Support the Timberjay by making a donation.

Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Missing budget projections raise fresh doubts

School officials offer varying explanation for the whereabouts of updated budget projections produced in August 2009

Tom Klein
Posted 1/29/14

REGIONAL– The St. Louis County School District contracted with Johnson Controls Inc. for updated financial projections prior to its bond referendum in 2009, but the whereabouts of the projections …

This item is available in full to subscribers.

Please log in to continue

Log in

Missing budget projections raise fresh doubts

School officials offer varying explanation for the whereabouts of updated budget projections produced in August 2009

Posted

REGIONAL– The St. Louis County School District contracted with Johnson Controls Inc. for updated financial projections prior to its bond referendum in 2009, but the whereabouts of the projections remain a mystery.

The board commissioned the report in July 2009, asking JCI to work in conjunction with Ehlers and Associates and the district’s Business Manager Kim Johnson to update its financial projections following the district’s June 8, 2009, adoption of its long-range facilities plan, which included significant staffing reductions approved later that month. At a July 20, 2009, school board meeting, Superintendent Charles Rick informed board members that work on the new projections was underway and that they would be available within a month. But the projections were never released, and school officials who testified in St. Paul last Friday at an evidentiary hearing before a three-judge panel at the Office of Administrative Hearings, were unable to explain what had become of them.

The missing projections are a key issue in a complaint filed by Tower Mayor Steve Abrahamson and Coalition for Community Schools president Tim Kotzian, that charges that school officials misled voters in 2009 in order to promote passage of a $78.9 million bond measure. “These projections could be the smoking gun,” said Timberjay Publisher Marshall Helmberger, who has assisted complainants in advancing their case.

In brochures and newsletters sent to voters in the days leading up to the Dec. 8, 2009 referendum, school officials consistently cited erroneous and outdated budget projections produced by business manager Johnson in early 2009. At a meeting in June, during which the board approved approximately $1.75 million in staffing reductions, Johnson told the board that the district’s finances were “much better than previously projected.” That financial improvement would almost certainly have been revealed had the district issued updated projections following the staff reductions. Yet, rather than providing the public with updated financial information, the district continued to cite the old projections, right up until the referendum vote.

The district agreed under its contract with JCI to pay the company a total of $22,000 for financial work under the contract, which included development of the projections. District invoices cited at the hearing indicate that JCI was paid in full for the financial work included in the contract.

Under questioning at Friday’s hearing, former St. Louis County Schools Superintendent Charles Rick testified that he was unsure if the projections had been completed. School Board Chairman Robert Larson, who signed the contract for the work, testified that he was uncertain what happened to the projections, but speculated they might have been incorporated into the district’s Review and Comment document that JCI prepared for the Minnesota Department of Education. But that document, submitted to MDE in September 2009, includes the same financial projections used by the district prior to making staff cuts in June.

Timberjay publisher Marshall Helmberger said the missing projections strongly suggest that school officials acted to hide the fact that the district’s financial condition was far less dire than officials claimed. At the time, district officials cited a pending $4.1 million budget deficit and claimed the dissolution of the district was “inevitable” without approval of the ballot measure.

The Timberjay, on Monday, made a public information request for a copy of the missing financial projections. In an email to the district, Helmberger stated that he wants to inspect the projections and “all work product associated with the development of those projections.”