Over the last few weeks there have been a number of articles and commentary regarding the use of “citizen audit committees” to review, at least initially, BOE/public school spending and issues of school funding, and, while it might seem like this year’s budget battles have just ended, the budgeting process will be starting again in just a few weeks so here’s a little more data/information on some of what has been going on:

A review of the accounts payable check register for the public school system, that’s basically all non-payroll expenses, for the last four years was quite enlightening.  Back during May and June when the BOF was working hard to foist another illegal – in violation of Prop 46 – budget on the taxpayers, they were praising the BOE for their cost containment efforts and their “Bare Bones Maintenance” budget for 2008-9.  Well the check register revealed that while the BOF was praising the BOE, the BOE was on a spending spree that would have put a whole fleet of drunken sailors to shame. 

Normal accounts payable spending, with Woodstock Academy expenses stripped away – stripped away because it tends to mask the other underlying spending and is not controlled by the BOE – for the period July 2007 through April 2008 was $267,787 per month on average.  But sometime in the March/April timeframe, the superintendent and the BOE came to realize that at this rate they were going to have an excess of over $700,000 left in the budget by the end of the fiscal year in June, and so began what can only be described as a frantic effort to spend those monies before time ran out.  In May spending jumped to $412,061 and in June to $826,302 for these same non-payroll/non-Woodstock Academy expenses.  In fact on June 30th, the last day of the fiscal year, they wrote nearly $300,000 in checks in a single day!  This “year-end bounce” was just over $700,000.  Now some might say, “there’s always a year-end bounce as the administration and BOE see what’s left and work to clear up any open issues”, and they’re right, there usually is.  For reference, in the fiscal years ending June 2005 and 2006 that year end bounce was around $320,000, in 2007 it was $477,000.  This year’s is by far a new record.  If you were wondering what happened to those phantom students that never showed up at the Academy for the last two years, here they are, or at least the money for them. 

Oh, by the way, the final comparison of budget versus actual expenditures for 2007/8 was within $13 on a budget of $15,003,565 – for those who don’t have a lot of experience managing multi-million dollar budgets, “that’s remarkable” doesn’t even come close, and the previous year’s was within $92.  As someone pointed out to me at a recent meeting, “only in government is waste and excess spending incentivized – the more you spend the more you get to spend”.   This is about the best argument I have ever heard for zero based budgeting, start from zero and justify everything versus start from last year and see how much you can get.

Just a couple more things, to add insult to injury while the school administration and BOE were so hard at work spending this extra $700,000 they apparently forgot about the state mandated requirement to put safety bars/crossing arms on the front of all the school buses and ended up requesting Mike Alberts and Tony Gugliemo  intervene with the state claiming they couldn’t find the ~$10,000 needed to cover the cost.  And then there’s the ~$10,000 for pay-to-play at WMS this year – apparently the ~$20,000 in school supplies they stocked up on in June wasn’t enough to tide them over, but remember the $700,000 they worked so hard to spend does carryover – the more you spend the more you get to spend!

Citizen Audit Committees, when properly trained and guided, can help keep an eye on our elected officials and assure that our tax dollars are being spent on what they were intended for, be that the kids when it comes to the school system or the town services when it comes to town government.

We may all be a little frustrated with what’s going on with the economy and in Washington right now and feel as though there’s little we can do, and beyond holding those responsible accountable through your vote there probably is little an individual can do, but it all begins at the local level;  the waste, the deceit, the lack of transparency, and the stonewalling, and here the individual can impact.  You can participate, call your selectman, the BOF and the BOE or go the meetings and tell them enough is enough or get involved with the Citizen Audit Committees yourself.

If you want to check the data it is all public information which you can obtain through the superintendent’s office or download from Woodstocktruth.com.

Dave Richardson
North Woodstock