Do ISD 709’s auditors believe it was wise to transfer ten million local levy dollars from the classroom …

and spend it instead on debt repayment?

No they don’t. They have no opinion on that question. Like good auditors they only evaluated whether our financial operations were legal and above suspicion.

Today’s Tribune story on the Board’s Business Committee meeting yesterday trumpeted the very good news that our reserve fund had doubled. Yes, it was five million below what policy dictates but its trending upwards. This is good news. However, it is far too small an advance to fix our crowded classrooms and limited educational programming.

I pointedly asked our auditor if she thought it was good educational decision making by our board to transfer ten million dollars of local levy operating funds into debt servicing for the Long Range Facilities Plan. As I expected she was not prepared to have any opinion on the educational aspects of our District’s spending – just whether we followed the rules.

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