School Funding

UPDATE: School District doesn’t want to release information that will show open enrollment has caused segregation

l3wis September 8, 2018 10Comments

UPDATE: On September 4, the SFSD did a ‘partial’ presentation ABOVE on demographics. When it was asked if Super Maher has further numbers about open enrollment affects, he claimed that they have never put those numbers together, but could discuss doing it in the future. How convenient.

Shocker! A little over a month before a $300 million dollar bond vote and the School District doesn’t want to tell us their dirty little secret;

The Argus Leader submitted an open records request to the Sioux Falls School District for a demographic and socioeconomic breakdown of students by campus for the last 20 years — since the last bond election — to see how those numbers might have changed over time.

But the district said it will cost more than $1,200 to release the public information, stored in an electronic database. The Argus Leader had not pursued the request further as of Thursday.

I find it hard to believe it would cost $1,200 to email a data base. If that is the case, the school district needs to immediately fire their IT director for incredible incompetence.

I have said all along the School District needs to end open enrollment, redistrict and draw new boundaries BEFORE building new schools.

I have been told by several parents that they open enroll their kids in other schools besides the ones in their districts because they don’t want their kids going to ‘certain schools’ with ‘certain students’. While I would hope they are not talking about race, I do know they don’t want their kids going to the ‘poor schools.’

The Argus needs to shell out the $1,200 and demand the information before the vote, and they need to do it NOW before they have a chance to ‘fudge’ the numbers, because that is what they really mean by the $1,200 price tag.

This bond vote will go down in history as an incredible travesty, and I just hope at least 41% of the voters have the brains to see through this sham.

Even with record building permits, why can’t the school district trust capital outlay to fund new school construction?

l3wis September 4, 2018 2Comments

First, the puzzling news today that the school district doesn’t have a Plan ‘B’ if the bond fails. I would think if it fails on September 18, they would quickly go back to the drawing board and present another bond to be on the ballot in November. Makes you wonder if they are just assuming they have it in the bag. Things that make you go ‘Hmm.’

But what is even more puzzling to me is that they don’t want to pay for these schools through the capital outlay by raising levees when we have had close to a decade of record building permits. With all this new commercial tax revenue coming in (and housing prices going through the roof) you would think it would be a cake walk to just borrow half now and pay down the rest through the levees?

This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

Should the Sioux Falls School District have an independent audit before they borrow money?

l3wis September 2, 2018 20Comments

A SouthDaCola foot soldier informed me today that my letter made the dead tree version of our local paper (but I can’t find it online) so I have it below. But he told me that after working for the SFSD that their is incredible administrative waste and there should be an audit.

I wonder when the last time the School District was externally audited?

My letter;

We have NO choice but to build new schools. But if we borrow the entire $190 million we will pay up to $110 million in interest over the life of the loan. That is $110 Million to bond investors, NOT education.

The school district has presented NO plan on early payoff and no fiscal plan on staffing the new schools. They also have NO plan to end open enrollment which has created segregation, NO plan for redistricting until after the new facilities are built and NO idea where the new schools will be located.

Some members of the Envision task force that organized this bond vote have significant conflicts of interest in financial and technical contracts with the District.

The District has already spent thousands on a push poll survey postcard and Ignite Newsletter. It is a possible violation of state campaign rules using tax dollars to promote a bond issue.

The 13 precinct vote centers election mostly in the southern part of the district is also troublesome. The election should be held with the general in November. Not only would it make it more convenient, cost less, have a higher voter turnout and use all the precincts it would also be electronically documented. The E-Poll books being used for the vote center special election failed during the statewide primaries. If not working properly there could be repeat votes and NO way of tracking them since we are hand tabulating the vote.

There is a better way.

I suggest we borrow only $100 million and pay for the future facilities through the capital outlay over time. The District’s finance department said they couldn’t ‘trust’ Pierre regulating levees. The Sioux Falls School district spends thousands lobbying our State Legislature. They need to do a better job. Either plan will raise our taxes, but I believe this alternative plan will put more of our tax dollars towards the projects and less to bond investors. VOTE NO on September 18 and tell the school district to go back to the drawing board with a fiscally responsible plan.