By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, July 13 at 3:13 PM
Lost in all the talk about the downsizing that left Floyd Irons unemployed (if only temporarily) is the fact that this week the St. Louis School Board got a balanced budget out of a reluctant and increasingly insubordinate superintendent.
Last month, Superintendent Creg Williams submitted a 2006-2007 budget to the Board which was unbalanced and dug the district $4 million deeper into financial uncertainty. Against the recommendation of Williams and the votes of board members Bob Archibald, Ron Jackson and Flint Fowler, the four-person majority rejected that budget and instructed Williams to find more cuts.
A month later, at Tuesday's Administrative meeting, Williams came back with a General Operating Budget in which expenses did not exceed projected revenues and, perhaps most importantly, actually pays down nearly $4 million in debt.
Board Vice President Bill Purdy commended Williams not just for submitting a balanced budget, but also for supplying board members with much more supporting documentation than he did last month.
But board member Robert Archibald downplayed the significance of the $8 million swing from creating more debt to eliminating debt. He said that it represented only a small percentage of the total budget and was only a drop in the bucket compared to the $30-50 million debt projection for November 2007.
5 Comments:
School Board member Robert Archibald is constantly talking about fiscal responsibility, but when he has opportunities to take action, he runs the other direction. Let's review his most recent counter-intuitive actions. Member Archibald voted for a budget that placed the district in further debt by $4 million, and when presented a budget that reduces the $29 million deficit by $3.5 million, he says it doesn't really matter. Add to that his votes about a month ago against revisiting the Sodexho contract, whereby that contractor is paid roughly $31 million a year, and against reviewing the expenditures of the central office administration for possible savings, which is from where ultimately most of the savings in the reviewed budget came. Member Robert Archibald needs to get beyond the rhetoric and take some positive actions to guide the district to solvency. After all, he reminded us two nights ago that the district is bankrupt.
Thursday, July 13, 2006 6:53:00 PM
Wasn’t Archibald part of the previous majority who sold buildings at a loss instead of the highest bid? As well as, setting the salary for the current Superintendent? And, my favorite, bringing in a high priced curriculum from New York knowing the students will fail miserably?
Thursday, July 13, 2006 7:54:00 PM
The curriculum was actually from Houston. Of course, the State curriculum from Missouri would have been free, but that wouldn't have benefitted any of Dr. Spampinato's friends financially - even though it meant a major rewrite to align with the Show Me Standards Grade Level Expectations. Sometimes I wish I didn't know so many of the gory details of the corruption that goes on in the upper levels of SLPS.
Thursday, July 13, 2006 8:55:00 PM
There are two curricula, CLEAR from Houston for elementary and middle school and Kaplan for high school.
Thursday, July 13, 2006 9:30:00 PM
Thank you for the correction I was told it was from New York. Actually as I write I remember us talking about it during lunch being design for an upscale prep school in New York.
Friday, July 14, 2006 8:18:00 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home