Sioux Falls School District bond election to use ‘Vote Centers’

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So the School District couldn’t say a damn thing at Monday night’s board meeting, but seem to sing like a canary once the cameras are off. They are proposing to run the election, in which we will be asked to bond well over $300 million dollars, using super precincts or vote centers.

While I am not a fan of vote centers, they CAN work if you work them correctly. Unfortunately, this is NOT the scenario we want. Why?

First, the obvious. This is a lot of money. We should open this election to the entire community at ALL precincts and we should put it in with the general election. Having a special election in the middle of September with only a handful of precincts guarantees a very low voter turnout. The school district argues they must have their levees and budget set by September 30. Poppycock, they can amend the budget and levees at any time and have admitted this already on KSOO and in the Argus Leader.

Second, Bev Chase with the School District, who will be running this election, has a terrible record on running elections. They should be contracting with the county to handle this. Last time she ran a stand alone election in 2017 there was a myriad of problems, absentee voting was locked up when she was on lunch break, many people who voted were not reported to the SOS data base that they voted in the election (I have had at least 3 voters tell me this), there were NO precincts in the entire northern part of the city.

Third, we have no idea what kind of E-Poll book they will be using and who will be running the software. This could open the election up to tampering, hacking, and voter fraud. If the software does not work correctly, people could vote multiple times at multiple precincts. Hart Interactive who originally created the hardware and software for E-Poll books no longer supports them. BPro tried to get them to work in the primaries and failed so miserably that the SOS said she will not allow their use in the General. So what tricks does the School District have up their sleeve?

Who will tabulate the votes? A hand count isn’t going to cut it. This needs to be tabulated and data needs to be generated so the SOS knows who voted. This is a large sum of money that will increase our taxes over the next 25-30 years, this isn’t electing some yahoo to the school board.

We have made the local chapter of the ACLU aware of these issues, some may be a violation of Federal Election laws, hopefully they will look into it.

Posted in: Education funding, Elections, SF School District, Taxes

Add it up

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7y9yChV478

I’m blushing a bit, for the 2nd time in one night, a different television reporter decided to look into what I have been discussing, a lot of tax and fee increases (KELO-TV screenshot);

While this is just the beginning, absent was the compounding of taxes, fees, levees, etc. I’m pretty sure this will be the LAST time we hear about this on the TV screen.

On a unrelated note, I hung out with members of the Femmes at the Top Hat after their show at the Pavilion. They didn’t give me any tax solutions.

Posted in: Sioux Falls, Taxes

UPDATE: Sioux Falls School Board has questionable Executive Session

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The school board met at 2 PM today (video above) to discuss the Envision Task Force Draft report. The meeting was posted as a 2 PM start meeting, but when people arrived they noticed the agenda changed to a 1:45 PM Executive Session before the meeting started.

First off, most of the time Executive Sessions are at the end of meetings not at the beginning. Secondly they have to state SDCL that it is an executive session, that is 1-25-2(2);

Executive or closed meetings–Purposes–Authorization–Violation as misdemeanor.

As you can see, besides stating SDCL numbers they must tell the public on the agenda the ‘purpose’ of the session. While they don’t have to state what/who will be discussed, that is the whole purpose of an executive session, they must say the topic or purpose. For example, pending litigation, student issue or personnel issue. They did not state the topic and took no action in open. This could be a possible open meetings violation.

Once the 2 PM meeting started they went straight into the draft report. Some interesting things occurred.

At 32:30 a member of the public, Michael Wyland asked where the document was that outlines the 30 member TF’s individual priorities and how the ranking was done. No one produced the document.

Other things that were stated was 70% of the people who will vote on the bond issue DO NOT have children in the school district.

TF Chair Vernon Brown bragged about the how nice it was only a $2 a month tax increase. This hasn’t been fully explained yet either how that will compound over the 10-25 year loan span except that there may be a lower capital outlay levee promised to offset that tax increase. No idea what that will be either except that they will model it after the 1997 school bond.

