As I have posted before, there is move afoot to fund the school budget from sources other than the appropriation at Town Meeting. Specifically, the discussion is to use any remaining balance in the FY08 Reserve Fund for the school's textbook and technology needs in FY09. This idea has now reached the stage...
...where may be put to a "sense of Town Meeting" vote at the Town Meeting next week. The following is my comment to the Finance Committee on the idea of using those monies.As you all know, both the Select Board and Finance Committee have adopted policies (as recommended by the state DOR in their report last year) that one time non-recurring revenue would not be used to fund recurring expense. Here are some excerpts from the Finance Committee policy:
"It is the primary goal of the Dartmouth Finance Committee to ensure that budgets are fiscally responsible and sustainable"
"The largest problem area has been the trend of increasing reliance on one time revenues to pay for recurrent operating budgets"
"One time revenues should only be applied to: Capital improvements, property acquisitions, contributions to the stabilization fund and single year casualties"
"Budgets established in the spring town meeting should be considered to be "fully funded.""
In my opinion, the possible remainder in the Reserve Fund is not recurring revenue (Can anyone predict the amount that will remain at the end of FY09?) and the needs for books and technology in the school department is a recurring expense. While the Finance Committee is within its authority to provide these funds (assuming a request is made from the school department), I think we need to openly acknowledge that we are going to violate the policy as it now exists. Some may try to characterize this as not being the case, but I, for one, will call a spade, a spade.
Additionally, the school department has not taken steps to solve this problem within their budget. The DOE foundation budget calculation sets out a recommended spending amount for the Dartmouth schools for instructional materials and technology. The result of that calculation comes to $1.9 million dollars. Those interested can find the DOE information at this link. As far as I can determine, the school department budgets a small fraction of that amount. That is their prerogative, of course. The FY09 school budget does not adequately plan to update their instructional materials and technology while it does fund extracurricular activities, new positions, etc. Providing the Reserve Fund remainder to provide instructional materials and technology while the money needed to fund ongoing replacement of these items is spent elsewhere in the school budget is precisely the outcome that the adopted policy sought to prevent. The budget is not sustainable! Should we throw a patch at it and hope, or take steps to correct the root problem? I am for the latter. If this comes before the Town Meeting next week, I will speak against it for the reasons as stated here
As always, I welcome your feedback in comments
Friday, May 30, 2008
Robbing Peter to pay Paul
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33 comments:
Nobody is robbing Peter. Who is being robbed? Your lack of support for education on all levels amazes me. Education is not just about sitting in a class with books. Learning is about exploring all kinds of facts and areas to gain competency and to find ones gifts/talents. getting rid of sports is your suggestion? What else is extracurricular in your eyes. Spell out the specifics of what you have a problem with other than a generalization. Show students and parents your solutions, no assistant principals to deal with school safety issues? say what you will at TM, show us how much you don't support comprehensive education. Peace.
Car replacement is no different than textbook. Call it operational or recurring or whatever. This new policy usurps TM members authority, perhaps we need a lawyer.
I agree, you don't represent many of us. You represent you and your goals. think about the 4300 students for once! You aren't a stakeholder you'll claim.
You people forgot that music, languages, PE, school libraries are already cut. And we are down two school buildings and professionals. guess we can't have books or latest tech...We can have them at home or in our office but not at public school
Robbing, can you elaborate. Isn't the police dept. still getting its needs met and the DPW. They have a waste enterprise fund, plus water, sewer. They have our PAYT fees.
The taxpayers are responsible to provide an education as laid out in the General Laws. There is no requirement for the taxpayer to fund sports, band, or any EXTRA curricular activity! I have had this discussion before and I refer you to my comments following this post.
If you are concerned about the 4300 children who have not had adequate funding for their instructional materials, then you will insist that the schools provide them! Reserve fund or not, override or not. Since I have not seen a groundswell of protest that the textbook funding is not in the school budget, why the sudden insistence that the Finance Committee fund these? My problem is that the schools are not providing instructional materials to the children. That should be a priority but apparently is not. Why not?
On a personal note, my father, who was educated by Franciscans, said, "Peace" for many years when leaving someone's company. When this became popular in "hippie" usage, he stopped using the word. Peace :-)
Please follow this link to the Finance Committee policy regarding use of non recurring revenue. I think that it lays out a compelling argument as to why this is a bad idea and ultimately self defeating.
Anon 8:57pm, If you recall the most recent vote for the schools, I think Bill T. does in fact represent many people in Dartmouth.
Yes, books and technology are needs and should be a priority when the Schools do their budget. You should be talking to Dr. Russell and the S.C. for failing to fund these needs. And I'm afraid, we can't have everything! Priorities, leadership!!
