When I was elected to the school board in April of 2005, the overall sentiment of my constituents was as clear as it is today.  The people of eastern Racine County want to help the Racine Unified School District, and they want better education for their children, but have little faith the district is capable of doing so based on poor decisions and unwise use of the taxpayer dollars they have received in the past.  Not much has changed as I talk to people in my community.

This time around, three separate questions will be on the ballot for a total $128 million, and while some of the ideas of the referendum, especially in the building portion, have merit, I am reminded of the famous Ronald Reagan quote, “Trust, but verify.”  The problem I keep coming back to is trust.  The basis of this lack of trust comes for me, two-fold; the last referenda dollars were not spent as originally intended and the blunders in planning on the new Administrative Service Center. 

The last referendum for building and maintenance laid out specific details of where those dollars were going to be spent, and our community passed the referendum based on those specific details.  We were told by the school board and administration that no dollars would be spent on any other projects.  We were told the process would be transparent on how they were doing on each project so that we could indeed verify the process.  Both the school board and the administration failed on both accounts when after spending referendum dollars on non-referendum items, they begrudgingly admitted that there were dollars spent on other projects not outlined in the referendum.  We trusted, and they didn’t deliver.

Last summer, it was announced that the Administrative Service Center, Central Office, would be moved from its current location to the former Surgitek complex.  The planning was so poor, that the administration did not account for the space needed to house all the staff.  They bought the building for higher than its fair market value, and plan on selling the existing central office for far less, without an appraisal on either property.  After speaking with Chief Financial Officer David Hazen last week, that a lot of the move will be done over the summer, as well as renovations, by RUSD staff, yet when I asked if those hours could be tracked to reflect the true project cost, I was told that they have no way of showing those hours.  Really?  Job tracking is done all the time in the private sector.  We will have no way to verify true expenses under that scenario.

Yes, economic times are reason enough not to support this, but we have been given good reason not to trust RUSD with more taxpayer dollars.  There are good projects that individually, could be supported.  Project by project, we could trust and verify, much like Kenosha did before coming forth with such an ambitious plan.  Again, as with much of RUSD’s planning, the main issue addressed is elementary education when it is our secondary education that is suffering the most. 

But that is only one question.  The others can be addressed in much the same way.  We have a central office staff of nearly 250 people when just three years ago, the number was closer to 110.  How does that educate our children?  We have a Superintendent, a Deputy Superintendent, and three Area Superintendents.  A little redundant?  We have overlap after overlap in administration and many in the system have no idea what their functions are.  We hear little, if anything, about cutting from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Finally, the last question deals with the fund balance, or by definition, a reserve balance to cover shortfalls that may occur to other budgetary funds, in the event of an emergency.  Many lenders and lending accreditors use this as a measurement can determine the credit rating our borrowing rating based on how much is in the fund balance.  When I left the board in 2008, we had a fund balance of approximately $8 million and had written into policy that at least $1 million of each year’s budget be placed into the fund balance.  My last check, the fund balance is currently $25 million.  While not perfect, or even great, it is still a pretty substantial amount and can survive on it’s own based on board policy.

The plan itself is flawed if you are talking about need versus want.  Walden is crumbling, yet not addressed.  Janes was built somewhere around the time Lincoln was president, yet we want to level and rebuild Wind Point that is nearly a third the age.  The board and administration said that this will help them redistrict, yet by redistricting first, they would better be able to determine their true needs.   And what about compliance with federal law by not busing based on color?  These are all serious issues that need to be addressed on the front end of any major capital improvement plan.

I worry about the failure of delivery on such an ambitious plan when small ones haven’t been demonstrated to be successful.  It is school board after school board that has put us in this position by failing to address these needs in a manner that they could be successful.  Maybe the board needs to go to administration with Reagan’s,” Trust but verify” philosophy.  Maybe then, we can start having enough faith that our money will finally be spent wisely.  Until that happens, my answer is no to all three.