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Post by warriorpride on Sept 28, 2009 15:53:07 GMT -5
Your view of the history of how we got to where we got today is well-documented. Thanks for taking another opportunity to document it again. Sorry you're so unhappy. What are you hoping to achieve here? trying to continue to educate and eventually persuade ( there are occasionally new posters here occasionally correct ? ) that maybe better decisions can be made if we just pay attention to facts That is wasted on some, but maybe not all..so what are you so afraid of ? If the 100 words or so are too much to handle once every month or so - skip over them- simple enough. I surely won't be offended Not so much "afraid of" as "tired of". Hindsight is 20-20, you know, and I fail to see what seeking input on financial ideas from residents has to do with a major decision, like the construction of an HS (which, BTW, was supported by a majority - I guess mistakes and facts are in the eye of the beholder).
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Post by macrockett on Sept 28, 2009 16:15:29 GMT -5
I've already given Dave Holm one suggestion re bonds, hopefully the District has already figured that one out though. I'm working on suggestions in Finance, Physical Assets, Employees, Contracts and I even have some suggestions for the Board. Shouldn't take long. They will be posted on the blue boards when I finish. By the way WVHSParent, it seems to me you have things backwards. I would think all the District cheerleaders, and those that fought so hard for MVHS, including you, should be the leaders in providing answers to our fiscal issues. I hope some of you have read some of the things i have written on the blue. Hopefully you at least understand about the $17 million in funding for MVHS that was taken out of your pockets without explaining what was actually done. I also hope you understand exponential math and the % of our budget that belongs to salaries and related costs. Finally I hope you understand that, based on my conservative calculations, we are spending in excess of $4 million dollars per year on debt service that would not be necessary had the District only listened to those survey respondents back in 2005. Oh and don't forget the addition operating costs for MVHS, i.e. admin, maintenance and utilities, etc. Um, the ref passed, mvhs is open - why spend time talking about things that cannot be changed? Um, for the same reason I talked about the $17 million going out of our pockets Warriorpride. You can call me a liar on that one, but it won't make you look too smart. My point in saying anything is to make people who live in this District aware of things the District won't. For example, the only reason anyone knew about the coming operating deficits last February is because I FOIA'd the financial projections and put them out there and talked about them during the Board elections. With respect to MVHS, of course the referendum passed. I haven't spent a second talking about that. Instead I talk about the lack of due diligence in decision making, the ramifications of the decisions made by our Board and the costs thereof to everyone who pays taxes in this District. Now that we are facing a significant operating referendum I intend to remind people to question what they are told by the administration and the Board. Based on what I have seen in spending significant time in looking at the issue, I remain suspect. As I have said many times, there is not an endless pot of money in this District nor anywhere else. If our resources aren't used effectively and efficiently it is our children who will pay the price.
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Post by warriorpride on Sept 28, 2009 19:49:07 GMT -5
Um, the ref passed, mvhs is open - why spend time talking about things that cannot be changed? Um, for the same reason I talked about the $17 million going out of our pockets Warriorpride. You can call me a liar on that one, but it won't make you look too smart. My point in saying anything is to make people who live in this District aware of things the District won't. For example, the only reason anyone knew about the coming operating deficits last February is because I FOIA'd the financial projections and put them out there and talked about them during the Board elections. With respect to MVHS, of course the referendum passed. I haven't spent a second talking about that. Instead I talk about the lack of due diligence in decision making, the ramifications of the decisions made by our Board and the costs thereof to everyone who pays taxes in this District. Now that we are facing a significant operating referendum I intend to remind people to question what they are told by the administration and the Board. Based on what I have seen in spending significant time in looking at the issue, I remain suspect. As I have said many times, there is not an endless pot of money in this District nor anywhere else. If our resources aren't used effectively and efficiently it is our children who will pay the price. It sounds like you think there's some kind of conspiracy behind the way the district finances are run. I'm not so sure I believe that.
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Post by macrockett on Sept 29, 2009 0:14:29 GMT -5
I don't know about you Warriorpride, but I choose my words very carefully. Conspiracy wasn't one of them, so please don't put words in my mouth. What I said was transparency, more precisely, a lack thereof. Our District admin and board should have seen the writing on the wall some time ago as growth (of new homes) was slowing and so was revenue coming from the taxes on new homes (the growth premium). Take a look at the December projections from PMA, you can see the revenues flatten 2 years ago.
That left revenue growth essentially to the rise in the CPI, which also started declining. On the other side is the cost of staff, approximately 80% of our budget. An expense that grows exponentially unless you intend to stop the raises. It's not rocket science.
Bottom line, this issue had been in the making for some time and should have been made public along time ago, certainly before Daeschner first made it public in March or April, well after I disclosed the projections in early February. I could see it coming and I didn't even have access to the information the District had. While the District noted a while back the need for an operating referendum, no one indicated the extend of the problem.
