Tempers flared at the Columbus Municipal School District board meeting Friday when board member Jason Spears argued the CMSD administration was not being transparent in regard to budget concerns.
The board planned to hold discussions of the Fiscal Year 2016-17 budget prior to voting whether to approve it on Aug. 8, but the majority of the discussion centered on expenditures listed in the preliminary report of the 2015-16 budget, specifically on cuts the district made to increase its carryover balance next year. Spears wanted to know why the report didn’t have a breakdown of all the areas where cuts had been made.
The district previously planned a budget increase of about $1.4 million, to be funded by increased taxes. Later, the district reduced the plan to a $1 million budget hike, promising to dip into reserve funds so that there would be no need for a tax increase.
Spears said he still was clear on where cuts had been made.
“My complaint is that we have been told there were cuts made, but they can’t give us specific areas and numbers associated with those cuts,” Spears told The Dispatch after Friday’s meeting. “There hasn’t been anything substantiated, and that’s my issue.”
During Friday’s meeting, Spears brought up several examples in the preliminary report of overspending in certain categories of the operations budget, including a $120,500 overspend in athletics and an extra $51,000 in repairs and maintenance. In a time when the district is requesting more money, Spears argued, the board should have access to a budget with a breakdown of exactly what money is being spent and what it is being spent on.
“(We just) continue to live in a parallel universe of ‘Well, we need to spend and spend and spend’ and then go back and ask for higher taxes. We’re overspending … a lot more than we should be overspending in different categories, and there’s no rhyme or reason for it,” Spears said.
CMSD Superintendent Philip Hickman responded that the “overspending” Spears was referring to was taken from areas where there was surplus within the operations budget, but the district did not overspend in the overall operations budget. It is not the operations budget that is causing the district’s money problems, Hickman argued, but its debt service on recent construction projects. None of the funds allocated for the operations budget can be used to pay off the district’s debt.
“I understand it looks good to go item by item, and pick it out without context when we don’t even know the context,” Hickman said. “Right now, we’re having this discussion as if something’s wrong with the actual budget. We paid all our bills, we provided services for kids, academics have gone up in every area … graduation rate’s gone up, everything, and we’re not asking for more money (from the taxpayers).”
Hickman also said the board would have to wait until the district released its final budget report for the 2016-17 school year to see a breakdown of expenditures.
The argument continued for about 90 minutes.
The board also discussed the possibility of creating a committee specifically to oversee the budget. Hickman is still in the process of determining how many members the committee will have, but said he hopes to include members of the community, people with business and financial background and two school board members. The committee’s meetings will be open to the public.
The board also voted not to release two teachers from their employment contracts, leaving the district with seven teaching vacancies. The board earlier in July released 10 teachers from their contracts for 2016-17, including eight who were not claiming hardships.
Hickman confirmed the district is interviewing teachers to fill its remaining vacancies.
Board President Angela Verdell said after the meeting the board wants to make sure the district hires qualified teachers. It is bad to start out the school year with substitute teachers in classrooms, Verdell said, but it is worse to hire teachers who are not certified.
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