Approved or Not Approved
At yesterdays County Commission meeting this question was asked by Commissioner Holt of School Director Jackson; Mr. Holt, "this budget amendment was passed by the School Board, right?" Mr. Jackson, "Yes, the school Board passed it last week".
At tonight's called School Board meeting on the agenda was item #6 Approval of Revised 2007 - 2008 School Budget Amendment. During the discussion Mr. Jackson stated that the Commission had rejected the amendment yesterday". Clearly what was spoken of tonight was the same subject spoken of in the Commission Meeting yesterday and was the same subject discussed last Thursday by the School Board which postponed the vote until tonight's meeting.
The question is if the amendment wasn't approved until tonight what does that make Mr. Jackson's statement yesterday that the amendment had been approved by the School Board????????
By the way the amendment passed tonight had the $75,000.00 taken out ( or more deeply hidden depending on your point of view). Also removed were recurring expenses attached to the reserve funds. Allen Barrett
At tonight's called School Board meeting on the agenda was item #6 Approval of Revised 2007 - 2008 School Budget Amendment. During the discussion Mr. Jackson stated that the Commission had rejected the amendment yesterday". Clearly what was spoken of tonight was the same subject spoken of in the Commission Meeting yesterday and was the same subject discussed last Thursday by the School Board which postponed the vote until tonight's meeting.
The question is if the amendment wasn't approved until tonight what does that make Mr. Jackson's statement yesterday that the amendment had been approved by the School Board????????
By the way the amendment passed tonight had the $75,000.00 taken out ( or more deeply hidden depending on your point of view). Also removed were recurring expenses attached to the reserve funds. Allen Barrett
posted by Allen Barrett | 7:30 PM
18 Comments:
The board of education approved the amended budget in May. The discussion in June was the approval of the bonus of a mere $50.00 bonus bucks for the teachers. That was the main discussion about the amended budget. Your right Mr. Barrett, the school board did not amend the budget. Once again Tee has LIED. Just enough rope will do trick some day. He is losing steam and fast. Vote Glover and Storey in Minor Hill and Lynnville.
Only two things were postponed for the Tues. night called meeting and that was the 08-09 budget and the Principal's evaluation. The discussion about the fringe benefit was taken care of at the board meeting. Mrs. Murrey asked for $150 for the teachers and Mr. Jackson asked Mrs. Garner if there was enough money to cover that amount. After quite a bit of discussion Mrs. Murrey recanted her motion and changed it to $50.00. That motion passed that night.
I have a suggestion. We should take Tee Jackson's salary and devide it among the teachers. They work hard for their pay, that is what little bit is left after Jackson is done screwing them out of everything. This man will stop at nothing until he is removed from his position. He can't even respond to a question with a straight answer and continues to tell one lie on top of another. It seems to be no problem for him to continually ask for more money but can never be man enough to tell the truth about where it is being "used"
Mrs Pollard - very well said. Enough is enough. When are the other commissioners going to join your husband and put a stop to this. After reading Tuesday paper, it is confirmed what WAB said is in his topic is correct. Jackson lied in the commission meeting, caused extra committee meetings (paid with taxpayers monies) and another commission meeting also paid on taxpayers money. A bunch on that school board needs to be removed as well. Anyone know if this county can do recall votes? I hope it wont pass this commission meeting on June 30. Quoting ms Garner "we'll have a mess" - so what! Let it be shown instead of covering up. Thanks Mrs Pollard.
The Commission meeting was worth attending! I heard several commissioners speak with conviction, truly representing Giles County. Truth seemed to be a welocome visitor. They ruled the day!
That refreshing event left some standing knee deep in dung. Once again TJ & The school board came to the well to amend a budget to agree with whatever they wanted it to be. It will be a mess if we don't amend the budget. The auditors will write them up and they'll look bad. If things aren't kept positive, they'll be negative. We've always done it - tweek the numbers to make a good impression on the citizens. As usual, the wake draws to a close with certain members declaring a conflict of interest with the promise they'll vote their conscience.
Imagine, wanting to change the results so the citizens will think you did a real good job instead of "crapped in your drawers". Who would do that? When conscience is voted to deceive, alarms should be sounded. When it's the education system, the choice is change it or lose the next generation.
The amendment slid through the budget committee & on to the full commission. I see more than a sour grape attitude by those with direct ties to the board of education. Mr. Holt's power play to deny budget commission members the opportunity to discuss any matter they wish was out of line & out of character. For whatever reason, we have a group that is dead set against holding the school system accountable to the public for their actions.