When you combine this with the whole issue of due diligence regarding our capacity needs, i.e., what space did we have, what were the future needs, how best to satisfy them, etc., it's not about conspiracy Warriorpride, it's about professionalism and responsibility to the community. Imo, that is where the admin and Board have let everyone down.
As for that $17 million that was taken out of our back pockets without adequate explanation, i.e., higher interest costs we all have to pay as a result of 1) issuing the bonds well in advance of need and 2) issuing some at higher interest rates than those prevailing in the market place to generate a premium to the district (the proceeds of these to actions being used for the gap between the 06 referendum and the true cost of MVHS), I will simply call that disingenuous.
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Post by wvhsparent on Sept 29, 2009 8:07:23 GMT -5
Mac - refresh my memory on this 17 million you keep bringing up. You may have posted it on blue, but I don't read there anymore......
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Post by macrockett on Sept 29, 2009 12:23:35 GMT -5
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Post by gatordog on Sept 29, 2009 12:39:19 GMT -5
If financial cuts are needed:
what if we went back to half day K? In theory, if you have 13 grades K-12 and you cut one grade level in half....you could save 0.5/13 = ` 4% in teacher salaries (our biggest expense).
I believe there may be some State money shell-game stuff I dont undersatand that cuts the dollar impact to the District, i dont know.
I realize this would not be popular choice among teachers and many younger parents.
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Post by asmodeus on Sept 29, 2009 14:08:29 GMT -5
I don't think the 4% would pan out, as salaries tend to be much lower for K than for upper level elementary teachers.
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Arwen
Master Member
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Post by Arwen on Sept 29, 2009 14:54:03 GMT -5
I don't think the 4% would pan out, as salaries tend to be much lower for K than for upper level elementary teachers. I don't think that is true. Our school regularly shuffles teachers between grades (including K). I don't think we could do that if it impacted salaries.
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doc
Frosh
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Post by doc on Sept 29, 2009 15:30:46 GMT -5
trying to continue to educate and eventually persuade ( there are occasionally new posters here occasionally correct ? ) that maybe better decisions can be made if we just pay attention to facts That is wasted on some, but maybe not all..so what are you so afraid of ? If the 100 words or so are too much to handle once every month or so - skip over them- simple enough. I surely won't be offended Not so much "afraid of" as "tired of". Hindsight is 20-20, you know, and I fail to see what seeking input on financial ideas from residents has to do with a major decision, like the construction of an HS (which, BTW, was supported by a majority - I guess mistakes and facts are in the eye of the beholder). the high school was supported by the majority based on false numbers and need- backed up by scare tactics...had it been presented as it actually was it would have been defeated just as it was the year before. facts are NOT in the eyes of the beholders- they are either facts or not which of these facts is wrong:1/peak HS attendance will be 8900 not 10400 ( and even more in the NIU report). - 2/Since 10,400 in 2008 was a deception, split shifts were never going to happen 3/the high school will cost well in excess of $150M not the $124M allowed ( allowing that $8M alone was paid to secure interest bonds but not ever accounted for in the HS budget but the return interest was & $Millions spent of expediting a building known not to be crucial at best long before we started) 4/the SD had a bid/estimate for $12M to add 600 seats to NVHS those are all real facts - not imagined in any way, shape or form. you're tired of hearing about it, many of us are tired of facts being ignored and will be more tired of paying for it..with the biggest hits to come in just a few years.
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Post by justvote on Sept 29, 2009 16:15:27 GMT -5
1/peak HS attendance will be 8900 not 10400 ( and even more in the NIU report). - How can that be when there are currently 9263 students in grades 4th through 7th in the system?
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Post by warriorpride on Sept 29, 2009 22:33:11 GMT -5
Not so much "afraid of" as "tired of". Hindsight is 20-20, you know, and I fail to see what seeking input on financial ideas from residents has to do with a major decision, like the construction of an HS (which, BTW, was supported by a majority - I guess mistakes and facts are in the eye of the beholder). the high school was supported by the majority based on false numbers and need- backed up by scare tactics...had it been presented as it actually was it would have been defeated just as it was the year before. facts are NOT in the eyes of the beholders- they are either facts or not which of these facts is wrong:1/peak HS attendance will be 8900 not 10400 ( and even more in the NIU report). - 2/Since 10,400 in 2008 was a deception, split shifts were never going to happen 3/the high school will cost well in excess of $150M not the $124M allowed ( allowing that $8M alone was paid to secure interest bonds but not ever accounted for in the HS budget but the return interest was & $Millions spent of expediting a building known not to be crucial at best long before we started) 4/the SD had a bid/estimate for $12M to add 600 seats to NVHS those are all real facts - not imagined in any way, shape or form. you're tired of hearing about it, many of us are tired of facts being ignored and will be more tired of paying for it..with the biggest hits to come in just a few years. Since your 1) items is wrong, it's hard to take anything else seriously, and most of it is the broken-record, bitterness that you seem to want to steer every topic to. And, yes, I've submitted my ideas. Thanks to everyone that has, or will submit ideas.
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