Pork Also Found in the Fund 27 Budget; Film At 11

Many of you will initially ask, "What's Fund 27?  I thought there was just Fund 10, the General Fund"?
Well, boys and girls, Fund 27 is the Special Education budget for each school district.

OK, you're gasping...aren't you?  Just like no one expects the Spanish inquisition, no one pokes the sacred cow.   Right?  Wrong! Stop being a bunch of namby pambies.  These are YOUR tax dollars.  The district is sure to quickly come to the defense of special education, adding a smoke screen to what we really want you to see.  Get off it!  Nobody is attacking Special Education.  We understand and value the services provided for our special needs children.  So let's just nip that one in the bud, eh?   We only want to look at ONE part of the budget.  So let's all be adult about it.

12.5% of the General Fund goes to fund Special Ed
The district is quick to gloss over the "other" funds, like Food Service and Special Education, by declaring that the district tax levy comes only from the General Fund (Fund 10).  But what we cannot lose sight of the simple fact that the district transfers over $9,000,000 dollars into the Special Ed fund (Fund 27) annually.  That amounts to 12.5% of the General Fund.  Nothing to sneeze at!

So if we're not off poking the sacred cow, what's our point?  The point is that just like the regular education budget, the special ed budget includes specific line item costs for staff salaries, and fringes...including health insurance!  So...if we're looking at--and finding budgetary fluff--in the health insurance line of Fund 10, we also have to look at that line item in Fund 27.  After all, Fund 10 provides 70% of the entire revenue needs for Fund 27.

Then why the two orders? Colonel?
Why is it that for the general fund, the budget document shows a 1.20% increase for health insurance, but for the Special Education budget, it shows a 7.39% increase for 2011-12???  Employees DO pay the same share of their health insurance costs regardless of which program they belong too, right?

What's the bottom line
The total proposed budget for health insurance in the General Fund is $8.3M...and we believe there to be at least $220,000 excess in that.  Therefore, with a Special Ed health insurance budgeted mount of $2.45M, don't tell us that there's not at least $75,000 extra in there as well.