Super Maher stated that while staff can share FACTS about the bond issue they cannot encourage people to vote for or against the bond. This is questionable because they haven’t been sharing all of the FACTS so far, so I have a feeling the FACTS they do share will be cherry picked.

He also went on to say there is a private community group interested in promoting the passage of the bonds but wouldn’t say who it was. My guess it is probably involved with the Chamber, but not sure.

Finally, Maher said that while the $190 million will be for the construction of 3 schools, $40 million of that is for ‘TLC’ of existing schools.

UPDATE: I guess the School District’s Financial Director, Todd Vik mentioned that they would try to use super precincts in the proposed September 18th election. I missed that, but a reader pointed it out to me. I’m still researching whether they can do that in reference to Federal Law and disenfranchising voters.

I’m getting very nervous about how they are going to sell this to the community. Like I said, I support public education, we need new schools, I get it. Where I get troubled about the proposal is the details of what the money will be spent on and the lack of documents from the TF supporting why we need to do this.

This proposal will be doomed if they don’t start sharing ALL of the information with the public. Government works best when it is open and transparent, this proposal is already on shaky ground.

Posted in: Open Government, Open Meetings, SF School District, Sioux Falls, Taxes

UPDATE: Sioux Falls School Bond Task Force threw transparency out the window

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Now that the meetings are done, it’s time to look back on what was achieved and the multiple missteps the TF (Task Force) made when it came to transparency.

No matter whether you believe we should bond $190 million for new schools is really secondary to the process. It was NOT open, and I feel there is no intentions to keep it transparent moving forward.

I have mulled over several of the TF documents. Many important details are missing from the documents (that were available at some of the meetings). I did not attend the TF meetings but did watch 2-4 online. I have also been told by an attendee that they had to ASK for the TF documents at the 2nd meeting and were NOT available to the public (this is a violation of Open Meetings Laws). They were available at the 3rd and 4th meeting but NOT sure about the 1st meeting. But in the 3rd meeting, an important doc was missing in the publicly supplied materials; a spreadsheet of how all 30 TF members prioritized (all) proposed projects.

Some of these documents are available online (HERE) but most of them are not, including the Capital Outlay, just a short power point presentation. Not making ALL of the documents available to the public, either at the meetings or online could also be a violation of open meeting laws.

UPDATE: I found a document called “Bond Calculator” at the bottom of the document in small print it said this;

*The estimates above, are based upon financing the bonds over 25 years, using a 4% interest rate. The actual terms upon issuance will not be known until the bonds are sold. This calculator was created by the Sioux Falls School District and should be used for estimation purposes only.

Not only is this just an estimate – your taxes will go up over a 25 year period!

But that’s just the beginning.

Where the mystery starts is what happened between the 3rd and 4th meetings. The public was clearly left out of these negotiations, and my guess is that most of the TF members were to, or got docs at a separate time. It’s a head scratcher.

At the 3rd meeting the plan from the financial office and Super’s administration was to borrow the whole $190 million at the higher tax increase, all at once (I believe that was around $100 tax increase on a $185K valuation). It suddenly changed to $2 a month at the 4th meeting. This change was offered with little to NO explanation. They decided to spread out the tax increase (I believe over a 10 year period).

This is where they are not telling the story to the public or to the media. While it would be a $2 per month increase, that increase happens every year for the next ten years. In other words over the span of that time you will actually be paying $24 a month at the end. But that isn’t entirely true either, because you will also see an increase in your valuation, an increase yearly by the city council (they always pass this in July), opt outs from the County (they are building a new jail etc). And various other capital outlay levees. So while the first year this may be only $2 a month, that could easily be $240-$500 yearly increase by the end of the 10 year period. This of course hasn’t been explained to the public in great detail, so I’m speculating here. I can guarantee they are going to try to avoid that conversation moving towards the election this is why the strategy mysteriously changed in the dark of night between the 3rd and 4th meetings, unless specifically pressured by the media and the public to explain what the tax increase really looks like over the span of this loan they are going to move with the ‘$2 a month’ argument.

