It's nice to see that The Local Rag is maintaining its long-standing tradition of never letting a lack of research get in the way of a distorted story.
But first, congratulations to Dr. Canfield for recognizing the toxicity of the Community School issue. His plan to appoint three independent people with relevant financial/business experience to review the viability of Community School operations will help distance that fiasco from his primary responsibility -- running the Sandwich K-12 School District. The amount of effort (and local tax dollars) the school administration has spent supervising a money-losing operation is crazy -- particularly since 60% of the Community School clientele doesn't even live (or pay taxes) in Sandwich.
Also, congratulations to Andrea Killion for voting against the proposed Community School Budget. The "Business Plan" delivered to the School Committee not only lacked an actual "Plan" but also lacked the meaningful financial statements or any of the realistic budget discussions that would be required to produce a true plan.
Here's a few important points that didn't manage to see the light of day in this week's local "news" coverage:
1) The School District uses tax dollars to maintain the school building and grounds and, in the past, allowed the Community School to rent out those facilities and keep the money. The Community School would then use that money to fund its operations, including operating the swimming pool for the benefit of public in Sandwich and surrounding towns (60% of Community School customers do not live in Sandwich). Under State law, revenue from the rental of public school facilities needs to be applied against the cost of maintaining those facilities.
Why should Sandwich taxpayers fund the operation of a swimming pool for non-residents -- particularly when they are also being forced to pay athletic fees, activities fees, Kindergarten tuition, and purchase an extensive list of back to school supplies? If the District is able to reduce maintenance costs by renting out facilities, why should those savings benefit non-residents instead of reducing what Sandwich residents are forced to contribute?
A prior School Committee recognized that this was not only inherently unfair -- but also contrary to State Law, and changed that policy. It's unfortunate that some members of the current committee are still so unfamiliar with the related state regulations -- despite sitting there for 1-2 years!
2) The Superintendent did not "hand the Community School a bill for $60,000" for utilities at the end of FY '09. On a motion by a School Committee member (Me !), a majority of the Committee voted to have the Community School reimburse the District for its share of utility costs. While this had certainly been an operating cost of the pool, it had been funded out of the K-12 School District Budget -- using dollars that could have been used to pay teachers, or buy supplies.
3) In FY '11, the Pool was budgeted to reimburse the District $86,000 for utility costs. For some reason, that reimbursement was reduced to approximately $10,000. I couldn't find any record of the Committee voting on such a reduction, or even any reason why the Community School was being allowed to divert public school funds. For FY '12, this amount was budgeted at $57,000. If the Committee thought $57,000 was a realistic number, why was only $10K paid in the prior year?
Based on this undocumented reduction in the utility reimbursement, it would appear that the Community School loss should be increased by another $76,000 to properly report operating costs.
4) The financial statements for FY '11 (which ended June 30) included advance revenue for camps to be held the following year. Expenses for those camps, however, will not be recognized until the following year. In addition to being a violation of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) which requires the matching of income with the related expenses incurred to generate it, it completely ignores one of the suggestions made by the independent audit firm which reviewed the Community School Program last year.
If this prepaid income was properly stated, the Community School's operating loss would increase yet again.
5) The Budget and "Plan" had no discussion of the major capital repair expense which needs to be incurred shortly to re-grout the pool and replace the existing aged filtration system. The grouting alone is estimated to cost approximately $30,000 plus lost revenue while the pool is drained, repaired, and re-filled. I haven't seen any estimates on the filtration or de-humidification equipment.
Again, I applaud Dr. Canfield's efforts to improve the long-term viability of many of the Community School programs by bringing in independent, qualified professionals to objectively evaluate Community School operations. Given the ever-worsening budget prognosis, it is crucial that the local tax dollars in the school budget are actually used for the benefits of local students -- not to provide discount swim memberships to the nice people from Barnstable, Falmouth, Mashpee, etc. !
Randy Hunt's Blog ran a pretty good discussion of the Community School topic last year (see here). There was a lot of back and forth commentary over the usual issues (although it did eventually dissolve into antagonistic blather!)
12 comments:
Well said Bob!!! So we still have a SC that as a whole is not thinking in the best interest of the students and the taxpayers? I agree with you that Dr. Canfield is to be commended for his actions where the Community School is concerned. Your first point is the best explanation I have ever seen or heard of the fundamental problem. Thank you for this thoughtful editorial.
The real shame here is that for at least 5 years one concerned group of Community School advocates, including you and I Bob, have been calling for increased fiscal transparency, improved accounting, and the creation of written business plans, all in an effort to ensure the continued operation and success of the Community School. Meanwhile another group of Community School "advocates" did little but argue against improved financial reporting and stifle all efforts at real change and business model improvement.
These are facts.
All of this history brings us to the here and now with a valuable community resource teetering on the brink of fiscal insolvency with no real plans for improvement, weak management practices and almost zero cash reserves.
Current Community School management when asked for a plan offered little except maybe to pursue fund raisng and donations as the solution. That's just incredible. None of this had to be so. Unfortunatly, a group of well-meaning but financialy illiterate somebodies have essentially worked long and hard attempting to protect the Community School but instead they've financialy crippled it!!
