Let the SPARCs fly at the Annual Meeting?

We heah 'tings.

And we hear that the SPARC (Sun Prairie Action Resource Coalition, a group that swings so far left that they walk in counterclockwise circles) folks have hatched a great idea based on last years annual meeting:  instead of lowering the tax levy 2%, let's spend, spend, spend more money on schools.

We can think Jim McCourt and Phil Frei and their "options" presented last year for that.

If this rumor is true, then we're in for another rocky annual meeting.

And, again, if true, do these people ever read the rules?  A school board has the power to establish a tax levy TO OPERATE AND MAINTAIN SCHOOLS.

You cannot come to the meeting and ADD initiatives to the budget.  In fact, the electors have absolutely NO input on the budget once it's passed by the school board.  At the annual meeting, their power is to vote a tax levy to operate and maintain schools.  Period.

If a levy is voted which exceeds that necessary to operate and maintain schools, then the board is obligated to reduce the tax levy to what is required to operate and maintain schools.

Did we mention "operate and maintain schools"?  That does not translate to "new budget initiatives".

Let the sparks fly, baby!

There's no such thing as maybe,
Burn it like you fading,
No more hesitating
Let the sparks fly baby;

Give me one if it's real
And two if you can feel it,
Give me three signs that you're awake,
It only takes one spark
For two to fall apart
And three more to blow it away

Thousand Foot Krutch "Let the Sparks Fly"

More Fun with Fund Balance

The Sun Prairie School District just cannot come to grips with the idea of actually lowering taxes for a year.

It started with Caren Diedrich (you know, Caren "I don't even know what's in my mind" Diedrich) tossing out the seemingly innocent question about whether we had enough reserves in fund balance.  Good God, Gertie...she doesn't even know what's in her mind, how could anyone take her seriously?

But some apparently have....and now a discussion on fund balance will occur at tomorrow's Finance Committee meeting.  Ostensibly, the idea some have is to put money into fund balance instead of reducing the tax levy.

Clearly, we still don't understand this "fund balance" thing.

Fund Balance Myth #1: A low fund balance affects our credit rating and interest rates.
This is a tall tale frequently told by old Seabass McCourt.  We learned that, after the recission, when EVERYONE was taking money out of fund balance, how much of a myth that was.  Even before the great recession, the amount of fund balance on hand maybe affected interests rates by a couple of hundredths of a percentage point.  That's peanuts for a school district with annual costs of $73-75M.

Fund Balance Myth #2 - We can just "budget" to increase fund balance.
Newsflash, people.  That's not a legitimate practice.  As outlined very clearly below:

Budget Surpluses
Several Supreme Court decisions and Opinions of the Attorney General have dealt with the question of budget surpluses. As a general rule, local governmental bodies do not have the authority to tax for the purpose of accumulating “unappropriated surplus funds” in the treasury. Money appropriated for a particular purpose in a given year but not used and unallocated surpluses become “funds on hand” which should be applied to the following year’s budget to reduce the amount raised by taxation. --WASB • May 2012,  The Annual School District Meeting 

Fund Balance Myth #3 - Fund Balance is a just a savings account.
While the value of fund balance is certainly the ability to handle unanticipated, "big-ticket" expenses ( e.g.,  a boiler goes out, major HVAC repairs), the real value of a fund balance is to have sufficient cash on hand to avoid the need to borrow money for operations.  The simple fact is that the state does not pay us aid all at once, but rather parcels it out; yet, salary and insurance costs are major monthly costs that quickly deplete available cash on hand.  Similarly, while the school year starts July 1, and costs mount monthly, we do not receive property tax payments until January or so.  Subsequently, school districts with low fund balances need to borrow money each fall to help "make payroll" until all state aid is received.

---

So...what does this all mean for Sun Prairie?

Last year we borrowed $12,000,000 to meet its cash flow needs.  The interest rate was 1%, and the "premium" (or loan origination fee) was $33,000.  If one looks at line 682 of the school district "Expenditures by Object Code report", we see that the net cost to borrow this $12 MILLION dollars was $116,070.08.

So, really, the net cost of us having a lower fund balance is $116K or 0.16% of our annual budget.  Hell,we spend more on that just on Dr. Culver's salary!

More to the point, in order to cut out this temporary borrowing expense, we'd have to increase our fund balance by at least $12,000,000.  People...that's not going to happen.  At least not any time soon.