And let’s talk about the stand alone election they are planning for September 18. This has many issues in itself. I have been told by several voters who never miss an election that they voted in the 2017 stand alone school board election yet their ‘vote’ was never registered in voter data. Unlike using a ledger to mark off who voted in that election, they recorded the vote by computer. So were some people just not entered into the system that they voted even though their ballot was counted? Was the ballot counted? Some have suggested that a recount should occur of that election to make sure every one who actually voted gets put into the system. See, when you vote, government collects that data. They cannot record how you voted by they do know when you voted.

This is why a stand alone election ran by the School District is troubling. Will it be handled correctly? I’m not accusing the School District of voter manipulation, I’m just saying they have a poor record when running stand alone elections. Ballots locked up in cars, financial statements not available online, people showing up to absentee vote and the polling place is locked up or they have to wait for someone to unlock the room. All inexcusable sloppy practices.

While a stand alone election isn’t a bad thing, I think it is foolish to spend around $60K of taxpayer money on such an election when they could easily tie it into the General a couple of months away in November. Super Maher wants the election in September to move the bonds forward right away. But what’s a couple of months? Construction of the schools could occur year round, there is no reason to have a stand alone election unless there is a plan to hoodwink voters because they would have less people to convince to vote for this. Democracy works better when more people show up and participate. I actually think that they would get a higher percentage for the bond in the General because voter turnout is around 70% where school district stand alone elections have been as low as 4%. This is NO WAY to decide a historical $190 million dollar bond. Don’t think games haven’t been played before with supposed bond elections? Just look at the Events Center ‘advisory’ election. This was done because they knew they had little chance of getting the 60% passage like the school bond issue needs, so they made it a non-legally binding election and had the city council pass the bonds on an ‘advisory’ from the citizens. Oh, and there is also the concern that less precincts will be used like in the 2017 election where almost the entire North side of the city had NO polling places. Federal law is specific about disenfranchising voters – I’m looking into this more and will get back to you on it.

Some other interesting factors in the TF meetings;

• There was no definitive answer where the new HS would be located. The TF seemed to be split on whether to support accepting the Sanford gift of land. I look at this as a way for Sanford to position a HS by their sports complex and develop that area more. Is that a bad thing? Not sure, but something about the deal didn’t smell right to a lot of the TF members, including some people on the far east side of the district not having a new HS by the fastest growing part of the city, the SE corner. I suspect that the rubber stamp school board will graciously accept the Sanford gift just like they did with accepting the gift proposal.

• In the 2nd meeting, Doug Morrison, the new money dude purveyor for the school district who controversially got hired, said that overcrowding at Memorial could simply be solved by changing the boundaries and moving those students to McGovern which is only 60%(?) capacity. He said they don’t want to do that because they would anger some parents. What about the people who fund public education? If we could get by building only 1 or 2 schools instead of 3 wouldn’t that be beneficial to us in a lower bond and tax rate? The school board needs to make a bold move and change the boundaries. But they won’t.

• The chair and co-chair of the TF have possible conflicts of interest. Vernon Brown (Chair) is married to a teacher in the district and that teacher just happens to be life long friends with DeAnn Konrad, Public relations director for the school district. What kind of background information was Vernon provided by DeAnn around the kitchen table? DeAnn has also known Vernon for years, they used to work together at KELO-TV. I also wonder if Brown’s employer (SDN Communications) has any contracts with the school district? I don’t know? Does anybody else know?

Nan Baker (Co-Chair) is from the Baker family who owns First National Bank. Dougherty & Company who does bonding for many city, state, county and school district bonds must run those bonds through First National Bank. You can come to your own conclusion on that.

