Where's the 5 Million?

One of my regular four readers recently sent me an email asking why I haven’t posted anything since Sunday. I told him I had written a couple of pieces about the board meeting Monday, but I did not feel comfortable posting them since they were not very positive. I do not want to sink to that level – yet…

I am trying to write something positive, but I see very little positive happening this week. Eric Marcus’ new citizen advocacy group, CARE, is being persecuted by some who apparently did not even take time to read any of the materials released to the press.

As a recovering liberal, I think spending money on education is the best investment for any community. With that said, I see very little money being spent on education. I see mismanagement of tax dollars. We lose a million a year because we do not apply for transfer of service funds for certain students that enroll during the year? Can you say “ineffective stewardship of tax dollars”?

We also lose about the same amount simply because of our accounting practices – not properly adjusting how workers compensation is stated has cost this district every year.

Last year, it was the Medicaid billing. How much revenue did we miss out on that one?
We are still working (over a year later) to make sure all the people responsible for billing are properly trained.

Finally, after a resoundingly defeated referendum in April 2005 and having a ‘do-over’ in June, the district received $6.45MM in additional revenue. We also received $5MM in state revenue that we did not plan on.

When administration was creating the budget last year, the governor had not yet approved the state budget so RUSD really had no idea on what the amount the state would give the schools. RUSD received 5 million more than they had budgeted for, in addition to the extra 6.45 million. Now they want more! My question is this, what happened to the 5 million??????

I understand that at least 2 RUSD board members have visited this site, so perhaps they can help me (and my 4 readers) understand where this money went. I urge you to post – I do allow anonymous posters so your identity will not be known.