First of all, "budgeting" (which we cannot do) to add $500K to fund balance would mean an increase in the tax levy of 1%.  So...what if we "accidentally" had a surplus in the budget of $1M for $2012-13?  The tax levy would increase by 1% (for every $500K added) and we'd barely be scratching at the amount we need.

Also keep in mind that THIS year (2011-12) we had a final surplus of $200K, BUT on top of that we spent $600K on books and computers for 2012-13, so the TRUE surplus was at least $800K.  And all that goes to fund balance is a measly $200K.

Why do we need to borrow money?
We start off each fiscal year in July.  Expenses start rolling in.  For a $72M budget, on average, the district spends about $6M per month.  Yet we don't receive any significant revenue until the first quarterly state aid payment in September.  Last year, by the end of September we had spent $11.5M yet only received $5.3M in revenues.

Fund balance can ultimately serve as a means to cover some of this, but we need to borrow money short term to meet demands.  For example, as of the end of December 2011, we had expenditures of nearly $29M yet revenues of only about $13M.  That left a shortfall "gap" of about $16M.  And that is why we needed to borrow $12M last October (and have done so for many years).

Hell's Kitchen, 53590

We've got our own quasi-Olympic logo going, complete with flames.
The school board is going to have their hands full juggling all these frying pans.
Someone(s) may wind up grilled and charred before the smoke clears on these issues.
Memo to board members Whalen and Diedrich:  THIS is what happens when you're asleep at the switch armed only with a rubber stamp.

Who's in charge of this zoo?  Tim Culver likes to say that he's accountable.  But all this has either happened or festered under his watch.  Perhaps instead of spending so much time pushing for trips to China and full-immersion language (sssh...Mandarin Chinese) programs, he needs to do a little housework.  There are a couple of closets beginning to smell ripe.  Should it be the school board's job to police this stuff?  NO!  But sadly, Mr. Whalen, you never took any action regarding the inaction, so now it's a whole lot messier.

So that we're all on the same page, let's re-cap what we've learned over the summer so that you can see why we believe it's hotter than Hell's Kitchen here at SPASD:

2 fields x 13 hrs/day x 67 days is TOO MUCH!

Policy KG (Field Use Rental)
Thanks to school board Veep John Welke's attention to detail and investigative prowess, the public learned that the high school softball fields had been reserved ALL SUMMER LONG from 7:30 am to 8:00 PM.  Talk about a monopoly.

Um...who's paying for the exclusive use of those fields?  Sure the SP Little League ponied up $75,000 initially, but how far does that go?
The cost of reserving the varsity softball field for 67 days at $300/day (12 hrs/day x $25/hr)= $20,100.
Add in the JV field and that comes to $40,200 JUST for the summer of 2012.

Shouldn't SOMEONE be
saying "Nay, Nay"?

We didn't receive a dime. Who's watching this?  Who would have allowed one "renter" to reserve two complete fields for 12 hours or more EVERY day for 67 days this summer????  We're think that SOMEONE with some common sense should have said, "Nay, Nay".

 AD McClowry
The whole hockey fee fiasco hasn't settled completely yet.  Add to that the fact that Mr. McClowry not only personally reserves fields for his own use (for which we could not locate a record of payment), but he's theoretically in charge (to some extent) of all these athletics/activities listed here AND Title IX compliance.  So we think he's got s spot reserved in the center frying pan.

 Athletic “camps”
We also heard publicly this week that a large volume of athletic camps use SPASD fields and facilities, yet we haven't found the deposits we should see for the cost of using these facilities.

Another doubled edged sword here.  We appreciate the value of these camps and the dedication of the coaches.  But at the same time, all evidence points to the fact that fees charged for these camps are paid directly to the coaches.  It's great extra income for the coaches, but where is the taxpayers' share?  We ALL paid for these fields and facilities, and we look forward to revenue generated to help defray the cost of upkeep.  Oh yeah....and according to district policy KG, Procedure KG-R, and exhibit KG-E, they should be paying for the use of these fields.

Sure, it lightens the wad of bills in their pockets, but at the end of the day, those fields and facilities were not built for the purpose of generating personal income for anyone.

 Title IX
We haven't even begun to explore this one, but it is a major issue.  Again, kudos to Veep John Welke for taking the time to ask the question (although many may have missed it). There are a lot of aspects to Title IX compliance.  Are we confident that our school district administration (gulp) has been paying attention to the information below?  Based on the quality of information and level of detail we've seen to date, we're at little concerned that this may be another weakness.

