Fine, here is the tax credit receipts and expenditures for the past two years (click to enlarge)
So what we see is that for the just the past two years K-8 schools have unspent tax credit funds of $122,000. Hard to believe that they are so fortunate to be sitting on that pot of gold considering these tough times. We wonder if they even know it. Our overriding point here is that in 2009 the district seems to be clearly tapping into this tax credit money to prop up sports at the high school. Instead of the M&O funding the costs, the district is raiding the tax credit (slush? see below) fund. Only $148,000 was spent on CSHS in 2008 but now in 2009 over $335,000 was spent, but CSHS collections were only up $10,000. Seems fishy to us and we hope that the other schools keep a close eye on their dollars.
But wait, there’s more. We dug deeper and found this (amounts rounded off, click to enlarge)…
What! Are you kidding? Cave Creek Unified is sitting on a tax credit slush fund of at least $435,000 (could be more depending on how much was carried over from 2004). This has to be some kind of joke. Economic times are tough, budgets are tight, parents are stepping up to pay for M&O items, but the district has at least $435,000 unspent. Money that could be used for any educational activities (how about paying our teachers to tutor, remediate, or enrich instead of coaching) or even scientific lab equipment. Why we have been hoarding this money is beyond belief.
Well, let’s put a stop to this. Let’s make sure the schools get their rightful funds, let’s spend some of these monies on science labs in the elementary schools and let’s have the teachers offer paid tutoring or after school enrichment activities paid for through the tax credit funds. Let’s spend these funds where they belong, in a timely manner, and lets keep the proceeds in house instead of sending them to Catalina or Disneyland.
Just wondering where is all that money that CCSOS has been collecting for the last half year? If these funds are collected for CCUSD can they then be earmarked by the group collecting them for whatever they see fit? Would they be able to use these funds for...hmmm...an anonymous donation to the 7-9 Cactus Shadow Prep Academy? Financial transparency or tricky business as usual at CCUSD.
ReplyDeleteWatch, why are you so opposed to extra curricular activities?
ReplyDeleteFor the record, CCSOS has not collected one red cent. We facilitated launch of StepUP to encourage direct donations to the district. A small group of parents saw the writing on the wall... that the looming budget deficit was of a magnitude that could not be avoided... and would be devastating to CCUSD if reconciled with budget cuts alone.
ReplyDeleteOur main concern was that our children's education and the quality schools the district has worked to build would suffer if we did not collectively do something proactive.
Well, thanks to the undermining efforts of this blog in particular, Step UP failed, the deficit still looms, and CCUSD must move forward as best it can.
Hats off to CCUEF for working to get a supplemental funding source established. We truly need it.
Thumbs down to Watch for starting baseless, "anonymous" rumors and doing a disservice to this community.
Parents don't even take the time to vote, and you blame Watch for the failure of StepUP. Priceless!
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't anyone look at why parents might not be voting. Maybe they are tired of the behind closed door agreements. Maybe they are tired of the same old you wash my back attitude between the Board and Adminstration. Maybe just maybe the Adminstration has not done a good job communicating to the parents. When only 25% of the eligible District employees show up to vote, I think that says even more than the parents that are not voting. CCUSD 93 why are your employees not voting? Stop blaming the parents first and start looking at your leadership (or lack of it).
ReplyDelete