Though there is a "recession," projected school deficit numbers are suspect as can be seen in DC where a $34 million surplus was announced the other day or in Chicago where there is an expansion of administrative positions that includes raises for top brass.
As has been coming out about private business world there are serious issues with "budget emergencies" now because what is starting to surface is that large profits are being made despite the what is being done to the everyday worker: layoffs, benefits cuts, and closings.
Ben Joravsky reporter for the Chicago Reader and others in Chicago are hitting CEO Ron Huberman and Chicago Public Schools pending budget($1 Billion Projected Deficit) hard because the actual budget process is coming to a public vote and the numbers are just not adding up to what is being said in public.
I am posting parts of his article from the other day.
Sorry about lots of text from the article but this is ridiculous and sad that these people are handling billions of dollars.
You can not make this up!
A small group of us teachers are getting together on a regular bases in Chicago and looking into the budget numbers and public statements. We have found that:
* For the past eight years the BOE has projected a deficit in January or February only to show surpluses in the actual audited budget as presented in August. These discrepancies have averaged over $300 million each year.
* No transparency--documents presented to the public and released under FOIA are not from an actual budget, do not reveal any of the underlying assumptions on which deficit projections are based and the figures provided do not add up.
* The percentage CPS spends on salaries has actually shrunk since 2004, while the amount of the reserve (fixed charges) has ballooned to over 8% of the budget.
A Raise by Any Other Name
Schools officials say that while top brass are getting paid more
than they used to, that doesn't mean they've gotten raises.
By Ben Joravsky
A couple weeks ago I wrote about how top administrators with the Chicago Public Schools, from CEO Ron Huberman on down, had budgeted themselves raises even as they threatened to lay off teachers, asked coaches to work for free, and cut sophomore sports to chip away at a deficit approaching nearly $1 billion. Do as We Say, Not as We Do
I also reported that the district's chief spokeswoman, Monique Bond, said Huberman hadn't received a raise but wouldn't provide any documentation to back it up.
It's safe to say the CPS brass has read the story. Two days after it hit the streets, Bond called me. My story was wrong, she said—the district's top people didn't get raises.
OK, I said—if the salaries of the top brass went up, what's that called if not a raise?
She said she would be happy to explain—if I'd come to the central office at 125 S. Clark to talk about it in the presence of CPS budget officials.
Bond met me on the ground floor and ushered me to a conference room on the fifth floor, where three officials were waiting: operations manager Jerome Goudelock, chief human capital officer Alicia Winckler, and CFO Diana Ferguson.
I sat down at the table. There was a long, awkward moment of silence. I asked what I could do for them, since they'd invited me there.
They told me they thought I would benefit from what amounted to my own personal budget briefing. Of course, since this was a meeting to clear things up, they placed a condition on the conversation: I could write about what they said, but the only person I could quote directly was Bond. As our conversation continued, Winckler and Ferguson did most of the talking, and Bond occasionally chimed in. Goudelock hardly said a word.
They didn't refute any of the facts I'd reported. But they also indicated that the source I'd cited was misleading.
Oh, I said—you mean the school district's official 2009-2010 budget?
With that, Winckler and Ferguson launched into an explanation of the budgeting process at a large public institution. I got a little impatient and cut them off. Yes, yes, I said—I know all of this. I've written about it many times before. A budget is basically a projection—an estimate of how much money the district is expected to take in over the course of a year and what it needs to be spent on. Think of it as a long list of priorities, with money earmarked to cover the most important things, like salaries for classroom teachers.
"And we're making cuts," Bond said.
What they wanted me to know was that you can't depend on the budget to determine exactly how much the CEO or any other employee is making at any given time because it might have changed since the budget was put into place. And it might change again. Instead, they said, you have to look at the payroll for an up-to-date look at who's earning what.
Great, I said—show me the payroll.
To see that, Bond told me, I'd have to file a Freedom of Information Act request.
Well, I said, tell me this: If Ron Huberman's salary rose from $204,000 to $230,000, how is that not a raise?
Because Huberman never made $204,000, Bond explained. From the moment he took the job in January of 2009, the board paid him $230,000. So no one can say he got a raise because he never made $204,000 to begin with.
OK, let me try a different track: The school board raised the amount of money allocated for the CEO from $204,000 to $230,000—correct?
Correct.
So when the board hired Huberman, he was paid a higher salary than his predecessor had been making?
Yes.
So why would the board give Huberman $230,000 at the height of a budget crisis if his predecessor, Arne Duncan, was making $204,000?
First of all, Bond said, Huberman won't make the full $230,000 because he's taking voluntary furlough days. Second, Duncan wasn't making $204,000 when he left.
But the budget says that's what the CEO was allocated for 2008-2009.
Yes, she said, but between August 2008, when the board passed that budget, and January 2009, when Duncan left to become President Obama's secretary of education, the board gave him a raise.
And when exactly was that?
Goudelock looked it up on his laptop and wrote the answer on a piece of paper: on September 1, 2008, the board raised Duncan's salary from $202,475 to $212,502. Incidentally, that was less than a week after the school board passed the 2008-2009 budget that listed Duncan's salary at $204,000.
So in the midst of the greatest economic meltdown since the Great Depression—when it was clear they would have to cope with declining property tax revenues—the board gave Arne Duncan a raise? Why?
"We weren't here," Bond said. "We can't comment."
Rest of the story at the Reader................