The more questions asked about the controversial issue, "personal appliance fees" (PA Fees), the shakier the ground on which the board and administration sits appears to be.The question has been asked on the record and through e-mail: The budget projected we would collect $6,000 in appliance fees a part of the Budget Reduction Movement...so...how much have we collected? We have an unconfirmed report that the entire sum collected from Bird elementary totalled less than $200.
Question: Could I get for, each school/building, the amount of revenue generated to-date from appliance fees?
Phil Frei's answer: " The money was recorded into one district-wide revenue account. "
What kind of accounting rationale projects a certain amount of income from a particular source and then has no means of assessing the accuracy of the projection? With that kind of logic, how do we ever know if we've incorrectly budgeted?
We're trying to "do the math"
The district says that they expected to collect $6,000 via appliance fees (less than 1/100 of percent of the $68+M budget, mind you)
We assume most of the people that have these awful energy sucking appliances are those nasty teachers...right? Of course we should add in the Administrators and Admin Support. That's about another 50-60
so what's that...like 600 staff? Or about $10 per staff member in revenues?
Then our excessively paid admin were projecting that virtually every staff member had at least 1, and many TWO of these energy sinks? Hmmmm
Budgeting 101
Budgeting requires monitoring the cost of doing business as well as the revenue generated from the business. One hopes that revenues will exceed expenses at the end of the day.
We can't seem to get clear answers on a number of questions. So we'll ask them here.
We're wondering: How much did it cost to...
1. INVENTORY the evil appliances? (someone had to physically identify what was out there and record it somehow...right?)
2. to INVOICE for them (staff had to be formally "invoiced". How much cost was involved?)
3. To BUY stickers and put them on the appliances once "fees" were paid (again, someone had to (A) purchase/make special "stickers" and then someone had to go around and place the stickers on PAs)
4. to follow up on all those slackers who didn't pay up (e-mails? phonecalls? a visit to the 'Splainin' Room?
5. to "discuss" with SPEA the appropriateness and accuracy of the fees (we know there were several meetings/discussions related to this subject....how much in lost salary dollars was involved?
6. To reduce fees by 50% (after some creative SPEA members actually MEASURED energy consumption by various devices, "PA fees" were quietly sliced in half. Gee...kinda suggests that the initial fees established were we......umm...let's just say BOGUS!)
7. To determine and issue "refund" checks for $5 each for microwaves...35 checks issued for 4-26-10 school board meeting.
It would seem to us that even if everything was done by the lowly paid Local 60 folks, it STILL cost a heck of lot more to IMPLEMENT and MONITOR the PA Fees than is saved in the budget by the revenue source they provide. Good businesses cut the cord on programs and initiatives that LOSE (COST) MONEY. And that doesn't even consider the damage these fees have done to the relationsship between Administration and staff.
PA Fees: GAME ON for 2010-11 Budget
...and Admin insists they are doing it all over again for next year. Yep...appliance fees WILL be assessed for the 2010-11 budget. Except now that PA fees have been cut in half, the projected income is about $3000 (which is likely still very high) on a budget of $72,000,000+. Yup...those appliance fees sure are a critical part of balancing the budget, eh?
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