D65 Board Agrees to Closed SAP3 Meetings

Current Board has overseen 📉 $20 million in reserves

District 65 Board decided to move forward with SAP3 as a closed committee of District Administrative staffers. You can view the slides presented last night here or watch the meeting here (minus the first 15 minutes or so, which are missing)

The board had a discussion on the subject and asked for monthly updates from the committee. When asked about SAP, Head of Communications Melissa Messenger added;

We received state and national recognition for the communication with SAP 1 and those are from independent people across the country and not necessarily people here.

I’ve written about these awards and you can read the FOIA’ed nomination letters (1,2,3) and even look at the woefully inadequate minutes (full list). If this is the gold standard for what good communication to the community looks like, I think we have a problem!

Board Member Hailpern commented on school closings¹;

For school consolidation, this is something where we would need to know the hopes and dreams of the broader community in a different way. That’s about what the footprint is and what the buildings are, the size, the model of schooling. I think there are a lot of districts our size with different buildings and models .. we as a board needs to know what our community wants and not just take administrative recommendations

Yet, he didn’t go so far as to suggest that the committee should be an OMA-complaint public meeting. He continued;

We are struggling with transparency and trust … I think there needs to be opportunity for people have to a view in that isn’t just getting updates from team leads … there might be focus groups .. If not, have the meetings in this room so it can be Youtubeified.

I will say, this is absolutely maddening to watch. You can get all of these things for free by holding an OMA-compliant public meeting. Having a public meeting doesn’t preclude conducting surveys, having conversations with stakeholders, or directing staff to go knock on doors. I just means holding the meetings in such a way that the public has the transparency and ability to provide input via public comment.

Board Member Soo La Kim commented expressing her support for the closed door approach;

I like this structure very much because it makes clear everyone’s roles. The District Teams are the experts in school administration, curriculum building, planning, etc. So we want to give your teams the ability to do that work you were hired to do, but with input as needed along the way. I think these monthly updates give the Board, at the balcony level, the information we need to think about progress.

I think this is a huge mistake. I wrote a letter to the Board on this subject, you can read at this link. I think it would be nice if the Board could operate at the balcony level, as she suggests, but the District has demonstrated time and time again that this is a bad idea.

Fool me once …

Budget Update - Reserves 📉

There is a lot to write about here - most of which was covered in my prior post about the Board’s surprise $10m budget shortfall. The main finding is that this Board has overseen a $20 million dollar decrease in fund reserves over the last two years alone. You can view the budget presentation here.

Just like this year, the Board ended with a surprise $10 million dollar budget deficit. This is getting dire for the District, they’re burning through the 2017 Referendum reserves very quickly. It’s hard to get a sense of exactly how much is in the reserves because the presentation includes “fund balances” and not reserves, a different form of reporting this year.

Last year, the reserves around $30 million so I suppose it’s around $20 million now but I can’t quite confirm. I’ve reached out to the District for comment along with an inquiry regarding how much of the reserves are being used for Foster School.

The Board replied with surprise and some anger at Dr. Grossi, the District’s financial consultant. He replied to a question regarding why this surprise happened, blaming the prior administration;

I just don’t think it was a great budget. This year we’re going into the fiscal year with real reductions.

I rarely defend the Board here but this shortfall was a surprise. You can look at the financial budget reports for February, March, and April - and the budget seems fine. There are definitely overages (like in temp staffing costs) but it seemed like the District would come in right around the budget- it’s not just me but you can read the Roundtable’s Analysis from 7/31, which seems equally puzzled.

In fact, you can go back to the December Finance Committee meeting² and see the District administration confirming that transportation spending is inline with the budget

Lou Gatta, Transportation Coordinator confirmed that October transportation costs are in line with spending of last year.

So to the extent that the Board was aware of any overage, it was the Administration who failed to report or indicate that there were any issues. I can’t find any indication from finance committee meetings or otherwise that they would blow out the budget. “Why wasn’t this brought up sooner?” I think is a completely fair question that got no satisfactory answer last night.

Perhaps it’s time for the Board to come down from the “balcony level” and get their hands dirty before the situation gets even worse.

Fool me twice …

1. “School Consolidation” is just the reimagining of your neighborhood schools

2. It is nice that the Finance Committee meetings are OMA-Compliant public meetings because we, the public, can actually go back and look at what was actually said, instead of what the District PR wanted us to see. This is the whole point of transparency and the board should want this - it protects them!