Compliance is determined as follows:
The Policy Interpretation sets forth a three-part test: 1) whether the number of male and female students participating in athletics is “substantially proportionate” to their respective enrollments, or 2) if not, whether the school district can demonstrate a history and continuing expansion of the athletic program in response to the interest and abilities of the “underrepresented” gender; or 3) if the district cannot establish either of the first two circumstances, whether it can demonstrate that the interests and abilities of the underrepresented gender have been “fully and effectively accommodated.”

Title IX: Athletic financing

It is also important to remember that contributions from private entities such as booster clubs are considered public money once they are accepted. Therefore, if a booster club provides benefits or services that assist only a team or teams of one gender, the district is obliged to ensure that teams of the other gender receive equivalent benefits and services, even if that means a reallocation of the district’s budget.

--http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2012/August/Complying-with-Title-IX.html

The Sound of Sun Prairie (SOSP)
 This one we posted....but we don't want to lose sight of the issue.  Love that Sound....but loving it would be  a little easier if we were certain that all the i's have been properly dotted and t's properly crossed.

Sacred Cow Tipping

Oh we defy the very gods on this one... but here goes...

First, and foremost, let us be perfectly clear:  we believe that the Sound of Sun Prairie (SOSP) provides an incredible experience for kids in terms of self discovery, discipline, teamwork, and musical performance.

The purpose of this post is not to point fingers or knee cap The Sound.  Rather, some disconcerting information has come to light following recent school board discussions regarding athletics and activities.  These discussions provide us with a rare window of opportunity in which we can publicly discuss how the Sound meshes with the school district in terms of an educational component and an extra or co-curricular activity.

Is it a candy mint?  A breath mint? Or is it two...two mints in one?

The Certs twins.  Two...two mints in one

Those graying at the temples likely recall the old Certs jingle.  But it's all too fitting here.  Those at the School Board work-study session on July 30 heard that SOSP is a summer school course, and subsequently, we receive state aid because the kids in SOSP "count" towards the summer school enrollment.

What we find interesting, however, is that it seems to be an activity in two parts. It sounds as if the MORNING sessions (8-12) are the "summer school" segment.  After lunch, those kids that return are part of the "extra-curricular activity component".  BUT there is a "pay to play" clause.   In order to participate in the afternoon session, kids must pay a membership fee to the SOSP...a "sliding scale", as told by John Whalen, ranging from $650 to $1,000 or even more.  Ninth graders pay the low part of the sliding scale.  Kinda like marketing a new street high at a discount to hook newcomers.  Once they're hooked, the price goes up.

But...fees are not allowed for summer school classes!

Can a school district charge students for summer school?There shall be no cost to the resident student or parent beyond incidental supplies, textbook or similar items (workbooks) if the district claims state aid under s. 121.14 [State Aid for Summer Classes]. Additionally, if the student is a resident of the district and the class is necessary for a grade promotion, high school graduation, or is given credit toward graduation, the district may not charge for the instruction, building costs or apparatus. If the class is not required, credited or aided, the fees must be based upon the actual cost of the class. 

Ahhhh...see the problem...and the way around it?  The district does not charge a fee for ITS portion, but SOSP does for the OTHER portion.

Is it summer school?
Or is it something masked to LOOK like summer school?  The kids don't get grades or credits.  On its website, SOSP is billed as, "The Sound of Sun Prairie is a voluntary, extra-curricular marching band. "  So does SOSP know its a summer school "course".

So...it's an extracurricular activity?
That's what Jim McClowry labeled it...as a school sponsored "club or activity".  That's what SOSP calls itself.  And fees CAN be charged for activities.  But do we? Consistently?  For all activities?  And if it's an activity--not a summer school course--we shouldn't be receiving any state aid as a result of it (yet we do).  Confused yet?

How come they say the "fee" covers transportation
when the district pays for that???  And what's this about the fee
"covering" the SPASD activity fee?  We looked and couldn't find
ANY deposits to cover this. Hmmmm.

Why so secretive about the "membership fees"?
We searched mightily and could only find an outdated "estimate" of membership fees for 2011.

Well...it's kind of understandable, when they charge that much.  Yes...it's an awesome experience...but isn't it a bit north of the Have/Have Not line?   You know...in the Entitlements subdivision?

Oh...and it covers their "activity" fee too? Can anyone show us where the SPASD summer activity fee has been credited to SPASD?  We could find no such evidence looking at monthly deposits.

