Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Budget Postscripts

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At last night's School Board meeting there was a palpable relief among School Board members and staff alike, streaked with physical weariness from long hours in recent days. I am very eager to begin writing about topics other than the FY09 budget, but we're not quite done with it yet.

We actually get about five different budgets from the Board of Supervisors, the Operating Budget is only one of them. The next big one is the Capital Improvement Plan. We have separate budget for the school lunch program. Last night we wrapped the last of the voting on another, the Capital Asset Preservation Program (CAPP), basically our physical plant maintenance budget. It includes things like replacing HVAC units, windows, resurfacing parking lots and sidewalks and roofs and repairs to athletic facilities. This was created as a separate budget back in the mid 90s in order to keep these things from competing with the Operating Budget for funding, which had led to LCPS falling behind and a special bond issue on the ballot just to play maintenance catch-up.

(Good Washington Post article here)

This year, the Board of Supervisors cut our CAPP budget by approximately 70%, down to $1.4M. I don't have an electronic copy of it to share, let me know if you really really want one. So, needless to say a lot of projects planned for the upcoming year got pushed out to future years. Assistant Superintendent for Support Services Jeff Platenberg last night described the significant impact on our energy efficiency resulting from delays in roof, window and HVAC replacements. I tried to make one change to it by delaying the resurfacing of the Broad Run High School tennis courts in favor of new HVAC units at Sterling Middle School and Catoctin Elementary. This was not staff's recommendation because those HVAC units aren't on their last legs and the tennis courts are... enough to be a safety issue for kids who play on them and apparently enough that they could not be used for competition. I didn't get any takers.

Finally, I kept a record of motions and votes throughout our reconciliation meeting on Monday night. I thought you might be interested to see what was proposed, who proposed it, and how the voting went. BTW, an 'A' vote means either Abstained or Absent. I used 'x' when a motion received no second and was not subject to a vote.

FY09 LCPS Reconciliation Budget Motions
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11 comments:

  1. John

    Who/What is paying for the locks and security cameras that are being installed in all the schools that I read about in one of the school papers last week? How much is that line item and is that deemed to be a higher priority than keeping qualified teachers?

    Thanks
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  2. Those systems, called AIPhones, are being installed at a total system cost of $500,000. That money was approved by the School Board one year ago as part of the FY08 Budget.
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  3. I asked Mr Waterhouse at the LEAP meeting if a cost/benefit analysis was done to determine whether this expenditure (AIPhones) would save the lives of children as opposed to a less visible program that has a risk profile that definitely would save lives. For example vaccinations, flu shots, suicide prevention?. Answer: No.

    I wanted to follow up on the risk analysis question but the LEAP president cut me off so I'll use this opportunity to finish making the point she didn't want explored.

    Violence in schools has been on the decrease but highly visible (but mostly worthless) security measure are foolishly top priority. The result is a waste of taxpayers money which means families have fewer dollars to allocate to mental health which definitely affects student mortality.

    From the CDC:

    "Total school-associated student homicide rates decreased significantly (from .07 to .03 per 100,000) between academic school years 1992 thru 2006. "

    "Most school-associated violent deaths occurred during transition times such as the start or end of the school day, or during the lunch period." [ When the doors are open, the kids are outside and this new device is turned off. So essentially we are spending money to lock parents out of the schools when they show up to deliver a forgotten bookbag, or pick up a student for a dentist appt.]

    Back to risk assessment using CDC numbers: "Suicide was the 11th leading cause of death for all ages...11.05 suicides per 100,000 population...16.9% of U.S. high school students reported that they had seriously considered attempting suicide during the 12 months preceding..." [So children have a 368 times!! higher risk of dying from suicide than a school shooting.]

    $500K spent on suicide prevention could have almost definitely saved lives in Loudoun county but the AIPhone? Probably not a one.

    I'm not advocating spending money on suicide prevention so much as using it as an example to encourage wise spending of public money. To his credit, Mr Waterhouse acknowledge my underlying concern that schools be wise stewards of public funds. Unfortunately he didn't explain how AIPhone is a positive rather than a negative example of that.
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  4. From http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5635a2.htm


    "In 2004, suicide was the third leading cause of death among youths and young adults aged 10--24 years in the United States, accounting for 4,599 deaths (1,2). During 1990--2003, the combined suicide rate for persons aged 10--24 years declined 28.5%, from 9.48 to 6.78 per 100,000 persons (2). However, from 2003 to 2004, the rate increased by 8.0%, from 6.78 to 7.32 (2), the largest single-year increase during 1990--2004. To characterize U.S. trends in suicide among persons aged 10--24 years, CDC analyzed data recorded during 1990--2004, the most recent data available. Results of that analysis indicated that, from 2003 to 2004, suicide rates for three sex-age groups (i.e., females aged 10--14 years and 15--19 years and males aged 15--19 years) departed upward significantly from otherwise declining trends. Results further indicated that suicides both by hanging/suffocation and poisoning among females aged 10--14 years and 15--19 years increased from 2003 to 2004 and were significantly in excess of trends in both groups. The results suggest that increases in suicide and changes in suicidal behavior might have occurred among youths in certain sex-age groups, especially females aged 10--19 years. Closer examination of these trends is warranted at federal and state levels. Where indicated, health authorities and program directors should consider focusing suicide-prevention activities on these groups to help prevent suicide rates from increasing further."
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  5. The AIPhone question here is one example of the larger problems evident within LCPS. There is no apparent cost/benefit analysis of too much of the budget. I also suspect there is little or no analysis of the opportunity costs, no attempt to prioritize items and justify that priority to taxpayers. The whiteboards are another example. It is frightening to think of how many such items are buried in the budget.

    The response from Mr. Stevens here is instructive. He sidesteps the question by stating the AIPhones were approved last year. Maybe he thinks taxpayer concerns have no value once the school board has made their decision.
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  6. I think it's worth noting, because it doesn't seem Mr. Stevens will note it, that he was the only board member who voted against the AIPhone system when it was brought up for a vote last year.
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  7. John,
    What are the details of the Ohneiser/Stevens motion to "reduce transportation" Were you party to the Leesburg Today's reporting of Ohneiser's motion to reduce western schools' bus service, apparently as a way to punish Mr. Burton and his constituents? What was that all about?
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  8. I seconded Mr. Ohneiser's motion because I thought he had the right to have his proposal heard. He did the same for me a couple of motions earlier when I proposed to eliminate the purchase of all interactive whiteboards. Each of us abstained from the vote itself because we supported debate of the motion, not the motion itself.
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  9. John,
    Yesterday I found a recent posting on this site titled something like Ohneiser Budget. Now I can't locate it. What topic is it now filed under as it is no longer under "Budget".
    Thank you
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  10. I'm not sure what post you're referring to. I went back and looked through the list and didn't find anything like that. I haven't changed, moved or removed any previous posts. You can use the search box at the top left corner to search for "Ohneiser" and find any posts with his name in them.
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  11. I found it - it is a month old -from March 7. Thanks.
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