Posted on 11/18/2001 11:49:51 AM PST by Lizavetta
S.F. school officials likely to ask voters for money
SAN FRANCISCO -- The financially troubled San Francisco Unified School District, looking to mend its image after years of mismanaging funds, likely will appeal to voters for additional money for campus safety upgrades and other construction projects.
It may be a hard sell for a district that has received more than $300 million during the past 12 years while several campuses remain in a state of disrepair. San Francisco schools chief Arlene Ackerman, hired last year, says she's merely picking up the pieces of a broken system she inherited.
Ackerman hasn't said how much she'll ask from voters. The district estimated in 1999 it needed $1.1 billion to make the necessary upgrades.
"I am dealing with the painful aftermath of a very sad time," Ackerman said last week. "We're trying to rebuild trust and move forward by putting safeguards in place so that ... what has happened in the past won't happen again."
Much of that trust in the 57,177-student school system waned after an audit made public last September revealed nearly $15 million of $60 million in 1997 bonds proceeds may have been misspent.
More than $12.4 million of the money in question was spent in ways that could not be verified. An additional $2.3 million went to salaries of non-teaching employees, some of whom may not have even been working on bond projects, according to Sara Hart, the district's new chief financial officer.
"On most of those expenditures, we didn't have adequate documentation to show they should be charged to that fund," Hart said.
Schools chief Ackerman is looking to restore some faith in the system and has put in motion oversight controls to prevent a repeat of the mistakes of the past.
The district's chief operating officer, architect Tony Irons, was hired to institute a master plan detailing the repairs and upgrades needed at each of the city's 121 school sites. Irons also will need to come up with recommendations for dealing with empty classrooms created by declining enrollment.
New fiscal controls will include quarterly reports from Irons explaining bond expenditures and a status report on repairs and upgrades.
Many fingers have pointed at the district's management under former schools chief Waldemar "Bill" Rojas during his tenure from 1992-99. During a closed-door meeting in 1996, Rojas was told the district's bond and tax funds were near insolvency.
According to an internal memo prepared for Rojas at that meeting, the district had overcommitted the funds by more than $47 million. The memo detailed that $23 million had gone to cover budget overruns and $24 million was spent on projects not authorized by voters.
The public did not immediately learn of the district's financial crisis, because of what Rojas terms a temporary "hiccup in the management system." "School board members have full access to information, much of which they never even read," Rojas said. "That's not my fault. They didn't ask tough questions."
They're asking them now, but it's Ackerman's turn to answer. She consistently has acknowledged the shortcomings of the past and promised to right the ship, given the additional money to do so. San Francisco Unified has spent all the money from bonds authorized in 1994 and 1988, $95 million and $90 million respectively. The district also has spent nearly all the funds from $60 million and $90 million bonds authorized in 1997.
Assemblyman Kevin Shelley says he's grateful for Ackerman's proactive approach toward addressing the school district's financial woes. But he worries that her well-intentioned moves may not be enough. "I think what Arlene is experiencing is an ethos of mismanagement, inefficiency and negligence that permeates so many aspects of the district," Shelley said.
Are you willing to pass yet another bond so minority crooks can milk the taxpayer as the white crooks have done?
Here's a follow-up on the San Francisco School Board money story I flagged earlier. They wasted or lost (or stole) $300 million, so not they want $1.1 billion to make up for that.
The Board makes Bonnie & Clyde look like rank amateurs. Any sensible local populatace would say, "Until we recover what we can, and jail the people responsible, nobody gets any more money." At the federal level, dropping $300 million is difficult to notice and hardly worth bending over to pick up. But at the city level, this isstill serious money.
Congressman Billybob
They said they'd do better with the next billion we give them. Why don't you believe them? (off sarcasm)
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