Park Ridge-Niles Elementary School District 64 recently issued a press release [pdf] to announce the appointment/re-appointment of 31 members to the District’s expanded “Community Finance Committee” (“CFC”).
The CFC, headed by the triumvirate of Craig Elderkin, Phil Eichman and Diana Stapleton, was formed in 2004, ostensibly to help D-64 manage its finances that were in such bad shape that they were drawing increasing scrutiny from the Illinois State Board of Education (the “ISBE”). At that time, the District’s fund balance had fallen to a critical level after being depleted by at least five years (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003) of deficit spending following the construction of the new Emerson Middle School.
In 2004, under Supt. Sally Pryor and School Board members Joe Baldi, Rich Brendza, Ares Dalianis, Christina Heyde, Dean Krone, Steve Latreille, Chris Mollett, and Sue Runyon (all of whom were hand-picked by the D-64/D-207 Caucus), the deficit spending reached almost $5 Million while the fund balance dropped to $2.66 Million – it had been over $11 Million as recently as 1999. As a result, the District landed on the ISBE’s financial “Watch” list, the worst of three undesirable designations which the ISBE applies to school districts whose finances fall below the ISBE’s “Recognition” standard for sound financial management. A copy of D-64’s 2004 “Financial Profile,” along with the ISBE’s explanation of the financial profile system, can be found by clicking here [pdf].
Since then, however, the CFC has been little more than an enabler and cheerleader for the District’s deceptive financial maneuvers. It spent its first two years on an orchestrated, Kabuki-like fact-finding and analysis of the District’s finances, before finally reporting its foreordained conclusion that the District needed to go to referendum for a big tax increase – something that should have been apparent to the D-64 Board and Administration without the charade of the CFC.
Meanwhile, in the Fall of 2005, the CFC tacitly endorsed the District’s borrowing of $5 Million in non-referendum 3-year “Working Cash Bonds” – instead of issuing the shorter-term tax anticipation warrants designed to deal with delayed tax revenues – to address the delay in the District’s receipt of its second installment of property taxes. Once those taxes were received, however, the District used them not to repay the bonds but, rather, to partially replenish the depleted fund balance.
Although that bait-and-switch tactic temporarily got the ISBE off the District’s back, it left the District with a $5 Million debt that needs to be paid off this year. And it sure makes the CFC look like just another group of tax, borrow and spenders, something D-64 has never lacked.
Frankly, we are generally skeptical of these kinds of committees because the members are not elected by the public and do not even take an oath of office to discharge their duties to the best of their ability and solely in the public’s best interest. Consequently, they tend to operate “in the shadows” with minimal accountability to the taxpayers and voters. And too often they are chosen because they are some politician’s friend/crony, or because they can be counted on to go-along-to-get-along.
We are even more skeptical of the CFC because, unlike the City of Park Ridge’s committees and commissions, it operates in even darker “shadows” than other municipal boards, committees and commissions: It does not appear to have either its meeting agendas or its meeting minutes posted on the D-64 website, or otherwise available to the community: How many Park Ridge residents even know of the existence of the CFC or can identify any of its members, much less have any idea what actually goes on at its meetings?
And while we have no clear reason at this time to question the good faith and public spiritedness of these CFC appointees, we do question how they were chosen and what special qualifications or expertise they bring to their positions – other than most of them being parents of D-64 students. Take a look at the names listed on that press release and, if you know any of them at all, ask yourself how many possess such impressive financial acumen that they deserve to be making recommendations to the D-64 Board on such important financial matters as how to manage and spend the District’s $52.6 Million 2007-08 budget [pdf]?
This also raises the specter that most of those members might be little more than rubber-stamps for whatever CFC leaders Elderkin, Eichman and Stapleton dictate, and mere conduits for whatever propaganda the D-64 Administration and Board wish to disseminate. Supt. Pryor almost admitted as much in the press release, when she stated: “The CFC has proved to be one of the best means to nurture rapport and trust with our community.” In other words, the CFC is just a public relations tool.
Hey, Sally! If you really want to “nurture rapport and trust” with the voters/taxpayers, try telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what’s going on at D-64. Start by telling us why D-64, on your watch, mismanaged itself into a full-blown financial crisis by burning through almost $7 Million of fund balance while engaging in years of irresponsible deficit spending and then jumping an extra $5 Million into debt before finally going to referendum?
While you’re working on that alibi, however, feel free to try something easier – like posting on the District’s website the agendas and minutes of the CFC, as well as the members’ qualifications and expertise that justified their appointments. That’s not much, but we realize the journey toward transparency and accountability needs to start with small steps.