Maybe they'll do a better job next year!
If the schools are already cutting everything, I guess there's nothing left but highly paid and overly compensated administrators. The school department is the only one that gets an automatic increase every year so please don't cry about other departments like the police receiving additional funds. Not only do the schools get an automatic increase that the voters have no say about, but then they keep asking for more while other areas of the town go without. Quit using the same old tired rhetoric. "You don't care about education." "lack of support for education" The lack of support is for money being spent with no sense of priorities and the mentality that the taxpayers will just have to keep coughing up more. And yes, it is robbing Peter because the money for textbooks and technology should be part of the school budget not an extra. You ask who is being robbed? The voters said no more money for the schools so by raiding the reserve fund, they are in fact robbing the taxpayers of money and the voters of their voice.
Well Michael with that analogy then the Police Department, the finance department, the DPW, general government side has robbed Peter to pay Paul to the tune of almost $400k through the use of muiltiple reserve fund transfers all year long. This to cover shortfals in their operating budgets. makes you wonder why this practice is so objectionable when considered for the schools? It's ok for some departments but not others it would appear.
As for saying no to the schools time and time again - why would parents give up on fighting for the quality of their kids education? 2 votes and its go home never to be heard from again? I doubt it. Last vote many no voters objected to the bundling of questions and stated they would have supported a text only question - why the change of heart now that that very question is being considered? I have my suspicions why but it would be much to cynical to state them so I'll keep them to myself.
Like it or not, we all knew there would be difficult years ahead and sacrifice for all. Taking from the reserve fund is also going against DOR recommendations. I think it was the Fin Com. that said Dartmouth has been robbing Peter to pay Paul for years and that is how we have gotten into trouble in the past. This is not easy and not popular, however, the schools need to budget enough for yearly replacement of some books and some technology. If they did not do this, then shame on them.
This is not fair to other groups in town who have not gotten a raise and have not received more money as the schools have.
Solutions should come from our expert school leaders in the form of budgets and priorities. Wants & needs are different.
I started paying for sports and music lessons when my children were 6 -7 years old and continued pretty much until they reached high school. I would have continued to pay if they had wanted to be in band or take part in sports. They were not in the band and only played one sport for a year. They both had part-time jobs and wanted to focus on academics. There is no MCAS test for football. Also, if a child does not obtain a certain GPA they are not even allowed to play sports.
Schools are for academics and sports are nice but they are extras.
why is it that "the Police Department, the finance department, the DPW, general government side has robbed Peter to pay Paul to the tune of almost $400k through the use of muiltiple reserve fund transfers all year long." The schools arent allowed the same luxury? If the rule applies to the school it should apply to all departments. According to the DOE(dept of Ed) there has been money budgeted every year for textbooks. The money is spent on textbooks unless like in 2006 the utilities skyrocketed , the budget was frozen, 300,000 was promised by fincomm in Feb then they sat on their hands until july 15th knowing it would be too late to buy books(money spent on utilities) or other shortfalls and the majority was returned back to the town. Thats right in 2006 the money for books was spent on heat and lights while the FinComm sat on the textbook/tech money then only delivered 240,000 of the 300,000. With political machinations like this and MNSS its no wonder we are behind in text/tech.
The reserve fund has not been robbed by the other departments of the town this year. It has been used primarily as it was intended. The transfers have been for damaged patrol cars, emergency repairs, unexpected overtime needs, added police gang patrols, veterans benefits which increased more than expected, and other things. The only item which approaches equivalence with the textbook request is the street lighting shortfall caused by the town making a mess of turning off the lights, then turning them back on after complaints. The Finance Committee took a very dim view of streetlight funding because it seemed as though it should have been anticipated and budgeted. They did not approve the entire amount initially but now reluctantly have done so. They have indicated that the budget for street lighting will be closely scrutinized to ensure that reflects a realistic appropriation in FY09. Will they take a similar approach to the textbook budget? The answer is that they can't. Only the school department can make that change. The Finance Committee has no say except to recommend one number for the entire school appropriation for FY09 or not. If the Finance Committee does approve a use of Reserve Funds from the FY08 budget for textbooks and technology and then does not see adequate funding in the school FY09 budget, I would hope that they would raise an alarm to Town Meeting that this need was not addressed, just as they have with the street light account
So what your saying is if an account runs over budget for unexpected expenses its supplemented by the reserve fund. Im sure if you looked at a history of say damaged police cars you would see a certain dollar amount as an average annual cost for damaged police cars. you can expect to pay an avarage of X per year--why isnt this budgetted? increased benefits? nobody had any idea this was coming. Unexpected overtime? why were to traffic supervisors transferred to the schooldept to weaselout of unemployment when these people could be put to work during the summer to cut down on "unexpected overtime". If the FinComm "trumpet blast" had used the reserve fund properly in 2006 when utility costs soared far above expected levels, the schools wouldnt have had to spend the text/tech portion of their budget keeping the lights and heat on while waiting for the promised funds. The funds were finally released in July which was far beyond the tech/text deadline and the Fincomm"trumpet blast" did this knowing the money would be coming right back to the town.A final thought if the schools are expected to follow their budget to the letter and anticipate future needs why arent the other depts? It seems they can submit a "budget" that could be far from accurate knowing the Fincomm"trumpet blast" will transfer the money.