The amendment issue is as simple as changing the rules and measurement process after the accounting period is essentially over. The pretext and urgency is as simple as stating what happens if you amend or do not amend the budget after school ends. Amend and the administration looks very efficient and in control. Don't amend and the roof caves in with a scathing audit report and lots of questions to answer. That sums it up!
Amend and the administration gets a pat on the back with raises! Don't amend and maybe we will replace the incompetent, motivate others, fix problems, and start running an operation that can function without questionable financial shenanigans & write ups! But, it isn't that simple. We have a positive mindset in education that refuses to accept negative results. Unfortunately, a mindset that can't accept negative isn’t facing the challenge of fixing that which is broken. The habit of redefining the negative into positive terms and convincing everyone that they know what they are doing is simply deception. It is a matter of ethics and morality – to cheat or not cheat.
If you have a director of operations or manager that doesn’t know what is going to happen or how to plan and react to change, hire one who does! If you can’t trust the plan and numbers hire someone you can trust! An operating plan should never be a guess, especially where there is little fundamental change in function and facility. Yes, you can finitely plan for energy price changes, inflation, or anything else of significance if you don’t bury yourself in detail. If you are not an accountant, you may not understand that. If this amendment is like past performance, it’s possibly little more than a crutch to cover up errors and indiscretions. Bottom line the question remains, will we lie to the public or will the education system be accountable and held to answer and provide solutions. Unfortunately, those who will fail that test should be the first to demand accountability and integrity! What is expected of students?
Don m
To Don M
You are the expert so I ask a question:
Is it not better to end the year showing what the actuals for each line item were rather than "making the line item balance", otherwise how to do know what to budget for on a particular line item next year? If you have an account in the red, budget more next year. If its under considerably from what was budgeted, reduce accordingly.
Actual must be what it is, correctly reported, without manipulation. An estimate of actual for prior year reference should reflect the same ethical standards. That estimate should be changed to actual year end figures as soon as known (July), especially if the budget doesn’t have to be approved until September (like the last few years). There is no reason to not have actual results with comparison data to the new budget, when actual is known! Adjusting new budgets to past spending habits can be good, but counterproductive if it perpetuates bad decisions, waste, and corruption.
Falsifying revenues, etc., violates the rules of conduct in all professional accounting standards (AICPA, GASB, NAA, and others). The school budget has a history of falsifying revenues and misrepresenting expenditures. That history includes false claims of no money to increase taxation and claims of insufficient funds to give core employees a COLA raise when spending is close to three times the BLS inflation index! The same is true of claiming savings by manipulating inflated budget comparisons to reflect substantial spending favorability “to budget”; when actual spending is nearly three times the national rate of increase!
The financial director’s efforts to clean up the school’s accounting mess are commendable. It is one of the benefits associated with financial management. Rather than pervert that activity to throw a life raft to the drowning nemesis of financial management, I say toss him a sand bag. Let the financial director clean the mess up, write a report to the public, and hand the report to the auditors whenever they get here. The message will be GC Fin Mgt. cleaned it up! The BOE has ignored citizens and the state every year! It’s past time to stop it.
Don m
Don m
Thanks for your response. Thats the way we always did it. Show the ACTUALS.
As far as Ms Garner correcting the BOE accounting problems, dream on. It will never happen. Sadly, with Tee Jackson on the finance comm. Ms Garner will never oppose him or any of the other members for that matter. So, she will make the schools budget balance and that will end it. Can we expect improvement next year with Ms Garner doing the accounting?
To your point, the problem of honesty & integrity dates to Jackson. In general, the big threat is the school system. Other departments could benefit from an interactive accounting function. By virtue of being able to function & operate without tax increases says they are basically pretty good & not a threat.
The percentage of accountants who will condone outright theft is very small. Probably 50% will break under pressure when it comes to the type corruption we are discussing. The problem we have is far worse than petty theft because it undermines the potential and mission of education at an extreme cost.
Don’t write Mrs. Garner off. Her environment is as tough as it gets. She has no CEO with a profit & performance motive. Few if any understand her mandate as a CPA. Hopefully she does. The education system is hell bent on deception and spending. The state audit function tends to protect the office holder at the expense of the office. The fact that she still comes to work every day is far more than most would expect. She needs lots of support & reassurance that the public wants and demands honest reporting and meaningful information.
