Whoa! Bd. of Mythomania's $251M School Budget - a Cap Bank Muncher Bonanza!?!

Well, with this egregious School Budget for 2018-19, looks like the Board of Mythomania, aka Board of EDems, Board of Hoarders, Board of Silence, Board of Dysfunction can now be called the Board of Cap Bank Munchers Extraordinaire.

This $251.1 million school budget comes with a $pending increase of a Whopping $13.0 million or 5.4% over last year's $238.1 million. Now if that doesn't make you stand up and pay attention - wait, it gets worse.

Seems the board, in their continued lack of concern for the taxpayers, have decided that they would pass along to you $11.3 million of that $13.0 million of increased $pending or some 87% of it. That increase of $11.3 million in the Local Tax Levy represents a 5.3% increase over last year's $212.6 million.

Now wait a second, you may logically ponder - how can you raise taxes by 5.3% when there's a 2% Cap Limitation on the Local Tax Levy?

Good question - ever hear of exceptions, adjustments and the infamous Cap Bank? You know thingies like health insurance, pensions, emergencies, etc - and increased enrollment adjustments and the infamous Cap Bank.

You remember the Cap Bank - that's where you can bank any years that you budget below the 2% Cap Limitation and use it later. In other words, in the years when the board boasts about coming in under the 2% Cap, when they use it, they conveniently don't tell you that their taking it back. And their taking back a lot this year to fund their excesses.

So, recognizing that you can't increase the Local Tax Levy by 5.3% without their using some if not all of the above, I made an OPRA Request for the Cap Bank worksheets ( the Cap Banking Eligibility and Adj, Prebudget Year Tax Levy and Enrollment Adj. worksheets) for this school budget. This is where you can see how they came up with the $11.3 million increase in the Local Tax Levy.

As of yet, I haven't received a response to the OPRA Request but as soon as I do, I will pass along the information.

However, it's not that hard to approximate, or better said, questimate what they used in this school budget. Seems like they used something in the area of $4.4-$4.5 million for the 2% increase and $7.0-$7.5 million for the enrollment adjustments and use of the Cap Bank.

Yup, they dug mighty deep into the Cap Bank to support this Grossly Bloated 'Pot of Money' they call a School Budget.

Hence, they will forever be known as the Board of Cap Bank Munchers Extraordinaire.

Another disconcerting aspect of this school budget is their continued use of the infamous 'Staffing Shell-Game.' You remember what that is - it's where they add unbudgeted staffing to the budget but don't disclose it to you in the school budget. Seems in this school budget they added some 17.5 unbudgeted heads to the payroll but didn't bother to disclose to you.

Unbudgeted heads:

6.0 Teachers
4.5 Para's
2.0  Psychologists
1.0 Special Ed Supervisor
1.0 Staff Dev Trainer
2.0 Trans. drivers
1.0 Network Engineer

Now, they did have some deletions in staff but none that would indicate that those additions were replacements and not likely equal to the money involved with adding those 17.5 unbudgeted heads to the payroll.

So, why is this important? Because they're adding staff to the payroll and not disclosing it to you when they put these budgets together. For example, they asking for 22 more teachers in this budget and if you knew that they already added 6 to the payroll, wouldn't you ask why they need 22 more teachers when they just added 6? I would?

And if you don't think this 'Staffing Shell Game' is a concern and the numbers aren't large, then go back to previous posts on the 'Staffing Shell Game' and you can see how large the numbers can get and also, how they do it, how you can see how they do it and why it's important to you for them to disclose it in these school budgets.

It's hard to take this school budget seriously but, as they presented it, you can see what this will cost you when they convert to a calendar year basis by entering your assessed value below.





And here's their 2018-19 School Budget:




Anyhoo, this school budget is no doubt - the most egregious thing that I've ever seen them put together over there on Mythomania Lane. And if the stink of it doesn't affect you - then the hit to your pocketbook surely will.