This review has revealed upward trends in several line items as well as significant red ink in others.
One account, labeled “School Board Dues & Fees,” was of particular interest to the special review team of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) during their October visit last year. While the board budgeted $15,000 for this account for the fiscal year, the year-to-date expenditures are $163,024, putting the account 987 percent over budget.
An unnamed source familiar with the budget said registration fees for conferences are paid from this account; however, without a detailed analysis of this particular line item, it is impossible to know which conferences have been covered with this money. The related line item, “Board Travel,” was budgeted at $28,000 for the fiscal year, with $20,299.11 having been spent as of Jan. 31.
School board members regularly receive a per diem of $35 for each meeting they attend. For the current fiscal year, the board budgeted $6,250 to cover their per diems. In January, the board’s per diem pay was $1,190, bringing their year-to-date per diem pay to $9,695, making them $3,445, or 55 percent, over budget.
This over-expenditure is directly correlated to the number of meetings held by the board, something that the SACS review team noted as a concern in its report.
In January alone, the board held two regular meetings, one called meeting, two meetings of the executive committee and one meeting of the student hearing committee.
A third account significantly in the red is the “Miscellaneous Purchased Services” account, which was budgeted at $2,648 at the beginning of the fiscal year. In January, this account shelled out $51,847.41, bringing their year-to-date total to $54,116.68 – 1,944 percent over budget.
The same source told The Herald Independent that some food items, as well as salaries for consultants, were paid out of this account.
Similarly, the account labeled “School Board Audit,” which was budgeted at $50,000, has spent $86,486.75 as of Jan. 31, with $10,625 spent in the month of January. This puts the account 73 percent over budget.
One explanation for this might be the ongoing forensic audit requested by the board and being conducted by the public accounting firm of Elliot Davis. This audit comes in addition to the school board’s regular annual audit, which is required by the State Department of Education.
Legal fees have also been an ongoing expense for the school board, as was noted in last October’s SACS report, “Board actions have resulted in costly legal expenditures.”
For the month of January, the district paid out $16,626.28 in legal fees, bringing their year-to-date total to $87,918.23. Since no dollar figure was budgeted for this particular account, it is entirely over budget.
For fiscal year 2008-2009, the SACS report noted that $162,234.87 had been budgeted for legal fees, with an expenditure of $178,360.97 – 10 percent over budget.
Local legislation, introduced in January by Sen. Creighton Coleman and Rep. Boyd Brown, is designed, in part, to remove the budgeting process from the school board and place it in the hands of an appointed, independent finance committee. That bill, along with its companion piece that aims to expand the school board by two additional appointed members, was vetoed by the governor last week.
Coleman and Brown have said they plan to override the veto this week.
Several attempts were made by The Herald Independent to contact Board Chairwoman Annie McDaniel for input and clarification on this article. McDaniel also chairs the board’s standing finance committee.
Oh and they're spending $54K on "Misc. Purchased Services"! What services? A caterer for their meetings? Somebody to mow the lawn at their houses? What services, to the tune of almost sixty-thousand dollars a year, do these people purchase that’s necessary for them to perform their duties as members of the School Board?
Apparently we're paying them per diem to cover the costs of their expense to drive from their house after dinner and eat another catered meal. Please...!
And a $160K for “Dues and Fees:” Dues to what organizations and fees for what purposes? Do prey tell… for what? A hundred and sixty thousand dollars sure would buy a lot of darn magazine subscriptions. Maybe their cable and satellite TV subscriptions so they can keep up on the news. Exactly what are these monies paying for that’s necessary for the board members to carry out their duties?
Common School Board members… out with it! What are you spending our tax dollars on?
This has nothing to do with the board members' genders or races or individual ethnicities. It has everything to do with the fact by any reasonable standards they're acting like a bunch of petty thieves and tyrants.
The only agenda they're pursuing is how to enrich and entertain themselves at the expense of the schools and children they're supposed to be taking care of. They’ve turned their sworn public duty into their private own feel-good-and-important club.
Disgusting behavior! Public servants my left foot. Incompetent rip-off artists is more like it.
I do not believe that you have ever printed your credentials for your journalistic position. What are your prior areas of employment? The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Try judging humans on at least the same standard. You can talk to Andre Bauer for some advice.