School Budget Discussion Raises More Questions
Information presented at a special school board meeting Tuesday (Jan. 24, 2006) to clarify the omission of $1.8 million from the 2005-06 school budget only served to muddle some aspects of the problem.
First of all, the amount identified as late as Dec. 20, 2005 in the school board agenda was erroneous, as officials had named the wrong charter school as the one omitted from the budget.
A timeline handed out by the district’s Community Relations coordinator, Louis Rivera, said interim business administrator Ron Piliere told Superintendent Paula Howard in August that the Queen City Academy charter school appeared to have been omitted from the budget.
In October, new business administrator Victor Demming told the board that $1.8 million was missing from the budget for charter schools, according to the timeline.
The $1.8 million figure came up again at a Dec. 20, 2005 business meeting and again at a Jan. 10, 2006 work-and-study meeting. In a Dec. 20 resolution, the board voted to use $1 million from surplus to help bridge the gap. The board authorized the business administrator to find ways to come up with the additional $865,613.
But in fact, the school in question was Union County TEAMS, which opened in September 2005 with a budget of $1,740,063.
So after deducting the $1 million and adjusting charter school funding based on actual enrollment, the balance to be made up was not $865,613, but $383,220.
It is true that after longtime business administrator Gary Ottmann left the district in January 2005, the district had two interim administrators and did not get a fulltime business administrator on the job until Sept. 26, 2005. In addition, there were new or temporary people in charge of county and state offices with oversight on charter schools.
But at the time the two Plainfield charter schools were the only ones in Union County and the information on each was readily available on the state Department of Education web site.
While Rivera’s timeline trumpets there was “NO MONEY EVER MISSING,” in fact the omission means the district will have to come up with funds to bridge the gap.
The full charter school budget for 2005-06 included $1,851,496 for the Queen City Academy, $1,275,644 for Union County TEAMS and $8,529 for one city student who attends a charter school in New Brunswick (the sending district pays the cost).
The total was $3.13 million.
To make up the $383,220 difference, the district will have to adjust administrative costs, reduce school support services and factor in funds generated by employee vacancies. Officials were not able to identify cuts Tuesday.
School board members Wilma Campbell and Lisa Logan-Leach asked for a special audit of the past school year’s finances, although other board members questioned the wisdom of funding an extra audit when the district already spends $60,000 annually for a regular audit. The issue will be taken up again at the February work-and-study session.
--Bernice Paglia
First of all, the amount identified as late as Dec. 20, 2005 in the school board agenda was erroneous, as officials had named the wrong charter school as the one omitted from the budget.
A timeline handed out by the district’s Community Relations coordinator, Louis Rivera, said interim business administrator Ron Piliere told Superintendent Paula Howard in August that the Queen City Academy charter school appeared to have been omitted from the budget.
In October, new business administrator Victor Demming told the board that $1.8 million was missing from the budget for charter schools, according to the timeline.The $1.8 million figure came up again at a Dec. 20, 2005 business meeting and again at a Jan. 10, 2006 work-and-study meeting. In a Dec. 20 resolution, the board voted to use $1 million from surplus to help bridge the gap. The board authorized the business administrator to find ways to come up with the additional $865,613.
But in fact, the school in question was Union County TEAMS, which opened in September 2005 with a budget of $1,740,063.
So after deducting the $1 million and adjusting charter school funding based on actual enrollment, the balance to be made up was not $865,613, but $383,220.
It is true that after longtime business administrator Gary Ottmann left the district in January 2005, the district had two interim administrators and did not get a fulltime business administrator on the job until Sept. 26, 2005. In addition, there were new or temporary people in charge of county and state offices with oversight on charter schools.
But at the time the two Plainfield charter schools were the only ones in Union County and the information on each was readily available on the state Department of Education web site.
While Rivera’s timeline trumpets there was “NO MONEY EVER MISSING,” in fact the omission means the district will have to come up with funds to bridge the gap.
The full charter school budget for 2005-06 included $1,851,496 for the Queen City Academy, $1,275,644 for Union County TEAMS and $8,529 for one city student who attends a charter school in New Brunswick (the sending district pays the cost).
The total was $3.13 million.
To make up the $383,220 difference, the district will have to adjust administrative costs, reduce school support services and factor in funds generated by employee vacancies. Officials were not able to identify cuts Tuesday.
School board members Wilma Campbell and Lisa Logan-Leach asked for a special audit of the past school year’s finances, although other board members questioned the wisdom of funding an extra audit when the district already spends $60,000 annually for a regular audit. The issue will be taken up again at the February work-and-study session.
--Bernice Paglia
posted by Bernice at 2:05 AM
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