During budget times Mr. Johnson would put up nice slides on the budget and celebrate the fund balance as a prized golden egg. The district boasts no cost of programs when grants are provided or extra funding from other sources. So then they use fund money to add more staff or do other things that are not necessarily justified or give higher salaries to upper management. While things change when school starts and adjustments are made, not once have we seen a true balanced budget that account for what is needed. Talking about tying the budget to action items on the District Improvement Plan is a farce because they don't. Just look at the many amendments made throughout the year that are voted on without much discussion and so they find another way to circumvent the entire process and not have to feel accountable to anyone.
Now we have here the 39 Million dollars to pay back to the state for lack of oversight and they say that the fund balance will pay for it and then they add extra hiring of people, extra this or that, plus the millions lost in technology equipment. We have no one on the board that can truly speak numbers and know exactly how to balance or at least attempt to close the spending on salaries that are unjustified and make no direct impact on student achievement. If anyone in the district has a chart that shows how the increase of salary impacted the classroom then we are sold. We hear that we need to be competitive and offer the best salary but we do not hear anything about commitment, it's all about the money. Someone who is truly serious about making an impact will do so regardless. This just means that when we are competitive is between upper management to see how much they can get, nothing to do with helping in the classrooms.
Sutherland makes a major point that we are looking inside the box and not looking beyond what may come. We are not preparing ourselves for another budget crisis nor are we being intentional about making sure that there is no disruption in the classroom because the first to go are teachers. So now tell me how a raise to Hank Johnson made an impact on where we are, none, because we have no oversight of anything, just blame the computer. Always a blame on someone else and not on the very people that like to give themselves titles and not produce a thing. Tell me who in upper management ever brought a school to a high level of achievement?
Our elected officials need to make sure they don't get caught up with loss of revenue on their watch. Parading ourselves as saviors of the district means nothing when the actual work is not being done.
http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/08/04/6018330/school-budget-figures-need-another.html
http://www.sutherlandforschools.org/Blog.html?entry=time-to-amend-the-budget
