Tonight begins Park Ridge-Niles School District 64’s two-week sprint towards adoption of a new budget. And, in typical District 64 fashion, the average taxpayer/voter is once again being treated like a mushroom: kept in the dark and covered with manure.
The most notable example is that, as of 7:00 a.m. this morning, D-64 still had not posted on its website any “reports” for tonight’s planned 3 hour-plus meeting to be held in the Emerson Middle School multi-purpose room. By keeping the meeting materials un-posted until the day of the meeting, the Board and administration ensures that most residents won’t have any meaningful time to review whatever materials the District may end up posting later today. Which is exactly the way this Board – and its predecessor boards, for that matter – seems to like it.
(Contrast that with the City of Park Ridge, whose materials for tonight’s meeting were posted last Friday.)
We say “3 hour-plus meeting” because the first 3 hours of the evening (from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m.) will be dedicated to a catchy-sounding “Roles, Goals and Controls” workshop, followed by a “Final Budget Presentation” starting at 9:00 p.m. For those who don’t yet understand D-64’s management tricks, these kinds of “workshops” are usually propaganda sessions – which would explain why the Board has scheduled this one for when any attendees are still wide awake, and puts off the real meat-and-potatoes part of the evening to when attendees either are heading for the exits or fatigued and half-asleep.
We can’t even begin to imagine what kind of heifer-dust will be spread over the audience by the District’s new architect-of-record, who it appears will be in charge of the session designed to: (a) “expand community understanding of the [the District’s]master plan process” for maintaining, improving and/or increasing the District’s buildings and facilities (“D64 Plans Several Budget Meetings Next Month,” Journal, 8/31/11); and (b) explain “how plans for the future needs of our school buildings will be developed” (“District 64 board to talk finances, facilities at trio of meetings,” H-A, 9/8/11).
But those hardy folks who can shovel their way through the opening 3 hours of shinola, or who choose to forego the propaganda and arrive bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the 9:00 p.m. session, may likely find themselves watching the Board tap-dance around some less-than-wonderful information in the proposed 2011-12 budget.
According to the proposed budget’s “Comparison of Expenditures by Objects,” salaries, which represent 74.8% of the Education Fund balance, are expected to increase by 5.5%, or over $2.1 million – which appears to be the product of a 2.5% overall increase (per the terms of the teachers’ 3-year contract) plus additional teachers’ “step” (and “lane”?) increases. Meanwhile, the benefits component of that same Education Fund’s expenditures is expected to increase 24.2%, or $1,153,668.
If those one-year numbers aren’t sweet enough, those increases beginning with the 2008-09 budget year are $7,010,364 in salaries (a whopping 20.43% over 2008-09) and $1,392,672 in benefits (an even more whopping 30.74%).
And that’s during the worst economic period since The Great Depression!
To help pay for these increases, the “Comparison of Revenues by Objects” projects property taxes rising by 4.4%, or $2,490,56, although total revenues for the new budget year are projected as decreasing $5,521,328 to reflect an even larger decrease in federal aid.
Interestingly, the District’s projected total expenditures are down by $2,148,333 from 2010-11: from $72,663,447 to $70,485,114.
Normally, we would applaud such a cut. This one, however, appears to an illusion because it looks to be the result of an almost $6 million decrease in “Capital Outlay” – from the almost $9 million of “actual” capital expenditures that occurred in 2010-11 to to a shade under $3 million – even as the District is again refusing to budget for the heating and cooling needs of Carpenter and Field schools.
Can you say “Fun with numbers”?
Given what we already have heard about the suspect condition of at least some of the District’s buildings and facilities, this looks and sounds almost like conscious neglect – which is one tactic for creating the kinds of crises conditions that are optimal for stampeding voters into more tax increases and/or bond issues. And more revenue for the new architect of record, of course.
The 93-page proposed budget (updated as of 9/12/11), with all its schedules and numbers, sure is a lot for the taxpayers to comprehend (or even meaningfully inquire about) over the next 7 days until the District’s “final” budget Q-and-A on September 19; and over the next 14 days until the official “public hearing” on the budget and planned Board vote to adopt it on September 26.
One of the legendary labors of the mythical Hercules was his shoveling out the Augean Stables. With no Hercules to clean up the mess that is D-64’s budget, however, that task is left to the mere mortals who pay one-third of their property taxes to the District. And, historically, they have not been up to the task – which is why the cost of D-64’s schools keeps going up while its measurable academic achievements don’t.
That means more shovelers are needed. With bigger shovels.
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