A SouthDaCola foot soldier informed me today that my letter made the dead tree version of our local paper (but I can’t find it online) so I have it below. But he told me that after working for the SFSD that their is incredible administrative waste and there should be an audit.
I wonder when the last time the School District was externally audited?
My letter;
We have NO choice but to build new schools. But if we borrow the entire $190 million we will pay up to $110 million in interest over the life of the loan. That is $110 Million to bond investors, NOT education.
The school district has presented NO plan on early payoff and no fiscal plan on staffing the new schools. They also have NO plan to end open enrollment which has created segregation, NO plan for redistricting until after the new facilities are built and NO idea where the new schools will be located.
Some members of the Envision task force that organized this bond vote have significant conflicts of interest in financial and technical contracts with the District.
The District has already spent thousands on a push poll survey postcard and Ignite Newsletter. It is a possible violation of state campaign rules using tax dollars to promote a bond issue.
The 13 precinct vote centers election mostly in the southern part of the district is also troublesome. The election should be held with the general in November. Not only would it make it more convenient, cost less, have a higher voter turnout and use all the precincts it would also be electronically documented. The E-Poll books being used for the vote center special election failed during the statewide primaries. If not working properly there could be repeat votes and NO way of tracking them since we are hand tabulating the vote.
There is a better way.
I suggest we borrow only $100 million and pay for the future facilities through the capital outlay over time. The District’s finance department said they couldn’t ‘trust’ Pierre regulating levees. The Sioux Falls School district spends thousands lobbying our State Legislature. They need to do a better job. Either plan will raise our taxes, but I believe this alternative plan will put more of our tax dollars towards the projects and less to bond investors. VOTE NO on September 18 and tell the school district to go back to the drawing board with a fiscally responsible plan.
It just seems there’s to much money headed toward undefined dreams. The school district needs an allowance, not a windfall. If I had school age kids, considering the district’s arrogance, I’d move to a neighboring suburb where there’s more control and better education for the buck.
Not only that, but I would like the City, County, and School District to identify the windfall that they will soon be receiving, due to hyper inflated housing values from the last couple of years (for median priced homes that is), and how they plan to use those monies to offset the costs of any new projects and or inflationary costs for routine expenditures. Because this is only fair considering that wages in this town are not keeping up with the cost of housing and property taxes in this town.
Back in the late 1970s, conservatives coined a term called “bracket creep” where inflationary increases in wages were causing taxpayers to walk into a higher tax bracket with the brackets not being adjusted for inflation. In essence, we have something similar here except without the wage increases, where our home values are going up, and thus our taxes, while our political leaders claim our taxes have not gone up (in a percentage sense), but they have in reality….
#WhatAreYouDoingWithTheWindfall?
Great letter Scott. Truth to power. Sad part is, the vernon browns of SF have timed LTE’s for 3 a day til election day. The truth of this scam will not be known until it is far, far too late.
If you want to hear just how vague their plans are for the 40m in extra projects listen to the Board work sessions that took place this summer.
Pay close attention to what Jeff Kreiter, Director of Operational Services and Todd Vik, Business Manager tell the Board.
and the Argus (Liar)- as we so fondly refer to them at our house will print them right on schedule; let’s hope they have the same influence of the Jo Letch letters
Here is the independent audit you’re looking for:
http://www.sf.k12.sd.us/our-district/finance-office/audit-reports
MP – First off, I was talking about an independent forensic audit, and as you have shown, there hasn’t been one in 4 years. Not good when you are looking to borrow $190 million.
Scott – I don’t know what website you visited, but anyone that looks at the link I can posted shows the most recent audit was completed for the fiscal year ending August, 2017. Since year end books take a month or so to close out and audits can take a couple of months, you would normally expect to see a FY2018 audit in October of November. The districts is up to date in their audits and they were done by a national, respected accounting firm.
When an organization like RSM does an audit, they look at everything-bank statements, financial controls, accounting practices, everything. If there was the alleged mismanagement of anything improper financially done by the district, it would show up in RSM’s audits.
I will be voting yes. Thank you Matt for the link.
Is it a financial statement review or a real certified audit
there are a lot of places that have had audits only to find money missing or misused; look at the disclaimers the auditors make; as to whether money is being wasted just look at the number of people working at IPC or read today’s headline about yoga instruction for our poor, stressed out students
Bruce – The purpose of an audit is to determine if an organization’s financial statements are accurate. A “real certified audit” is a financial statement review.
I’ve been watching the so called audits for several years and find every one of them lacking. Financial audit standards have changed for the worse in the last several years. When I discuss a Certified Audit it is a full audit of the operation, looking into all facets of the organization. The current standard to review the balance sheet to see if there were addition / subtraction errors tell me nothing.
We have seen how worthless the current auditing processes find nothing amiss, kind of like the South Dakota ethics laws. The rule is, don’t look there so we don’t have to answer the questions.
40 million for a new jail, 120 million for a new Events Center, a new swim center, a new city hall, a new parking ramp, a new training center, and hell, why not throw in some fire stations and a few new schools!? Its only taxpayer money! Who cares!
Another classic move from the South DaCola playbook.
#1. Insist that we should only do “X†if we do “Y†first. No one outside of your small cadre of politicos is asking for “Yâ€, but insist that’s what SHOULD be done based off your experience (?) and knowledge (?) of political issues.
#2. Then when someone shows you that “Y†is already being done or is totally irrelevant to the matter at hand, you (A) move the goal posts and say that’s not good enough or (B) deflect without admitting you were wrong and point to another argument against “X†not related to your original reasoning.
I don’t know, the deal breaker for me is the fact that our Superintendent’s son is going to play for the Cowboys now…. THE COWBOYS?…… I know some call them “America’s Team,” but to me they will always be “Jerry Jones’ Team,” or “JR’s team,” or even worse, “Lee Harvey’s Team”….. THE COWBOYS?….. What the…… I haven’t been so upset since the day Billie picked Michelle (Actually she is a fine woman, but I still don’t think she’s a Democrat.)….. The only redeeming quality of the Cowboys is their cheerleaders, but that is still not enough… And if the Opt-Out passes, I guess we will have to wait until later to findout about the true redistricting, which will be like the time we had to wait to find out “who shot ‘JR'”…… Or, how about the time that “Bobby” came back to life; that would be analogous to the elite still having underpopulated schools after the Opt-Out vote, wouldn’t it?
Also, it’s bad enough that redistricting is planned after the vote, that they are still using “‘Convenient’ Super Precincts,” or that the District doesn’t want to discuss the windfall in property tax receipts from the hyperinflation with median priced homes in this town, but THE COWBOYS?….. REALLY?…. THE COWBOYS? 😉
#YouJustNeverKnow
#TheCowboys?
#JustWhenIWasGoingToVoteYes
Matthew Paulson — Thank you for being the voice of reason.
Matthew,
I think you just identified the City’s handling of Lamont and Legacy.
MP, the story coming from the school district changes everyday, it’s like ‘whack a mole’. My conclusions are trying to keep up.
Also, the overcrowding argument is getting old. It should have never gotten to this point if they would re-district NOW and end open enrollment, than reevaluate.
I think they could get the two schools they need right now built by 2019 if they just borrowed $100 million, than tap into the outlay over the next 5-10 years to do the other improvements. It just seems like to me they are going to a buffet and loading there plates.
“It just seems like to me they are going to a buffet and loading there plates.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDYw9cFhUeQ