Over $4M in additional Revenues --- Where's it Going?
If you've been paying attention, a LOT....let us say that again...a LOT of unexpected money has come into the district since the last budget hearing 5 weeks ago. Has anyone seen a copy of the budget lately? Didn't think so. We hear and see snippets, but NOT the whole shooting match.
By our math, at least $4.1M of unexpected money has come onto the scene in recent weeks. About 75% of that, of course, comes from the $1.75M Education Jobs Fund and the $1.3M surplus from the 2009-10 year. As far as we know, only $700K has been committed to the 2010-11 budget. That leaves $3.4 MILLION.
What are we doing with all that money??
You know...if, according to the most recent documents, the tax levy is about $2.3M over last year, and we have $3.4M of unspent money..... hmmmm...why do we even need a 5.2% tax levy increase? We COULD have a 0% increase, couldn't we?
Who IS Minding Our Money?
In a perfect --transparent-- world, the district would have a "live" budget available on the website that changes as the Powers That Be make changes regarding how to use available monies. Don't tell us that isn't possible--we know better. The ONLY reason for treating the community like a crop of mushrooms (you know...keeping us in the dark and feeding us bull$h!t) is because they don't like the way things would look when subjected to daylight.
There is a bunch of cash available and their best move is to encumber it quickly and quietly in such a way that it's hard to reverse course.
Another school year, another fad. Cargo pants have been the rage for a number of years now. A community member shared with us an amusing analogy that relates fashion to the district budget. Clearly there is and has been a lot of fluff in the school district budget. How else can one possibly explain the "dire straits" the community put the district in last year by slashing the proposed tax levy by $2M...only to have us wind up with $1.3M surplus!
Here's a better example. With the recent administration 1% pay raise approval, an astute community member thought to request a copy of the "costing" documents associated with the raises. If you look at the documents, you see that the raises (1%) cost about $25K to fund. But...more importantly...the documents also show a SAVINGS (from budget) of $25K. Hey! Guess what? If the 1% raises cost the same amount as the savings, that means that the district had budgeted for 2% raises. And...since the district typically uses the same figure for all groups, we now know the "magic" number: 2%. The real question, of course, is: if the budget includes funding for 2% across the board, and the school board holds firm at 1%....doesn't that leave a lot of unspent funds in the budget? Clearly, the budget has room to move. The community member liked the budget to cargo pants, complete with oh so many pockets. When Phil Frei is suddenly able to "find" money in the budget to pay for some new administrative want, he just pulls another wad of cash out of his cargo pants. We took the concept one step further. Since it's really OUR money, perhaps we should coin a phrase and call them "OURDOUGH" pants. We'd sell a million...or maybe $3.3 million, to be more accurate.
OK...to be fair, we DO expect some degree of flexibility within a budget. Just like when we prepare our own household budgets, we tend to project/plan for slightly higher costs to cover those occasions when things pop up unexpectedly. Like when you don't budget for a sudden $500 car repair bill. Most of us can breathe a little easier if/when these things occur because we DID build a little bit of fluff in the budget. Call it a "contingency fund" if you will.
The problem is that the school district needs to be more transparent than they are. They need to be much more upfront in terms of where the contingency money is, how much it is, and what will be done with it if, at the end of the year, we don't have to tap into it.
Livin' the dream, baby...livin' the dream
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