No cuts, spend reserves instead
Riverside’s 2010 budget workshop meetings ended and yielded sobering results. The RCA majority board cut nothing from the existing budget and instead spent $315,000 of our reserves. Rather than matching money coming in against our expenses and cutting what we can’t afford, they spent our savings instead to stay status quo.
Among other things, the board deferred making $290,000 of necessary contributions to our village capital fund. The village uses the capital fund to pay for roads, infrastructure, sidewalk repair, replacement of emergency vehicles, technology maintenance and other necessary maintenance projects throughout the year. Money that should be in the capital fund will not be there in the upcoming year, it will instead be used to pay for day to day operations. In addition, the RCA refused to fund $39,000 of known pension obligations, with President (Michael) Gorman explicitly stating that he was pushing this debt off onto future boards.
Under this scheme, the board actually spent $644,000 of the undesignated reserves, or basically one-half of the undesignated reserve balance. Not paying bills or not setting aside money for maintenance and pensions does not mean we save money; we eventually have to pay it. The board just added to the $1,400,000 2011 deficit by deferring funding of known expenses. Trustee (Lonnie) Sacchi realistically said, “I know this will cost us more later.” When capital expenditures are deferred they will either carry an interest charge or the actual cost (say of an ambulance) will be greater later. Deferring payments for known expenses only increases the cost of those expenses and we are fooling ourselves if we don’t acknowledge that those expenses will cost us more later.
These hearings proved, reinforced, and confirmed the village has a structural revenue problem that must be addressed head-on, without delay tactics. There are only two ways to solve the problem. One way was to make cuts. The board just finished the 2010 budget hearings and not a single item was cut to address the structural change needed to balance the 2010 budget, let alone budgets to come. Why? Because there is nothing to cut. Every reasonable attempt has been made to find efficiencies and containing expenses. The RCA now joins the ranks of trustees that recognize there is simply nothing left to cut.
The second solution is to increase revenue. Trustee Sacchi recognizes that a tax hike is “inevitable” to maintain our current level of services. Despite the fact that Sacchi understands that we are in dire need of money, it also appears that Gorman, (Mark) Shevitz, Sacchi, and (James) Reynolds have no intention to ask for it and plan on using our village savings to pay for day to day expenses until that savings runs out. The economic picture continues to deteriorate exponentially without an additional revenue source for 2011. The 2010 budget deficit of roughly $1,000,000 was filled by using savings, not by making cuts. Under this plan, we will have COMPLETELY depleted our savings within 3 to 4 years, if not sooner. Spending our entire savings cannot be our fallback; it is dangerous and fiscally irresponsible on all fronts.
Trustees Sells, Sussman and Scully have been warning us for years the day will come when we are simply out of money. In preparing the 2010 budget, former (interim) Village Manager Robin Weaver stated “there has been a structural deficit for the last five, six years…it was always getting to this.” That day has come.
The board has an obligation to protect Riverside from financial ruin and the window of opportunity is slamming shut. Our RCA majority village board must find an alternate revenue source and cannot cheat the future of Riverside simply for short term political gain.
Kelly Navarro
Riverside
Navarro ran unsuccessfully for the village board in the spring election.
Turnaround needed at RBHS
Riverside Brookfield High School District 208 will run a $1 million operating deficit in its 2010-2011 academic year, without a tax hike. By 2011-12, its deficit doubles.
Why? In 2007, the board, under then-president Larry Herbst, “negotiated” a five-year contract with RB teachers. Herbst and two other members were freshly re-elected with the RB teacher union endorsement.
Herbst and the old board guaranteed raises of – please fasten your seat belt – a cumulative five percent per year.
Including step increases, it nets out to 5.8 percent per year, or more than 32 percent in toto, according to the RB Landmark.
RB’s academic programs stand out. Our teachers deserve a good deal. But, on the day the Herbst signed, District 208 could not afford this contract. The board agreed to spend money it did not have.
That’s why, last year, Herbst ignored 1,800 voters who petitioned for a referendum and took out the school board equivalent of a payday loan, for $5 million. When that cash is gone, the board – with three new members who did not vote for the contract – must either ask us for more or make huge cuts.
This follows board failures in certification, personnel, finance, disclosure compliance, athletic management, drug counseling and basic oversight. That’s why the Herbst majority tried to rush (by November) hiring a successor to our disgraced former superintendent. A new superintendent turns the page and past failures are buried.
Herbst’s team of board holdovers admits neither failure – nor responsibility. For years it said the board’s only real task was to hire the right superintendent and stand back. Since June’s abrupt departure, it has frequently repeated, “Gosh, we really didn’t know what was going on…”
With this past record – and future red ink – the board should investigate, determine causes and seek an experienced turnaround superintendent to strengthen our academic success while rebuilding RB’s management, finance, transparency and athletics. If desirable superintendent candidates do not see that our board is ready for improvement, why apply?
But at an Oct. 7 meeting the Herbst majority said the district is functioning well and needs only a “refiner” to make minor tweaks.
Refiner? Functioning well? Tweaks?
Former board member Bill McCloskey advised the board to slow down and save the new chief’s inevitably hefty salary until it can give clear leadership.
The board’s recruiter, after assessing more than 100 in-depth questionnaires and interviews, agreed with McCloskey. On Oct. 13, it recommended keeping reform-minded interim superintendent David Bonnette in place, putting off that search for a year and focusing on finding a principal.
It praises Bonnette for more management in four months than RB had seen in four years.
But it points out that due to pre-Bonnette leadership, RB’s integrity must be restored.
Ouch.
The recruiter also reports that parents, community members, administrators, faculty and staff agree that RB needs accountability.
The board will do best for the district by adopting the recommendation and showing the community, and top superintendent candidates, it has learned from its repeated errors.
Accountability would get a jump-start with town hall meetings on why the majority approved a contract that requires higher property taxes to fund 32 percent raises.
Fasten your seatbelts.
Chris Robling
Riveside
Chris Robling lost his race for RB board in 2007. This is based on his Oct. 13 remarks to the board.