And if the school district pays at least $23,000 annually to cover SOSP costs that SOSP says are PART of the membership fee paid by kids, shouldn't those costs be subtracted from the membership fee?  There's roughly 100 SOSP kids.That means their membership fee should be reduced by $230 each (and we haven't even talked about an activity fee yet).  OR...the school district should be receiving a check for $23,000 PLUS an activity fee.  Hello!  Jim McClowry went to great lengths to explain why hockey kids should be gouged to the tune of $550 each because of less than $20,000 in ice time costs.  Here's a group that costs that much AND uses our facilities without paying a rental fee (hey...we charge the Special Olympics for Pete's sake!).....and the district gets NOTHING in return.

We just hope this doesn't jeopardize our state aid funding.  Does DPI REALLY know how this all works?  How could they...when WE don't even know how it works?

If SOSP is charging a whopper membership and the district does not receive a penny, why are taxpayers footing the bill for SOSP costs ?

Just looking at school district check registers over the past year (and we may have missed some) we came up with just under $23,000 in SOSP costs that the taxpayers/school district funded.  Why are we paying for these things when SOSP collects between $70,000 and $100,000 in membership fees annually?

Wait...isn't that MORE than we pay in ice time for hockey?  You know...hockey...as in the ones we were trying to gouge with a 275% fee increase to re-coup our costs?  Oh...that's right, there is no activity for for SOSP.

Perhaps there's an explanation, but without transparency in accounting, we won't have it.

Check run  Check#  Vendor              Inv. Date   Amount       Purpose

8/8/2011  109652  IDEAL CRANE RENTAL  07/08/2011  $55.00    SOSP SKYJACK PICK UP

8/8/2011  109652  IDEAL CRANE RENTAL  07/14/2011  $400.00   SOSP SKYJACK RENTAL

9/12/2011  110111  KOBUSSEN BUSES     07/31/2011  $4,669.59 PUPIL TRANS SOSP JULY

10/10/2011  110634  COLTS DRUM & BUGLE  08/31/2011  $12,655.00 SOSP EQUIP REPLACE

1/23/2012  112790  WARD BRODT MUSIC CO  12/31/2011  $330.00   SOSP EQUIP REPLACE 

6/11/2012  115768  IDEAL CRANE RENTAL   05/15/2012  $455.00   SOSP SKYJACK RENTAL

6/25/2012  115981  IDEAL CRANE RENTAL   05/21/2012  $55.00    SOSP SKYJACK PICKUP

6/25/2012  115981  IDEAL CRANE RENTAL   05/31/2012  $120.00   SOPS SKYJACK RENTAL

7/23/2012  116256  KOBUSSEN BUSES     06/30/2012  $3,926.35 PUPIL TRANS SOSP JUNE

7/23/2012  116327  FRED RENTS LLC     06/29/2012  $300.00     BG SOSP LIFT RENTAL

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

                                                 $22,965.94

And then there are the "stipends" we pay the SOSP leaders
Are you kidding us?  We pay the SOSP director (assuming 10 yrs experience) $8,700 but building leadership council members only a flat $500?  Or how about Curriculum Leadership Council members?  These are the teachers building the curriculum for...oh...you know...the actual education of our students?
And the most they get is $2,030...or less than what the SOSP "Assistant" receives?

And we also here that the band boosters or SOSP actually pay and additional stipend to the SOSP leaders.

Anything wrong with this picture?

What about kids that want the experience but cannot afford the membership fee?
It is Sun Prairie policy (and DPI rule) that economically disadvantaged kids shall not be charged extracurricular fees.  Since SOSP seems to operate outside of SPASD policies, we need to ask: are these same opportunities afforded for kids wishing to partake of the SOSP experience?  In his inimitable style, John Whalen attempted to put this to rest.  He stammered something like, "um...The Sound can offer scholarships...".  Great!  But having the ability to do something and actually doing something are horses of very different colors, Mr. Whalen?  Do you happen to know if any scholarships have actually been awarded?  Are they full scholarships (like SPASD) or do they just subsidize a few bucks?  What IS the policy?

What's all that spell?
We think it spells something like "needs further review".  Here's hoping the school board looks at this with as keen an eye as they did hockey fees.  And we better make DARN sure that DPI (A) knows the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and (B) there is no monkey business  that jeopardizes our receiving state aid for summer school.

Is This the PSU Butterfly Effect?

We've observed a marked change in the Sun Prairie School Board of late.  Maybe its the new faces we have on the board.  Maybe it's subconsciously some sort of butterfly effect coming in the wake of the PSU/Sandusky firestorm.   Maybe it's both.  For whatever the reason, we like what we're seeing.

