WHY NO BISD PAY RAISES? MISMANAGEMENT AND DEFICIT SPENDING

By Juan Montoya

Let's spare the arguments. Consider the facts below and weigh them against Brownsville Independent District's Superintendent Brett Springston's contentions that all school districts are facing "tough times."

* In the past two years, district administrators have overseen a district that was about $8 million in the black turn into a district with a deficit of more than $35 million in the red.

* BISD adopted the 2010-2011 budget on Monday. The district’s fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30. BISD administrators at first told the local daily that the districts' 2010-2011 budget would be some $493.08 million. Instead, on Monday, BISD said the budget will increase this fiscal year to $505.3 million, a 2.4 percent increase.

*BISD is Brownsville’s largest employer with 7,434 current employees. Department heads, already operating under restricted budgets, cut their costs by 20 percent. Still, BISD dipped into its reserves $11.8 million to support its fund balances in 2009-2010. In 2010-2011, it will dip another $6.5 into reserves to prop up its budget.

* In 2006, Brownsville voters approved $135 million in school construction bonds. Those funds were used to build Pullam and Keller elementary schools, which opened this year, and Manzano Middle School and Veterans Memorial High School. The Veterans Memorial High School was originally budgeted at $45 million, but mismanagement and change orders inflated that price to $65 million.

*Sloppy planning of ingress-egress at the new Manzano Middle School and Keller Elementary School resulted in cost overruns when the district had to purchase homes in the adjacent neighborhood (Casa Linda Homes) after the Texas Department of Transportation rejected its ingress-egress plans. However, since construction of sports fields to the southeast of the school had been completed, the BISD could not use an existing easement to provide buses and students with an outlet for traffic.

* Working budget papers acquired by this blog indicate that the district seriously miscalculated on several budget items, notably personnel salaries and construction costs.

* District planners projected costs for salaries for instruction (teachers, aides, etc.) to total $199 million in 2009-2010. The actual amount spent turned out to be $206 million – $7 million more than the projected amount.

* The figures for construction of facilities are even more egregious. Working budget papers indicate that the district miscalculated the costs of the new construction by $92 million which is listed as a deficiency on page 31 (Exhibit C-3). Additionally, district planners estimated that they would spend $2.6 million in 2009 for facilities acquisition and construction and the actual amount totals $24.8 million.

* Those items alone indicate that the miscalculations cost the district about $114 million more than projected. Yet, the same records indicate that until the 2007 budget, the BISD actually had a $7.2 million surplus heading into 2008.

*In 2008-2009, projected revenues of $393 million did not materialize and the district collected only $387 million. At the same time, the district spent $395 million, a deficit of some $8 million.

*The 2009-2010 budget is even worse. The district projected collecting $390 million but collected only $384 million. At the same time it spent $411 million a staggering $27 million cost overrun.

And Sprinsgston expects us to swallow the line that the BISD is just like every other district in the country? You can bet that not every district in the country pads its construction costs and legal expenses at the expense of employees' salaries. You can fool some people some of the time...