There is an assumption at the Romeo School board that if you don’t attend their 6 hour pointless meetings, that your opinion doesn’t count. I am certainly hoping that our community will wake up and start to see how members of the board are sitting by idly while Romeo Community School officials mismanage millions of taxpayer dollars. In November, our opinions are all that matter.
I’ve been very vocal about the sinking fund. This bond issue, the election of which was 90% financed by the companies awarded the contract, rewards the school district with an estimated $2.3 million for building maintenance. School board officials lied to the public and lied to the press when they assured everyone that if the bond passed the items the public deemed most needed would be completed. Here we are a few months later when the checks are being written and the priorities the public identified have been ignored.
This appeared in last week’s Source newspaper:
Concerns were expressed by board members after a preliminary estimated budget for the total cost of all the projects for the next four years was released. The cost for all the projects, which the community compiled with the administration and the board, exceeded $14 million.
The sinking fund will only bring in approximately $9.2 million, or approximately $2.3 million a year. Schwark said this summer’s projects shouldn’t affect the district’s ability to complete most of the major projects on its want list. However, based on the early cost projections, she said some of the major projects for some of the buildings may not be accomplished during the next four years. (emphasis mine)
In other words… officials at the district will do whatever they want. In other words… the contractors who financed the bond election are getting to decide how to spend the $2.3 million according to their schedule!
And yet, there is no accountability.
A couple months back I posted some ways the district could save money. In fact, I was talking about saving millions and millions of dollars by making some pretty simple choices. The easiest way to save money for the district was to make minor adjustments to the health care benefits, freeze raises, and renegotiate with teaches who had an open contract. Of course, the 4 members of the board whose elections are largely paid for by the unions would have nothing of that. (Wreford, Heir, Wilson, and Murray)
Vice President Kathy Wreford said everyone involved worked very hard to make sure the teachers’ contract was fair and appropriate. link
For whom? Giving teachers $278,000 in back pay isn’t fair to the district in any way. Giving teachers a pay increase and not adjusting the cost of health care to reflect current economic conditions is not fair or appropriate. While the teachers of the district work very hard and do an excellent job, it is irresponsible to not renegotiate an open contract in what Superintendent Joe Beck calls, “these toughest of financial times.” In the same action the Board praised itself for raising the fund equity balance (rainy day fund) it also spends from it while the public nods in agreement. Brilliant!
The school board is not leading. They simply refuse to take the districts finances to a place that is “fair and appropriate” for the times we live in to benefit the students. The unions and the contractors are leading the district. (Were they on the ballot? Did you see them? No, but they wrote the checks to get what they wanted passed!) They determine how the schools will spend money, what the curriculum will be, how the buildings are maintained, and how the districts employees will be managed.
Let’s hope that brave people will be elected in November who will stand up for the children of this district and stop vowing their allegiance to a broken system.