Board members are engaged.
They're asking good and pointed questions.
They are appear to be moving towards cleaning house of all old and soiled district laundry.
They are establish a new way to do business.
And it's the way a school board SHOULD operate.

There's a great article in the latest edition of ESPN the Magazine regarding the sanctions leveled against Penn State, entitled, "On Death's Door".  One of the subtexts of the article discusses the failure of the PSU board of trustees to take any action--or even ask any clarifying questions-- in the wake of an early briefing on the scandal.

"The shock wasn't just how little the board had known; it was that even knowing just a little, they still had done nothing. ...after being briefed about the Sandusky criminal investigation by then-President Graham Spanier at a May 2011 board meeting, Penn State's trustees were so incurious about the matter that none of them posed follow-up questions at meetings in July and September."--Don Van Natta, Jr, "On Death's Door"", ESPN the Magazine, August 2012

Let this be a lesson to the Caren Diedrichs and John Whalens that want to be a rubber stamp for the school district administration.  The school board has to manage.  You like to hide behind a shield emblazoned with "That's micro-managing".  It's not.  As Jill Camber-Davidson put it, what you term as micro-managing is requisite problem identification and resolution.  And sometimes, the district needs to give a pretty hard tug on the reins.

Now, certainly Sun Prairie isn't suffering from any evils even close to the magnitude of PSU, but there are darkening blemishes that the district administration has ignored for too long.

And this school board...at least the five members not named Diedrich or Whalen...seem poised to take on all comers.  Bravo to the five that seem to be taking a stand to truly mold this district into what it SHOULD be, based on a foundation of equity, character, and integrity.

Jimmy McClowry and the VERY Bummer Summer

Poor athletic director McClowry...
Monday July 30th should have been the last of his 30 day vacation.
But no vacation for him!
Instead he was the guest of honor at a school board work-study session looking into athletic fees and athletics and activities budget.

McClowry came out of the chute smoking, even presenting what some considered a thinly veiled "threat" when he noted the extreme turnover of athletic directors statewide and particularly in the Big 8 conference.  He concluded with, "Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at the most tenured AD in the Big 8 conference with 6 years."

Over the course of the 2.5 hour meeting, McClowry...

• ...saw his proposed (and originally approved) hockey fees reduced from $375 down past the $200 last year fee down to the "Tier 3" level of $85.
• ...faced a number of questions regarding the inequities in his fee setting logic,
• ...referred multiple times to the need to "gradually change" fees to keep pace with other districts only to have board member Steve Schroeder (correctly we might add) that going from collecting $53K in fee revenue to $89K (a 68% increase) in fee revenue does not constitute "gradual"
• ...suffered the public unveiling of the "true" cost of Ashley Field maintenance (which the district has had for nearly 2 years) --in great detail--as $16K, far lower than the $60K the public had been told previously.
• ...also suffered from another revelation--another closely-held-to-the-vest estimate of $350K to build ANOTHER baseball field.  What we didn't learn was ....WHY.  Hmmm...and Dr. Culver wonders why at the public budget hearing people were concerned about "secret" budget initiatives.
• ...was forced to reveal a little know fact: that the FFA (Future Farmers of America) club has been (for 50 yrs?) the SOLE benefactor of concessions revenue from football games...to the tune of $33K per year!
• ...had to reveal that the DECA club is the sole benefactor of almost $30K in revenue generated from the SPHS student "store"...note that it is not the "DECA" store.
• ...had to reveal that the hockey program is "charged" for ice time and the golf program "charged" for greens fees, while none of the other sports are "charged" for the capital or maintenance cost of THEIR fields//facilities
• ...came under scrutiny by astute board member Mike Krachey for discrepancies in his data for coach stipends
• ...also came under scrutiny of board member Steve Schroeder who also astutely observed that we spend more money on both athletic coach stipends and activities advisors than we do on stipends for staff members writing K-12 curriculum.
• ...had to let it slip that while the district spends a fair amount of money on the Sound of Sun Prairie (SOSP), the district receives NO fee from any of the nearly 100 student participants.  Adding insult to injury, we learned from John Whalen that the SOSP itself charges students a "sliding scale" (increasing from grade 9 to grade 12) of anywhere from $650 to $1000 or more.  Hmmm...isn't that a little like a street dealer giving new customers a little break on the price of the goods to "hook them"?

Yes, folks, it seems that, unlike Judy Moody, Mr. McClowry had a VERY bummer summer.

But lest one think that the hammer came down on Mr. McClowry, the board was quite professional and made it clear that they did not want Mr. McClowry's budget to suffer as a result of their action.

TTYF