Afraid of the Future

Why is the District 22 School Board and Superintendent so Afraid of the future?

The current District 22 school board and Superintendent are afraid of the future.  They are afraid of things that MIGHT happen.

The current District 22 school board is sitting on a large cash reserve fund – almost $5 million dollars, but don’t know what to do with it. They point with fear to something that might happen in 2012 with property values as a reason to do nothing now.  They point to possible school funding cutbacks as a reason to do nothing now.

By doing nothing now – they have passed on building a new middle school, which would have required less than ½ of the current reserves.

By doing nothing, they have decided not to pay off current school debt and wait 6 more years to pay off the current Certificate of Participation (a $244,000 dollars per year expense).

The District 22 middle school may have MOLD – but the school board and superintendent have not had the building tested – they are afraid they might find a problem.  The problem is 9 years old, and it was only after months of public demand, that they finally did something  – They chose to LIE about getting an assessment – when caught in the lie, they decided to actually have a test done – maybe - if they can agree on a date in the future.

The current District 22 school board is afraid of the future – so they froze teachers’ salaries – and even after having a large cash reserve hasn’t restored the salaries.

The District 22 school board and the superintendent are afraid of the future.  How do I know this?  They have told me so.  Their fear of the future makes it them so scared, that they are unable to make good decisions.  They are afraid that spending the reserves will give them a BAD financial report – so they keep hording money afraid of spending it.

The District 22 school board and the superintendent are afraid that the state might reduce school funding next year and they don’t know what to do. Spending the reserves, might give them a bad financial report – and if they do spend the reserves, they won’t have any money to spend.   Apparently they did not hear the Governor make a statement a couple of weeks ago, that school funding for next year would be about the same as last year – no major reductions

The District 22 school board and the superintendent are so afraid of the future, that when an opportunity to get a brand new middle school, with the state paying for 87% of the total cost, if the district would pay the remaining 13% (about $1,300,000) of the 4.8 million dollars in reserve, they decided not to participate.  Apparently no one told them that spending 1.3 million to get a 10 million dollar school was a great deal.

The District 22 school board and the superintendent are afraid of the future.  When the opportunity to pay off the “Certificate of Participation” and save the annual payment of $244,000 per year for the next six years was available, they chose to re-finance the loan, and save a total of only $140,000 in six years.  Apparently they did not realize that paying off our debts, would mean no possible foreclosure as we would own the buildings and be debt free.

The District 22 school board and the superintendent are afraid of the future.  Apparently they just don’t understand that being afraid is no reason to not make good decisions now. We can get out of debt, and get a new middle school, but we need to quit being afraid of what the future might hold.