The '10% Solution' is No Cure for NSSD 112's Disease: Letter

The following letter was written and submitted to Patch by Robert T. Bernat.

At its core the disease confronting North Shore School District 112 is one of excessive expenditures not insufficient revenue. The District has spent our money over the years in a profligate manner and now wants hundreds of millions of dollars more for a single, gigantic and poorly located middle school. We did not find ourselves in this mess by failing to extract enough tax revenue out of the pockets of District residents.

Rather, for years multiple School Boards and administrative personnel have overspent on the 90% of the budget not attributable to facilities while allowing the District’s buildings - which account for only 10% of the budget - to deteriorate by deferring maintenance.

They are now betting that a massive Referendum, the size of which is unprecedented in the history of Illinois, will allow them to reduce annual facilities’ expenditures through new construction so they can continue spending unabated on the 90% of the budget represented by salaries, benefits and other expenses. They are trying to convince you that a 10% tail can wag a 90% dog.

The Board and its Administration propose spending almost $200 million in an attempt to find economies of scale and theoretically reduce District costs. But despite their claim of fiscal crisis, their spending habit continues. Below are just a few recent examples:

 Since 2003 District student enrollment has declined by hundreds of students, a decline that the District projects will continue, yet the number of District employees has increased;

 The District wants to spend $200,000,00.00 of our money but refuses an external evaluation of all District finances. Yet, the Administration just spent $72,000.00 for a Special Education consultant to evaluate in part whether the District should reenter the North Shore Special Education District which annually costs less than 1% of the proposed Referendum;

 It continues to spend $12,000.00 per month for Jasculca Terman and Associates, a communications firm (read PR firm), engaged by the District to communicate its message (read lobby) on the Referendum. But the District already has a Director of School-Community Relations. On an annualized basis the District’s communication budget comes to at least $239,680.00 per year.

 Moreover, the most egregious wastage has occurred in payments to the architecture firm Nagle Hartray, multiple traffic studies, ancillary services, and administrative time spent on the Referendum. Thus far in 2014-15, District 112 has paid over $1,000,000 for such services.

It is disingenuous for the District to claim “fiscal crisis” when it is writing enormous discretionary checks with our money. The District Administration and Board have created a culture of insatiable spending using our checkbooks. In these crucial times, our District should be doing more with less, but it is clear they are doing less with more.

No one is saying that we should keep open the current number of schools especially in the face of a declining school age population. Moreover, no one is saying that all construction is unnecessary, merely that requisite maintenance and any new construction can be accomplished for tens of millions of dollars less than what the community is being told is required.

Dan Littmann’s article entitled “‘Budgetary Risks’ Associated with District’s 112’s Reconfiguration Plan: Letter”, which appeared in the Highland Park Patch dated November 12, 2015 was accurate, well-reasoned and prescient. He should be complimented for such an article and praised for his courage to speak truth to power. Littmann’s analysis makes it clear that rather than being of benefit to the community the proposed Referendum will be financially damaging. Furthermore, the proposed construction of the mega middle school is antithetical to the neighborhood school culture of the community which has been so successful for generations of our students. Neighborhood schools are not nostalgia; they are sound educational policy.

I served on both the Superintendent’s Citizen Finance and Facilities Advisory Committee (SCFFAC) with Dan Littmann as well as its predecessor, the Superintendent’s Citizen Finance Advisory Committee (SCFAC). Both Committees were to provide community guidance to then Superintendent David Behlow and from him to the School Board. It is unfortunate that despite the fact that the word “Finance” was contained in both titles, the processes of both the original SCFAC and the SCFFAC were made myopic by the Administration as members of each were allowed to examine financials of the District only as they relate to the 10% of the budget attributable to facilities’ costs. Committee members were barred from analyzing the remaining 90% of the District’s budget.

By its own admission the District’s Administration has expended an unprecedented amount of time and effort in pursuit of the Referendum. We would be better served if the Administrators would perform their job descriptions and focus upon the education of the District’s children rather than expend countless hours, equating to hundreds of thousands of dollars, on the Referendum and related issues. They have become political campaign operatives and construction managers rather than educators.

It is appalling that the District would have us believe that the sole solution to a problem of its own making is to waste even more money. Moreover, they are going against the recommendations of the SCFFAC which the District itself formed for community input.

Eventually spendthrift government entities such as NSSD 112 run out of other peoples’ money.

We must stop this madness and restore fiscal sanity. A community altering-single middle school in a Referendum of hundreds of millions of dollars is absolutely not the way to do it. We do not need new buildings, we need new leadership.

Robert T. Bernat

Member of the NSSD 112 Superintendent’s Citizen Finance Advisory Committee (SCFAC), 2012, Township High School District 113 Finance/Cost Analysis/Budget Development/Cost Estimating Study Group, 2011-13, Member of the NSSD Superintendent’s Citizen Finance and Facilities Advisory Committee (SCFFAC), 2012-Present, Member of the NSSD 112 Superintendent’s School Safety and Security Task Force, 2013-Present, Member of the State of Illinois School Security and Standards Task Force, 2015-Present.