That's a real shame! I hope the current Supt and School Committee are able to drive the change and improvements you and I first called for so many years ago.
The Community School is too important a resource to let fail.
I think the real test will be to see who gets appointed as a Trustee. If its any of the usual pool groupies, the process will be a farce.
It seems to me that Dr. Canfield recognizes the problem and the challenge politically, both in working with his on school committee and within his new community. His strategy of a board of trustees is rather brilliant I think. So is his idea of a small qualified, from a professional standpoint, board. He seems to recognize that it will take bold accountable and responsible thinking/action to salvage the Community School while at the same time not have it continue to drain education dollars and in general tax dollars from core services. As we have heard over and over change is hard for everyone. But we can no longer afford to let our limited town resources be squandered through cultural dysfunction and mismanagement. Hope the School Committee gets it right this time.
Nobody has even brought up the episode where the prior Community School administration thought it would be a really good idea to rent private commercial space and build a dance studio. They lost so much money they couldn't meet their payroll obligations. The Town had to lend them the money which was paid back over several years!
THAT is just one more example of the Community School's "strategic planning" !
Over the years I've been paying attention, the story of the community school has been made to appear to be something it is not. The original idea and organization was obviously well intended, as has been pointed out time and again in the past year through the public conversation about the pool. Goals for the town in the 1970's obviously differ from what goals we need today.
As Bob S. points out there is a very practical piece of this. That is the financial implications of the operational cost of the Community School. We have a very complete audit now and a report that points to gapping issues that need to be addressed. We have the reality that running an operation to cover staff costs as a primary goal, may not be in the best interest of the taxpayer let alone the ongoing operation. We know that until very recently education dollars were being diverted to operational costs of the Community School through poor policy and failure to create a solid and sustainable financial operation beyond just salary and benefits.
We know that though well intended, and likely an identified core service for our town, the Community School can not impede the progress of mandated core services like public education. It looks like things need to change. It looks like Dr. Canfield wants them to change. Let's hope the leadership is there to do what is right for the town. This situation will get worse before it gets better if a solution is not forthcoming.
It galls me that people only fight to save THEIR programs. As I've seen pointed out here many times -- they are irate that other taxpayers aren't willing to subsidize THEIR personal recreation.
Are they willing to chip in on my hobbies -- or my kids' hockey costs? Why do swimmers and soccer players get subsidized facilities, yet youth hockey pays their own way?
its even funnier now that we are finding that some of the biggest complainers dont even live in Sandwich!
I'm right there with you, Hockey Mom! I don't make my kid stand in front of stop and shop with his hand out holding a can to pay for his guitar lessons! But you have to realize that two of the most vocal supports of the pool on the School Committee are Crossman and Kangas. It should come as no surprise to anyone who follows this mess that their high schoolers are swimmers! It's really a conflict of interest.
I just wish we could get the Community School mess solved so the district could actually put their energy into what they are charged with and what we are depending on them for, which is to make sure our school system is excellent. There is no state or federal mandate for Community Schools. We are however, as a town obligated and rightly so, to educate our children and young people. The Community School not only has been sucking education dollars from the school's budget, "oxygen out of the room" in the past 2-3 years where Sandwich Schools are concerned, but it has created distractions and divisiveness in town about the schools that no doubt are related to school cuts of the past couple of years and more cuts in the years to come, if the SC doesn't get this problem solved.
Would someone please tell me where i can go to see these school dollars in its budget going to pay for The Community School.
Thank You
3:05 --- You won't see it. A better question would be "show me where the Community School paid the pool utility costs?"
-- you won't find it anywhere.
I don't think you see a line item of pay from the school department/town to the community school, but if you look at the trends over the years, you will see money collected for facilities use that went into the Community School general pot, out of which the big ticket item is staff and benefits. At one point there was a big ticket item of rent for the wonderful dance academy that was part of the Community School, but mostly Community School revenues pay for there employees. As far as the pool I remember a couple of years ago the issue was brought loud and clear to the SC table and it was shown that a big portion of the pool operational was on the school side of the ledger. It seemed to be disproportionate to what the school use of the pool was for their swim teams.
Recently, over several years the Community was building a surplus in the their revolving account. The goal was a new preschool and the amount, somewhere around $450,000 was a show of good faith as the CS started to reach out to policy makers and the public about their plans for a new building. I would assume that the bonding would have had to come through the School Department/Town. I think this is a good example of a lack of connection between the Community School and other town departments (not that the Community School is a town department; it is part of the school district.) What other departments can do that? We know that money got used up eventually for the CS to cover expenses, when the economy crashed. At the same time the CS was building a surplus, the school department was cutting custodial positions.
When some people think about draining of student related educational dollars I think this is an example. There are ongoing operational cost to running the CS that never have been recovered in a systematic way, which would benefit the school department/town dealing with facility operational costs. I think there is a fairness factor as well as a financial issue. The CS is in a school, and frankly in charge of all school space after school and on weekends, as well as fields (facility use). If money is coming in for facilities use but not in a very real and consistent way going to facilities maintenance, we have a problem.
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