What I am saying is that no one can anticipate an accident which totals two police cars, the veterans benefits are paid by the town and reimbursed 75% by the state next year (our veterans agent did a good job and identified more benefits that our veterans could receive and I believe there is a war on), snow and ice removal is a crap shoot (this is New England after all)so money is set aside there, and it is difficult to forecast if employees will take leave due to sickness or family. That is the purpose of the reserve fund, not to supplement a budget which was not adequately funded in the base appropriation. I have noted the exception of the streetlight account and the reaction of the Finance Committee to that fiasco.
And, as you say, if July is far beyond the deadline for text/tech what possible reason would there be to release funds during THIS JULY for that purpose?
Finally, the School Committee has sole authority on spending the appropriation for the schools, as well as wide latitude to transfer money for one account to the other. In fact, their authority to do so far exceeds that of the other town departments. As I see it, they have chosen not to provide text/tech to the children while funding other activities which I believe should have lower priority.
If you cant anticipate accidents totaling cars , how do insurance companies profit? by people not getting into accidents. The company puts aside a certain portion of money every year to cover claims. this is budgetted. if you look at say the last 20 years you get an average per year cost of wrecked police cars yet there's no budget item to cover the cost of the cars. This means the budget isnt properly funded in the base appropriation. The school committee doesnt have a stab or reserve fund do they? Any money left goes back to the town.What im saying is that you can predict that every number of years you need to replace wrecked cars--if you can predict it you can budget it.
Anonymous, you are obviously not a person well versed in statistics. Did you attend the Dartmouth schools? An insurance company that covers 1,000,000 cars can make a reasonable estimation of how many accidents will occur, on average, for those cars in a given period. As the sample size gets smaller, the deviation from the average time gets larger. At very low sample sizes, the deviation approaches the limits, today or twenty years from now. You, for instance, are staking your health on that deviation every time you get into your car. The sample size is one. Statistically, you could be involved in an accident. Will it be this time? There is no way to predict it for that size of sample. The same is true of a few police cars. Just as you buy insurance rather than have a cache set aside for replacing your car and your home this year, the town sets aside some money each year as insurance against the probability that there will be some sort of casualty. They don't know when each individual casualty may occur. Setting aside funds for each one individually is poor policy :)
It is very sad when we are paying a superintendent over $100,000 a year and he does not know how to budget books and technology for our kids! The School Com. is also responsible for neglecting to budget these items.
Perhaps parents will see to it that this never happens again in our schools!
Let the Fin. Com do what they like, I don't think it's a good idea and I would vote against this.
perhaps wrecked police cars was a poor choice but the cars do wear out at a reasonable consistant pace yet there's no budget item to replace them. I have a hard time believing repairs on a cruiser with 150,000 miles or replacing is an unexpected expense worthy of a reserve transfer.About the Superintendent not budgeting, I did some research at the DOE and they spend 200,000+ a year on books and Technology however they have to pay for unexpected items such as the utility increase out of their budget they dont have the luxury of the reserve fund to pay for their "wrecked cruisers"
According to my warrant, 2 police cars and one police admin vehicle are to be funded from the tax levy by vote of the Town Meeting as part of the normal budget process.
The post at the beginning of this thread says the foundation budget for our school is $1.9 million. Are you saying they spend $200,000 because the other $1.7 million is spent on lights and heat? Didn't another anonymous comment say that the Finance Committee transfered money to the school budget for utility costs? Do you need to do a little more research?
oh yes the foundation budget. the same budget that says the sped tuition is 21000 while in 07 we paid 46,000 per student.I think a more accurate depiction is located here http://finance1.doe.mass.edu/schfin/statistics/function07_detail.aspx?ID=072 it compares Dartmouth to the state in education spending. If you look at the document we are below average in almost everything except SPED spending and out of town tuition.It sure looks like their doing alot with alittle.
We can go on and on about other departments but the bottom line is the schools get an automatic increase every year. No other department does and now the schools want to raid the reserve money that is the only source of help for these other departments because of their failure to plan properly and set priorities. Please forgive the taxpayers if they have no sympathy.
