Independent Bond Audit

We need an outside, independent audit of all bond expenditures. At this point, I'm not sure anyone really knows what has been spent or where it has been spent with any precision. When I have asked the district's business manager for information she has told me that she does not have access to all of it, that it is stored in the bond manager's office. The documents that have been finally posted to the district's website are woefully inadequate and essentially unintelligible, even to those with some knowledge of public finance.

This, for example, is the final budget for the bond as it was presented to the Board and as it appears on the district's website:



Seriously? Most household budgets are more specific. It's like they've been running a $47 million tab.

Since this initial budget, the information received by the Board and shared with the public has been equally broad and hazy. The Board does get to see construction progress each month but there is no detailed discussion of where the money has been spent.

This is the number one reason I asked for an oversight committee for this bond project while I was still a member of the School Board. Oversight committees composed of community members are extremely common and are, in fact, a legal requirement for bond projects in some states such as California. The superintendent was adamantly opposed to oversight for reasons that were never clearly articulated. He seemed to think that oversight created a lack of trust. I think it is actually the lack of oversight that creates distrust. His "superintendent's key communicators" group was not an oversight committee; it was the alternative to oversight. It was the alternative to a committee with the authority to truly monitor the project and the budget.

If you think the key communicators or the Board have been apprised of the real money trail for this project, then call and ask them the following questions:

1) What happened to the savings gained by the advantageous sale of the bonds and the lower than expected guaranteed maximum price from the general contractor? The total amount of those savings was several million dollars.

2) Where was the money saved by not completing the 16th Street project spent? Because of the language used when the Board voted to approve the bond project only a small amount could be spent on turf. That leaves $1.3 million. Where did it go?

3) Why has the district borrowed $2 million to finish up projects promised within the original bond? Again, a small amount is going to the turf (around $300,000), some is going to the promised HVAC upgrades at other schools (now expanded to $765,000). Where's the rest?

This is OUR money. We deserve answers, not vague generalities. The only way to get those answers is through an outside, independent audit. Maybe the answers will reassure us; maybe they won't. But we need to know.