Geneva 304 numbers don't add up
When I ran for the board of education, I ran the numbers; its what I do as an analyst of municipal bonds, out of habit from my 30 years in the school bond underwriting and investing in bonds issued by schools and Hopsitals and you electric and water utility - I was the youngest portfolio manager in the Bond Dept at Principal Financial, and my rankings were 3/80 for my 5 year trailing returns after 10 years of competing with Fidelity, Vanguard and Pimco.Anywho - lets just say I'm a sucker for a numbers chart of rows and columns, and trying to see patterns and evaluate what a credit is worth, and should I keep or sell their debt.
So when I ran for Geneva School Board, I looked at the $85 issued for new schools of Fabyan and Williamsburg replacing Coultrap (damn shame too, that building could have been reno'd for $20 million, but after 4 years of neglect after being abandoned for 4th street admin and the ooh, new shiny, Williamsburg - we tore it down for $800 (oops again - I mean $1000,000 - those nasty 25% cost overruns due to EPA hazards - geez... mold and asbestos in a 1923 building left to rot for 4 years, I'm shocked and naturally- the pictures by the facility director at the 2012 meetings were the final blow before the "raze it" vote.
The CAFR, the official numbers of schools, had some neat stats on staffing and population somewhere after page 100.
Population 2007 23, 000; today 20000 and falling
Houses $700k is $550k, assessor home values trend since 2010 -5.7%, -3.2%, -2.8%, -1.04%
Tax rates have risen the opposite direction, plus a little more, so tax bills go up even though your house value goes down - logical, but just because I understand the goofy math, doesn't make a $200-$800 tax hike each year in that nasty May mailing easier to take. If your "ignorant" about the math, where's my bliss?
# teachers 2007 v 2013 Roughly 400 and 200 staff
kids 5962, 5963, 5923, 5867 5839 5832 5764 (see the trend? we LOST 202 kids since we built 1 net, new school. (the optimistic demographer consultant # was 20% above developers at 6600 by 2017, and 3 more blogs it would take to dig up that whole 7400 figure, "nobody recalls why, who, when, how..." - ok, save that for later)
Current projections done in 2011 now say the 2013-2016 projection
kids 5764 5741 5694 5630 (another 134 lost kids).
Taxpaers are paying $50 mil more than they used to, the 2011 levy will produce another $2mil in surplus according to the 2013 budget just passed a few weeks ago, the higher levy approved fall 2012, will produce a fiscal year 2014 budget with a 1.9 mill surplus.
Gee whiz, the numbers the district gave William Blair to put into plans/projections to "save us money on the rising debt service" are coming right out of the education fund surpluses expected to be $28 million of overtaxing before our expenditures to pay the ever rising debt service - are we really still going to buy into this rob Peter to pay Paul story? Its getting old, and still be presented in foggy reports and spreadsheets from that lousy PMA software that Donna is stuck with. (Oh no - a third blog to write?)
So if staff and teachers count are the same, even with salary bumps in that 70% of the budget, why is the education expendure line skyrocketing ? and Its going up way more that you think each year, the past 5 years - I mean the teachers aren't getting 7%+ raises - heck even some of the 30-40 year service people are retiring with nice $!00k end of service levels being replaced at $40-$60k level next generation teachers - so that cuts average salaries - meaning that the increase in the base pays may be growing 8-10%. EXCEPT, the average teacher isn't getting 8% raises - in face we froze the step and lane, while giving the Super a 9% raise.
Oh, and added staff to man the classrooms for in-class evaluations that are now mandated, and common core creation (well, not really, the math teachers put a lot of their own time and made own-time presentations to all the grade schools - great content and on a shoe-string budget to pull it off). The new computer enhanced collaboration time every thursday morning, will about $375k of new tech to help network - that was done with a wise checkbook).
So kudos to the teachers for being frugal, the one bright spot I've found. Kelly said we spent less than budget for an every increasing budget - huh? We raised the budget expenditure budget a $100, we spend $90, so we saved you $10 bucks? Um, sorry... you cost me $90 more in taxes, you didn't save. New math my a$$, you just tried to fool me. Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice shame on me, try to fool all of us - write some blogs until I correct all the "miscommunication".
I'm realizing this will take a few blogs to debrief you all on what I learned at the past 3 board meetings all focused on budgets, levy and debt plans. Lots of misdirection and attempts to vilify public comments - seems like politics has reached 304 and anyone speaking or writing uncomfortable truths, clarifications, or downright uncomfortable numbers gets targeted to be discredited.
ok, the final kicker in my list of numbers was the education expenditures when we had no new students, teacher or staff counts - how many checks did we write
2007-2013. Ready?....in Millions
43, 46, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56 (that's a 56/43=30% increase)
Do you see Kelly's 7.5 million in savings - see the 10/28 video. Me neither.
Perhaps we spent $1 less per year - ok, here goes
42, 45 ,48, 49, 51, 54, 55 (that's a 31% increase)
So we spend 3+6+7+9+12+13 = $50 million more in budget (oops, less kelly's 7.5 actual v. budget "savings - but that's a later blog!), but its still a ton more money when you realize our staff, teachers and student count is the same at 6000, at the beginning and the end of that period.
So - if you hear something, remember the numbers above.
attend meetings and be vocal when statements clash with these numbers.
The board has been creating a fog, that say we don't "get it", school management, budgets, taxes and policy writing is beyond the average audience/tax/parent level of brains - well I think there are some pretty wise "uninformed" folks among the other 19993 of Geneva Residents. We need more than 5,10 or 50 to show up to board meetings - wear viking blue or black friday t-shirts if you want.
What color shirt would symbol overspending and foggy "savings"? Red & gray?
Dan Garrett, loser by 19 votes to Bill Wilson, April 2013
I guess I have 4 more blogs to write, at least.
He who has ears to hear - post a comment please. Its nice to hear feedback, pos or neg, lets get this stuff understood and fixed - we aren't getting what we want or need from our elected school board at the moment.
