To contextualize our underspending on teacher salaries, a few things really jumped out at me on their slides. The first was the accelerated deterioration of their fund balance in the "Fund Balance Projections" slide. The last two years the balance has gone down by $7.9M and this year $8.5M. Their projection for '25 is a $13.6M reduction …
To contextualize our underspending on teacher salaries, a few things really jumped out at me on their slides. The first was the accelerated deterioration of their fund balance in the "Fund Balance Projections" slide. The last two years the balance has gone down by $7.9M and this year $8.5M. Their projection for '25 is a $13.6M reduction which this plan seeks to address with $13.2M in proposed savings, mostly by taking a hatchet to our teachers. Most alarming, however, are the projected losses of $19M in FY26, $24M om FY27 and $28M in FY28. And we know these guys always manage to misspend more than they project by about $10M/yr. To make matters worse, the bottom of the slide notes, "Represents all funds EXCEPT Debt Service and Capital Projects". That is, this is before counting the impact of Foster School Spending, which I would submit is being greatly underestimated. If they consistently miss their budget targets by $10M on school operations, an area they theoretically should be experts in, what's going to happen with construction overruns? This is known area of risk even for firms with deep expertise which D65, by their own admission, is not:
My guess is the annual burn on the Foster school will be at least $5M, not the $3.2M they're projecting. This basically is a 50% adder to their current annual deficit rate. The notion that the Foster school construction can't be stopped is effectively saying we can't save the projected $50M (at today's forecast) because we already spent $3M. Huh, seems like a pretty easy $50M savings for a District that's already $288M in the whole in debt and deferred maintenance. Simply put, they're going to balance this on the backs of the teachers, students and an inevitable referendum, ahem, that's the rest of us. I wonder how much of a pay raise Administration will treat themselves to for all this?
Yeah those numbers were shocking to even me. Like, suppose they find a way to not lose $13.6m this year (we're already halfway through the year??) through some miracle. You're still staring down another -$6 million next year and then another -$6 million the year after on top of that. They have until mid-January to get a referendum on the ballot and it almost seems like they *have* to at this point? Like - it's a hail mary but looking at their "fund balance" slide - it sure seems like they will be literally out of money by mid fiscal year 2026.
They can’t balance this on the backs of the rest of us if we vote and vote no. Why would you willingly give money to a district who proves they can’t spend it wisely?
To contextualize our underspending on teacher salaries, a few things really jumped out at me on their slides. The first was the accelerated deterioration of their fund balance in the "Fund Balance Projections" slide. The last two years the balance has gone down by $7.9M and this year $8.5M. Their projection for '25 is a $13.6M reduction which this plan seeks to address with $13.2M in proposed savings, mostly by taking a hatchet to our teachers. Most alarming, however, are the projected losses of $19M in FY26, $24M om FY27 and $28M in FY28. And we know these guys always manage to misspend more than they project by about $10M/yr. To make matters worse, the bottom of the slide notes, "Represents all funds EXCEPT Debt Service and Capital Projects". That is, this is before counting the impact of Foster School Spending, which I would submit is being greatly underestimated. If they consistently miss their budget targets by $10M on school operations, an area they theoretically should be experts in, what's going to happen with construction overruns? This is known area of risk even for firms with deep expertise which D65, by their own admission, is not:
https://solvepmproblems.com/change-order-best-practices-what-contractors-clients-need-to-know/
My guess is the annual burn on the Foster school will be at least $5M, not the $3.2M they're projecting. This basically is a 50% adder to their current annual deficit rate. The notion that the Foster school construction can't be stopped is effectively saying we can't save the projected $50M (at today's forecast) because we already spent $3M. Huh, seems like a pretty easy $50M savings for a District that's already $288M in the whole in debt and deferred maintenance. Simply put, they're going to balance this on the backs of the teachers, students and an inevitable referendum, ahem, that's the rest of us. I wonder how much of a pay raise Administration will treat themselves to for all this?
Yeah those numbers were shocking to even me. Like, suppose they find a way to not lose $13.6m this year (we're already halfway through the year??) through some miracle. You're still staring down another -$6 million next year and then another -$6 million the year after on top of that. They have until mid-January to get a referendum on the ballot and it almost seems like they *have* to at this point? Like - it's a hail mary but looking at their "fund balance" slide - it sure seems like they will be literally out of money by mid fiscal year 2026.
They can’t balance this on the backs of the rest of us if we vote and vote no. Why would you willingly give money to a district who proves they can’t spend it wisely?