A Key West reply to yesterday’s Pearl Harbor school stuff post.
Hi Sloan,
I should study the whole school board budget before speaking, but, not today.
While reading your morning piece it occurred to me that maybe the best move, all things considered, would be to shift the entire one mil capital figure to operating, until such time as the real estate market returns to its past level of robustness. It’s one thing to let the capital budget run wild when times are incredibly good and house prices increase at over 20% a year. But that stopped, what, five years ago?
All indications are that the national economy will take many budget cycles to return to normal. Some experts are even predicting another crash before that happy return occurs, pushing ‘normalcy’ even further out into the future. Since Monroe County has just built a string of brand new schools from HOB to Key Largo, shouldn’t the capital budget now be limited to paying off those projects? Does the county really need to incur more debt while the country is still bogged down in a major recession?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on the school system’s daily reality? The school board should now be more focused on maintaining student programs and teacher retention. To slash and burn in the name of fiscal sobriety will wipe out years of individual staff effforts in recent years that have materially improved the academic environment for students in Monroe county.
It’s worth exploring whether or not capital expense budget should, for now, be suspended.
Shouldn’t the central, unifying core of the school board’s thinking revolve around students and teachers?
They’re the players. The structures are only props.
thanks,
Paul
Hi, Paul.
Yep, the economic future, national, state, local, don’t look too thrilling for a while.
Studying the whole school board budget could cause serious medical, emotional, spiritual pathology, which maybe is why I never got around to it. I’m having a seriously difficult time understanding what Stuart Kessler has been writing to me lately about the numbers, it’s all formulas and funds, and what I, an admitted idiot, can understand is revenue comes in and spending goes out, and if there is a negative balance, either not enough revenue coming in, or too much spending going out, or both.
Perhaps the whole 1 mil could be shifted to the operating fund side, not sure about legal restrictions, but if legally okay, I think it would take a referendum. Not sure best thing, though, givien spendthrift history of this school district. Also, talking with John Dick, Andy Griffiths, Steve Pribramsky, attending school board and audi & finance committee meetings, I see there remains a need for a capital fund, and that will increase if the referendum does not pass and the school district scrambles to use the capital fund, where it’s legal to do so, to mitigate the loss of $9.8 million in revenue this fiscal school year.
The school district has lots of debt. The capital fund can be used to retire debt that can be paid off early. For debt that cannot be paid off early, a sinking fund can be created. Interest on debt is paid by the capital fund. School buses are bought from the capital fund. School rehab is paid from the capital fund. If the school district consolidates its offices in Marathon, which will produce operating cost savings, that will be paid by the capital fund. But yes, can’t see any new schools being built in the next long while.
The school district incurred maybe $35 million in debt, as I recall, for the new Horace O’Bryant 1-8 (?), but that was a special loan with the interest mostly waived, part of the federal stimulus program. The old HOB middle school was in terrible shape, needed to be replaced. The Glynn Archer elementary students moving to the new HOB will free Glyn Archer for disposal. Right now, it’s looking like the school district will give Glynn Archer to Key West for its new city hall. I suppose that will reduce the capital fund by the value of Glynn Archer.
I think the school district should put its Trumbo Point asset, its administrative offices, up for sale – prime waterfront, could get a good price, all as part of centralizing administrative and other school offices in Marathon. Plenty of room in Marathon High School and other school district assets up there, I have heard, to accommodate that. The squeals would be loud, though.
Yes, the theachers and children should come first, and the school district needs to do all possible not to stress the teachers and children further. Good luck with that, if the referendum doesn’t pass. However, I agree with Larry Murray and Stuart Kessler, and was hearing plenty about it from Todd German before I got to know Larry and Stuart. There still is lots of fat in the school district that needs to be cut. Progress has been made under John Dick’s pressure, along with Steve Pribramsky’s help when he was still on the school board, but there’s still plenty of fat left, considering this down economy and need to cut back, and there will be plenty of squealing, and that’s if the referendum passes. If the referendum doesn’t pass, there will be more than just squealing.
I have this other problem which so far seems not to do with money so much as with goal, method, effect of teaching children. I see the present model, which is geared toward college prep, as seriously misguided. Sure, some students really need that approach, but most students, probably 90 percent, need a curriculum that prepares them to get on with life after graduating from high school. I am convinced this needs to be addressed, but given how entrenched American education is toward college prep, I imagine I’m just flapping my gums talking about it, even though, as far as I know, all other “civilized” countries, and I suppose the “uncivilized” countries, too, use the approach I think America and the Keys need to take.
I dunno. Perhaps as times keep pressure on American schools, colleges, parents and children and teachers and school administrators will develop a different view of what children need to be taught in K-12. I might not be around when/if it comes to pass, but I feel it is the better course. Perhaps heresy, given the number of college degrees I have – 3. But that’s how I see it.
Sloan
I’m hearing the farther up the Keys you go, the madder people are at John Dick for saying he’s in favor of giving Glynn Archer Elementary School to Key West. Somebody told me yesterday that was really uncool for John to say that before the referendum. School district finances are seriously complicated. The average person wonders, “If the school district can afford to give a way a several million dollar asset, why is asking me to vote for the referendum?” An answer is, capital assets and operating funds cannot be comingled, meaning, even if the school district sold Glynn Archer for its fair value, the proceeds could not be used for operating expenses. But the proceeds could be used for capital expenses, so the average person would say, “Cut the capital fund millage.”
I told the school board members and superintendent at the last board meeting in Key West that they needed to go ahead and make the perhaps $4-6 million in budget cuts which were going to have to be made even if the referendum passed, to show the voters the school district’s good faith. I told people yesterday that the school board and superintendent not doing that already is incomprehensible to me, and reckless and stupid. And if the referendum fails, the children, their parents and the teachers should send their thank you notes to the school board and superintendent. Dead fish, or letter bombs, might not be out of order, either.
I got a really loud protest from Stuart Kessler, Chairman of the Audit & Finance Committee, for my saying that dead fish, or letter bombs, thing about him, AFC member Larry Murray and school board member Robin Smith-Martin, even if jokingly, in yesterday’s post. When I told Todd German of Stuart’s reaction, Todd sounded flabbergasted, said it obviously was a joke. It’s still a joke. But what Stuart, Larry and Robin are doing is no joke. They are trying to defeat the .5 mil for school operations referendum by telling the public there could be a tax cut if they defeat the referendum at the polls. If those three kamikaze pilots get their way, the children, their parents and the teachers are really going to be hurt. Todd told me yesterday, the good teachers and school staff, who can get jobs elsewhere, will leave the sinking ship and the school district will be left with teachers and staff the school district doesn’t want.
I usually can be reached at keysmyhome@hotmail.com, but this idiot with a B.A. in economics and a law degree and a tax law degree is in an accounting workshop trying to figure out why so much conversation occurs at school board and audit & finance committee meetings about the funding help, or lack thereof, the school district gets from Tallahassee, when the state only provides 5 percent, or so, of the school district’s operating funds, and the the other 95 percent is come up with locally. I’m also trying to get a better grip on a few other things idiots like me don’t understand when explained in accountantese, instead of humanese.
