By this time, some of you’ve already noticed 11 new posts; each an individual EMSD#63 Final Budget Report for a given year, starting in school-year 2000-2001.
The reason for these entries is this. I will be using facts derived from those documents in an upcoming blog series featuring EMSD#63’s Budget History. I will also be using these same documents on my new blog: Butterly on School Budgets…. scheduled to officially appear later this month.
Trust but verify!
When it comes to reviewing budgets, I follow former President Ronald Reagan’s sage advice: “Trust but verify!” And I hope you do too!
Now, there’s a lot of information packed within those budget documents. Too too much for the casual observer. So, to help make processing this much information less daunting and more understandable, I will be presenting EMSD#63’s Budget History data in differing report formats. Each report is designed to answer one or more questions. The questions we will ask are the same questions any competent School Board would ask, and the reports designed to answer those questions are the same type of reports a competent administration would provide.
Today’s post then, is to serve notice of the new series, provide easy access to the source documents and to ask the first question:
Question #1: So where’s the money?
Between School-Years 2000-2001 and 2010-2011, EMSD#63 is expected to have spent close to $16 million more than it has taken in. We’re not even talking “budgeting” yet. That number reflect the actual dollars received for disbursement and the actual dollars disbursed based upon EMSD#63’s official documents.
BUDGACT-1000 - Budget Report - Act. Rev. and Exp.
The two primary components of the budget are REVENUE (dollars-in) and EXPENSES (dollars-out). The District Officials can only guess the number of dollars-in. District Administrators and Board however, have full control of the amount dollars-out!
Let me remind the reader of EMSD#63 Budget-making goal.
| Budget Overview Page (9) – 2010-2011 Budget |
| The District’s budget goals and objectives are to provide an optimum educational program for all of the children of the school district in line with the district’s educational philosophy, consistent with efforts to achieve a balanced budget and the taxpayers ability to support such a program. |
EMSD#63’s budget goals and objectives are obviously not being met by a wide margin which reflects at best, in my opinion, willful non-adherence or incompetence!
In the mean time, if you are curious and wish to start reviewing the FOIA’d Budget Reports used for the upcoming posts, click the year.
| Budget Files by Year |
And as always, it’s just my opinion!
3 comments:
Mr. B.,
I had no idea! How could Dr. Williams get away with this? What about Dr.Cay? 4 million more debt this year? Someone needs to contact the State of Illinois!
They need to start over with the entire administration and get some new people in the schools and office. Something is seriously wrong here.
Someone call
Anon: May 17, 2011 3:22 PM and Anon: May 17, 2011 5:05 PM,
Yes, there is something “serious wrong here”!
I’m not sure if the State of Illinois is prepared to perform a forensic audit at this time based on just this information. And a forensic audit is what I think will be needed if the taxpayer is to ever get to the heart of this story. Of course, sooner rather than later is preferable in my opinion.
That said; I intend to continue displaying additional EMSD#63 budget information for review and comment.
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