The question everyone seems to be asking is “Why does our Kenai Peninsula Borough School District have so much money left over at the end of every fiscal year?  And it appears to be a pretty good question, one that Borough Taxpayers need to be concerned about.

Here is the way the system works. The School District Superintendent and the Central Office staff is supposed to plan ahead for the next school year and determine just what monies they will need to fund all their various systems to provide the best education for our kids. Then they have three choices.  The budget request they present to the School Board can either reflect their needs, wants or wishes.

It is only natural and human for the School District Central Office Staff to request a “wants and wishes” budget, because in the back of the Superintendent’s mind is the question “What if somebody cuts our budget request?” So, you plan for that with a budget requesting much more money than you really need.  Historically, in our School District that is a proven fact.

Then the our elected School Board is supposed to make sure that taxpayers are not over-charged and that only the real legitimate needs of the School District are met in the budget. The only problem there is that for many years our elected School Board has just “rubber stamped” the School Districts budget request and sent it on to the Borough Assembly recommending approval of far more money that is really needed. That’s why our cost per student is soared to $4,943.00 per student, one of the highest in the state.

Then the buck is really supposed to stop at the Borough Assembly who are the taxpayers only hope of making sure only funds actually needed by the District are funded and that all the “wants and wishes” dollars in the budget are cut. That is the way it worked for many years.  Now, for the last several years the Borough Assembly has also been nothing more than a “rubber stamp” giving the School Board and School District far more dollars than they need and in fact always funding  the “wants and wishes” budget requests from the School Board.

In 2007 you as a taxpayer funded our school district with far more money than they needed and almost $5 million was left over and NOT spent.  In 2008 taxpayers fully funded a wants and wishes budget with almost $6 million left over and NOT spent.  In 2009 taxpayers fully funded another wants and wishes budget request and almost $1.8 million was left over and NOT spent. That is over $12 million left over and NOT spent. No one knows how much excess money the School District will have left over in the 2010 budget because they have until July 1^st but money is being transferred everywhere in their budget, where no expenditures are planned. In addition the School District received at least $9 million in Obama stimulus funds maybe more. Right now money is stashed everywhere.

The School Board was meant to be a check and balance on the School District Central Office and make sure they approve a “needs only” budget for presentation to the Assembly. They have not done that and the School Board’s recent approval of a new fund balance policy is just not good enough.

The Assembly has no line item control in that budget but knowing that the School District and probably the School Board will request as much as they can get,  the Assembly is the only and final line to make sure taxpayers are paying for a needs only budget and to cut it accordingly as needed each and every year.

It is obvious that neither of our elected bodies the School Board or the Borough Assembly have been the taxpayers watch dog that they were elected to be, and they have let us down. Immediate changes must be demanded and made by Borough taxpayers.

Think About It!      JCD 4/14/2010

Filed under: Think About It by Admin