It is a rare opportunity of doing something good by doing nothing - Don't pass the amendment! If the people get mad enough, maybe we’ll see a pink slip that says the game is over! The commission shows lots of promise – there is hope! Don m
I may be dense, but am confused by this statement, "estimate of an actual for prior year..." If it was prior, then we would know what the actual is; why would we need an estimate of something that has in fact already happened????
slow teacher
Good question - the term is used when constructing new year budgets such as the 2008-9 budget. By definition, prior year would be 2007-8 in that budget. Actual results for 2007-8 will not be final until after the accounting period ends on June 30, 2008. Because a school operation tends to be fixed in nature (doesn't change much), the estimate should be reasonably close when the budget is constructed in perhaps March through May. School is out in May, so the numbers should be consistent for the end of June cutoff date.
The corporate sector usually knows the numbers from near instant to no less than 2 weeks after close. My guess is that very few would not know by the end of the following month (July 31 in our case). That means the actual numbers should be known and used for final budget approval in August - September!
Prior observations - Manipulations and falsifications in 2005 -6 -7 -8 are extreme, especially in revenue. Sales tax understatements have been used to demand tax increases and claim insufficient funds for essentials (“No money”). It's very easy to see it. When spending is increasing almost three times the inflation rate and the budget tells you there is no money to fix leaking roofs, not enough for core employee COLA increases, cuts in books and supplies, etc., you should know it’s time to replace the planning machinery!
Don't know about 2008-9 - haven't had time to look at it - anyhow, four strikes should be "out!" Don m
it used to be that the budget for the next year was set in april or may at the latest. several years ago there was some issue which made the budget late like in september before it passed and since then it has now become a regular habit not to pass the school budget until august or september or even later then that. doesnt anyone realize how difficult it is to plan for a school year when you dont even know how much money you will have until after the year has started. this bad habit needs to be corrected and get back to passing the budget on time like it should be.
There is an old saying that says corruption corrupts absolutely.
Leave the cancer we got
& the body it invaded will rot.
Only true thing left these days is old sayings that are ignored. Those who took something we knew will find decay is nothing new.
I think that there has to be an approved budget by a certain date or the county stops funtioning. That includes the budget of the school sytem which is part of the county budget. We do not want the county to stop functioning. I am not saying approve a budget anyway but the school budget is part of the whole county budget so it has to pass along with the rest of the county. I could be wrong on this.
I think that the teachers are playing a wait and see game. Waiting to see if their pay checks are for the same amount each month. They are hoping that Ms Garner will at least be able to produce paychecks that are for the same amount each month. Not knowing what your check will be for each month is stressing--especially if you are running on a tight home budget. Since they don't have money tucked around in different accounts that they can move if the paycheck is short.
~~~Back to the 2007-8 amendment~~~
Are we amending the budget to cover Jackson’s rear end or is it needed to acquire emergency funding requirements for June 30, 2008, the very last day of the 2007-8 school budget year?
Correcting accounting records to properly reflect actual expenditures is not only a good idea, it is required. Reclassifications of expenditures into proper accounts are a part of that process. True reclassification corrections should be correlated back to their original funding classifications by disclosure and notes, not hidden.
The legal issue is apparently the requirement to have county council approval for funding before committing, receiving goods and services, and incurring a liability (it doesn’t matter if it’s been paid or not). Clearly, if goods and services were acquired without proper funding approval, the law has already been violated! If not, an amendment is really not necessary! The, “If there is more than enough total funds packed in the budget, why worry about shuffling money from one category to another.”, argument must be answered by, “Then, why worry about getting an amendment passed?” The probability of anything not being received before 6-30-2008 has to be near zero! The issue is the law and a school administration that thinks it is above the law! The illusion will be a school system that follows the law and maintains proper accounting procedures and control. The opposite appears to be true! What is described in the paper as moving fund amounts about to eliminate the appearance of illegal activity, not only destroys financial and legal accountability, it fools the public into thinking the school system is highly efficient!
Commissioners must ask simple pointed questions on Monday.
1. If fund item increased – cause of increase? Were goods / services received? Law violated?
2. If fund item decreased – cause of decrease? What moved, specifically? Why move it?
3. If passed, will there be any record of “the mess”, impropriety, or violation of the law?
4. What is the obligation of reporting financial and operating results to the public?
Don m
Who do we blame if the public thinks the GCBOE & the kingfish are doing a great job, & the they suddenly realize their child can't read or wright, but is doing real good as a scam artist
Post a Comment
<< Home