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School Board must swiftly address budget concerns, accountability

Editorial

Daily Iowan

March 8, 2007

[Note: This material is copyright by The Daily Iowan, and is reproduced here as a matter of "fair use" for non-commercial, educational purposes only. Any other use may require the prior approval of The Daily Iowan.]


The passage of the local-option sales tax was downright easy compared to making good on the promise to maximize revenue use. The current difficulty for the Iowa City School District is the challenge of spending these newfound funds effectively and efficiently, and things are off to a bad start. Already the School District is having difficulties instilling a strong sense of financial responsibility, going over budget on what amounts to a glorified storage shed.

Originally, the School Board had allotted $40,000 for bids to build an outbuilding for storage at Northwest Junior High. The accepted bid was $59,378 - more than $19,000 over the original allocation because the architects "forgot" a part in the estimate. Obviously, this is a substantial difference, and it wouldn't take many such occurrences on larger projects to drain financial resources. To illustrate, the local-option tax is expected to raise $104 million over 10 years - the School District is looking at several possible projects, some costing upwards of $20 million.

The school made assurances with the original Comprehensive Facilitates Improvement Plan in December 2006, with measures implemented that were meant to guarantee the new sales-tax funds will be employed efficiently. The School District is also going to hire a consultant to make an assessment of the school facilities and help in identifying areas that need improvement. The proposal has the School Board doing a review of all major expenditures, defined as those more than $100,000, as well as receiving frequent updates on local-option tax projects. In order to account for potentially going over budget, the district has also allocated $300,000 specifically to cover unforeseen costs such as those encountered with the outbuilding.

The concern here should be obvious. The amount of money the School District is allocating seems like a pittance compared with potential overrun costs based on the amount at its disposal. It's also not a guarantee of efficient use, but rather a means of covering one's behind. Granted, foresight is not perfect, but forgetting an aspect of a project that increases the cost by nearly half the originally allocated amount is a significant error, and just hoping it won't occur again isn't very reassuring.

The Comprehensive Facilitates Improvement Plan is very ambitious, and the changes the board wants to make are encouraging. But there still remains many ambiguities about effectiveness of the plan's implementation. What is needed is greater clarity and assurances of accountability. If these situations continuously occur, it will only confirm the fears of those who opposed the tax: that it was established only to be squandered. The need for transparency is paramount, not only to ensure responsible use but also to maintain confidence in the competence and leadership of School Board.