There is no forgiveness for taxpayers that are being pennywise and pound foolish. The excellent educaton our kids get comes back in spades to our community. Putting that in jeopardy is just foolish by the taxpayers. I wish everyone would just wake up. Have you seen the latest report on salary comparison? There is no smoking gun here. Of course the nay sayers will find some fault with it. They can't handle the truth. It is too easy to keep complaining to try and keep our tax rate low. What do you think drew all these new people to Dartmouth in the first place. A town that took care of their most valuable resource, the children and their education. I can't wait to see everyone's reaction when the property values continue to drop and you won't be able to sell your house like you planned. Everyone will be whining about what happened. I will look to one group in town responsible for the demise, the CFRG. I think they should all get a tshirt with "CFRG supporter" on them so we use it similarly to the scarlett letter.
Michael, You took the words right out of my mouth. I guess it just depends on who screams the loudest. Maybe the police should ask for more money, or the friends of the elderly, or the library,or the people who live on streets that have not been accepted!!
The DOR said this is not a good practice! This is how we get into trouble. Even Greg L. gave a speech at last town meeting about how the town is driving off a cliff, we've been robbing Peter to pay Paul, etc. Those were his words to town meeting! Town meeting failed to accept streets because Greg L.said if we do we will have to maintain them and we can't afford it! How do you think those people feel? The schools should not be able to take from the reserve fund! We have to draw the line somewhere and it starts by following DOR recommendations. It's not easy, but it is necessary.
I wasn't planning on selling my home after my children received that wonderful Dartmouth education. Were you???
To Dartmouth is diappearing. Please, lets not resort to dramatics. Scarlet letters??? You've got to be kidding! Why is it whenever people diagree with giving the schools more money, the arguments become emotional. Talk about not being able to handle the truth. The voters have given you the truth, no more money for the schools and you can't handle it.
No one is robbing Peter? "Robbing Peter to Pay Paul" is an English idiom referring to taking money from one place to pay a debt in another place. It's the same as paying one credit card with another! Do you manage your own budget that way? What has been proposed - the use of reserve funds not used in 08 for plowing and other earmarked spending, is exactly what the DOR warned against. Those funds need to remain in the reserve fund in case of a need, an emergency, an unexpected crisis. Book and technology purchases should have been included in the School Department's budget long ago, that is, if we had competent administrators running the show and who TRULY cared for our children. This is a breach and an abridging of the Constitution and votes cast by the people in this town. It has nothing to do with "supporting education" on any level. If you have a gripe with support of education, you should point your finger squarely where it belong, Dr. Russell and the School Department. Thank you Mr. Trimble for your integrity and for watching out for us - it will only be at the time of an unexpected crisis that people will understand the value of your courage and fiscal intelligence! What the heck is going on with FinCOM? I think they are tired out and have lost their way.
Bottomline students need textbooks, we have to provide them. Peace is a jesuit term as well, who is thinkin' hippie? We are too young to have been hippies--but many jesuits taught us about compassion for the poor, as in poor students.
Dear Anonymous: poor students? what about the poor taxpayers and seniors? the "Jesuits" you speak of hold dear the belief that Godliness comes from personal reflection in an effort to rein in impulsive excesses, and seeking inner peace and spirituality by keeping people honest -- and how did you say this was applicable to Town finances? Oh yes, "keeping people honest with themselves and reining in impulsive excesses." Indeed! ...that means everyone does their job and uses only as much public funding as their budget allows - no more.
Bottomline, the students need textbooks and the schools have NOT provided them!
Poor students, you say? I think not! Look around, Dartmouth students are anything but poor!
Believe me you nothing is impulsive in town, the system of checks and balances shows we have efficiency, maybe some inefficiency because 1 person is doing 3 jobs and no one can do 3 jobs 100 percent. There is multi tasking then there is multi tasking. The students are without basics. "Look around" doesn't know what s/he is talking about. jesuits would see the honest work that is being done and support a tax increase for comprehensive services. Jesuits believe in the whole, not tearing apart parts. The whole student, the whole town hall, the whole police dept, the whole public library--wisdom will show its face and people will learn over time the losses of the past, the reality of the present and the need for future revenue for the whole. We are one family, one nation under ***
Just an observation. Every time I go into the town hall to any department, there is usually no one else there but town employees. No waiting lines. Sometimes there is one person ahead of me and I have to wait all of 5 minutes. Where else can you go that you only have to wait 5 minutes? Why are we always being told we need more town employees because our population demands it and if we don't have them, we'll have waiting lines out the door???
Good observation. I also don't understand why we don't pay more of our town bills online.This would save so much time and money.
When I go into the town hall, it is most often very quiet, no lines, no phones ringing off the wall.
Have you been to the DMV lately? Now those people are overworked!
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