The DRAFT proposal will be presented to the School Board on June 6th at 2 PM, IPC center, they will vote on the final proposal on June 11 at the regular meeting at 5:30. I highly suggest the public shows up and starts asking hard questions about this bond. I think we should support funding public education, but we should also be fiscally responsible and transparent about it. The plan I have seen so far doesn’t even come close.

Posted in: SF School District, Sioux Falls, Taxes

UPDATE: Huether’s Legacy of Leadership; Getting Things Done by spending other people’s money

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You can accomplish anything when you have your parents credit card.

UPDATE: I thought I would re-post this today (form January 2018) after reading the Argus Leader’s analysis of Huether by reporters Whitney and Sneve.

I often hear it from friends and enemies,

“Why do you pick on the mayor so much Scott? He has gotten a lot of things done.”

I often agree, he has accomplished a lot. And if you don’t believe me or them, just ask the mayor himself. But when you really look at what has been ‘done’ it was done using other people’s money or borrowing other people’s money. The problem with that is that it’s the taxpayer’s money, OUR money, not the little dictator’s at 9th & Main.

These ‘accomplishments’ or ‘WINS’ as the mayor likes to call them, are not really wins at all, but just expenditures that I believe could have been done in other ways to save taxpayers millions while providing those services better. They were nothing more than playthings built to attract more overpaid doctors to town.

While Huether says our debt is the same amount as it was in 2010, what he fails to mention is that he created NEW debt at the tune of almost $250 million while the debt that was paid off was already scheduled for repayment or paid off early due to over 50 fee and tax increases over the past 8 years. There have also been repercussions over these fee and tax increases. Sale tax revenue has continued to go down percentage wise even though we have has an explosive population growth. I believe this has to do with a couple of factors. Wages have not stayed in line with these increases in taxes, healthcare costs, housing inflation and the widening gap between rich and poor. In fact a majority of the middleclass in Sioux Falls has seen no growth or negative growth over the past 8 years. Even with all the quality of life projects, financially the middleclass isn’t doing much better or even worse than we were in 2010, the numbers don’t lie.

Our roads are also still at the same rating they were 8 years ago, 7 out of 10. Which is still good compared to other South Dakota municipalities, but ZERO improvement. One reason may be because our roads fund, the 2nd penny CIP is being robbed by mortgage payments to new entertainment facilities that don’t pay for themselves.

But when it comes to Huether really expanding services to ALL of our residents, what really has he done in 8 years?

The massive annexation Huether has implemented has only pissed off neighborhoods, cost millions in infrastructure upgrades (handouts to the corporations that asked for these annexations) and caused a riff with un-annexed islands that were created after the intentional urban sprawl while our core has become a meth crime haven.

Speaking of that, Huether has done little to combat crime. He hired an un-experienced police chief, a fire chief who lives in Canton (because, as he says, it is safer to raise his kids) fired the former fire chief for allegations of child pornography (but let him keep his pension). Screwed the Police union on raises while giving corporate like raises to directors who have followed marching orders like spiking the Finance Director’s salary over the past two years by $16K right before his retirement.

He has done little to improve project trim to become either free or more affordable to taxpayers. Has cut back street cleaning and snow removal, cut bus and paratransit routes while insisting on charging more and offering ZERO solutions over the past 8 years how to improve service and make it more equitable. I actually look at the do nothing attitude of public transit by Huether as one of his biggest failures as mayor.

He has cost us AND the citizens of SD (Public Assurance Alliance) millions in legal battles that we didn’t have to fight because of the incompetent and non-transparent administration he runs.

Water rates and regulations have only gone up in numbers while sales tax revenue has tumbled, only to take this extra money and put it in a savings account.

