sides of our business. This will allow the MISD to do what it takes to attract and retain top notch teachers. It is imperative that we run our school system in a professional, business like way in order to live within the tax structure that we presently have.
Unlike a regular business, though, in the education business, income is pretty much defined by the tax rate and the number of kids in the schools. Hence, the expense side is where the budget is most effectively managed. We have to strive to find efficiencies in the way we run our business.
In the business world, we have the terms “value added” and “non-value added” expenses. Maximizing value added spending and minimizing non-value added spending is the successful way to manage a business and to keep our teachers on value added activities that benefit the students.
The teacher in the classroom teaching children and stimulating young minds is value added. The teacher getting better training to more effectively teach is value added. The teacher meeting with parents and developing strategies for their child is value added.
The teacher spending time on forms is non-value added. The teacher spending hours struggling with an antiquated computer system is non-value added. The teacher fighting bureaucracy to get what she needs for her classroom is non-value added.
The Board’s greatest need is to make sure that the administration is doing everything possible to run the District like a business.
What is the toughest problem that you have ever solved?
You mean besides Rubik’s Cube?
Several times in my engineering career, I have been faced with especially knotty and complicated problems. The way I solved those problems was to break the complicated problem into several less complicated problems, focus attention and resources on one at a time to come up with the best solution to each one, and then reassemble the individual solutions into a comprehensive solution.
If you are elected and can only achieve ONE quantifiable thing in your term, what would you want it to be?
I would want to see the district operating to a sound financial plan year in and year out. I would like us to also build up a substantial reserve fund to better weather difficult funding crisis put upon us by the Legislature.