But besides the ‘WINS’ he decided to pass up, as I said above, let’s look at the things he called accomplishments by spending our money and borrowing in our good name;

The Denty. This project started on a bad note to begin with. Instead of bonding the entire building we had other options. I think we should have used a combination of private investors, cash reserves and state revolving funds to bond remainder. The vote was also a sham. It was an advisory vote which wasn’t legally binding, ultimately the council had to approve the bonds. In reality, with that much bonding it should have been a legal bond vote which would have required a 60% threshold from voters. It was also built in the wrong place. While Downtown would have been more ideal, I think anyplace but next to the Arena would have been better. The location has only contributed to the money vacuum the Denty has become, sending millions out of town. Than there was the cost saving measure to put flat siding on a curved building that caused a SD Supreme Court case and troublesome siding that will cost us millions to replace over the years. He also lied about the settlement, a lie the very media that sued him continues to peddle. They still claim we got at least $480K, which we did not, that money came from a savings account that was supposed to be protected for future repairs to the facility. Essentially we got ZERO. Proof of this is in the pudding and the reason the money could never be used to fix the siding, because it doesn’t exist. I think we could have built an Events Center, but Huether’s plan has been a complete disaster because of several bad decisions by hizzoner.

The Railroad Redevelopment project has cost Federal Taxpayers (and local taxpayers) well over $27 million. In return we got dirty land for $62 a square foot. The trains are still switching downtown and running more frequent. This boondoggle, while expensive, has done nothing to improve downtown. I consider this one of the biggest failed negotiations of the Huether administration. And if we see another derailment like we just recently did and it’s something other than corn (like ethanol or a chemical) it will take a heck of a lot more than $27 million to clean up.

The city administration building was a gigantic middle finger to the taxpayers of Sioux Falls that was decided by one person who manipulated his executive powers and crapped on 6,400 petition signers. The irony is this $25 million building wasn’t needed. We exchanged a $100K a year lease payment for a $1 million a year mortgage that doesn’t include maintenance costs. There is nothing in city charter that requires the city to invest in office space capital. In fact, the city’s finance director Turbak said it was more equitable to lease space. This is a lie that also continues to be peddled by the mayor. During yesterday’s ribbon cutting he claimed their was ‘collaboration’. There was no collaboration, not with the public, the city council or other government entities.

The indoor aquatic center was poorly planned and based on a campaign of lies and confusing ballot language. The location can not be expanded and built on land the Federal government has the quit claim deed on. We also robbed millions from a repayment of Federal levee bonds that should have been used to repay the bonds. We could have built a larger facility at the Sanford Sports Complex with a public/private partnership with Sanford. It would have also been located by all the other special interest sports clubs. We now have a facility we will have to subsidize up to $400k a year or more in a bad location.

Huether allowed the city to go into a parking ramp agreement with a developer that is facing Federal criminal charges and that has illegally dumped asbestos into our landfill with a penalty that was waived. But even if we picked a good developer, the deal doesn’t add up. We are paying over twice as much for fewer parking spots and a lease agreement that wasn’t based on any appraisals. This deal should have never been penned.

Choosing Paramedics Plus for our ambulance contractor was troublesome for many reasons. Not only their pending legal issues nationally, conflicts of interest with the consultant that recommended them and the ‘Phantom’ ambulances, we could have saved consumers $$ while helping to fund our Fire Department. Since the Fire Department already shows up to medical emergencies, sometimes faster than PP, I think a more prudent decision would have been implementing a public ambulance service. While the initial up front costs would be expensive, the fees charged to consumers would help pay for itself, and help to subsidize the Fire Department. As taxpayers we are already paying for the FD to respond to these emergencies, why not get reimbursed for it?

As you can see, the Mayor likes to talk about ‘dreaming big’ and ‘getting things done’ but he has done all this recklessly and by racking up our credit card. The next mayor and city council will be battling these bad fiscal decisions for years to come, and at the end of the day the taxpayers will be footing the bill for all of these ‘WINS’.

Posted in: Mayor Almost Done, Mayor Grump Toad, Mayor High Crimes, Mayor Hubris, Mayor Pants on Fire, Mayor Subprime Mike Huether, Mike Huether, Sioux Falls