District 304′s Artificial Turf Fantasy, 27 Acres of Boondoggle and More Transportation Budget Follies
April 18, 2010
The Geneva District 304 School Board met last week. I’ll start with information from the latest “On the Record” summary of last Monday night’s Board meeting:
Outdoor Facilities Presentation
The Superintendent’s Athletic Facilities Task Force presented a needs assessment report detailing an inventory of existing outdoor athletic facilities and a review of the usage and conditions of these facilities. The task force did not recommend additional use of any of Geneva High School’s outdoor athletic facilities, including Burgess Field, due to overuse and deteriorating conditions. The task force did report field turf as a possibility at Burgess Field to allow for greater use year-round, though this possibility would have to be explored by the Board at a future date. The task force found that athletic fields at the middle schools would be available for additional use, but noted that transportation costs would be incurred if practices were held there. Finally, the task force found that, as it currently exists, the 27 acres owned at Brundige and Keslinger roads is unusable for athletics due to the fact that the property is not lined or graded and lacks drainage.
OK, two very interesting pieces of information here. First, “field turf” is a company but it is also Board-speak for a “$1,000,000 artificial turf football field that we’d prefer to keep quiet”. If you read this Geneva Sun article, they would have you believe that they will raise funds privately for this. This despite the fact that the Geneva Sports Boosters just recently canceled a major annual fundraiser due to lack of interest and advance ticket sales. Of course, the “On the Record” summary ignores the fact that the primary reasons that Burgess Field is in poor condition is that four of the five field drains are not working and we had a very wet fall and an extended playoff run. If the drainage tiles are not functioning, get them fixed, which is certainly not going to cost anywhere close to even one tenth of a million dollars. There was also discussion about the poor lacrosse team needing to be bused to Wheeler Park for practice. Huh? It’s a one mile warm up training run / cool down run from the High School. Easily less than an 8 minute run for high school boys. But instead we waste money on busing and contemplate spending a million dollars for artificial turf so they can practice at Burgess Field? How does this kind of lunacy even make it into a Board meeting? The case for going with an artificial turf field is very weak and based on a number of dubious cost savings assumptions, even IF we had the tax money, which we clearly do not. And please, spare me the “artificial turf will prevent/reduce injuries” argument. The root cause of football injuries is choosing to play football. But if the Sports Boosters or a wealthy sponsor or patron wants to raise or donate the cash to install it, while also assuming responsibility for the ongoing maintenance and eventual replacement, then go for it. Knock yourselves out. Just don’t belly up to the public trough expecting taxpayers to fund your Friday Night Lights fantasy football field.
In the second and actually more interesting piece of news, we now learn that the 27 acre Keslinger and Brundige boondoggle is not suitable for play or practice fields. Hmmmm. So what exactly is this land suitable for? Was it bought for a bus barn, which the District has denied, or was it for playing fields as the District claims? Since they’ve never published anything to explain it, I guess it’s for whatever they want it to be for this week. It will be quite interesting to see what they do with it now after they’ve invested somewhere north to $2.5 million tax dollars for the purchase and site access road improvements. Will they sell the property as I’ve suggested in prior posts? Or is this the first sign that they will eventually want to spend even more tax dollars to “develop” this site? If Grosso had not led the effort to strip out the budget dollars for this project last fall, imagine where we’d be when the cost overruns started showing up because of the things that would need to be done to line it or grade it or to put in drainage. This boondoggle has been an unconscionable waste of tax dollars from the very beginning. The District should sell this property and use the proceeds to pay down the bond debt incurred to purchase it in the first place.
Which now brings us to the preliminary budget proposal for the Operations & Maintenance and Transportation Budgets.
2010-2011 Preliminary Budget
Assistant Superintendent Donna Oberg presented an outline of proposed reductions for the 2010-2011 Operations and Maintenance and Transportation budgets. Proposed reductions total $814,771 in Operations and Maintenance and $785,962 in Transportation. These proposed reductions are in addition to $1.3 million reduced this school year, which will not be reinstated in 2010-2011 and $1.4 million in reductions already approved for the 2010-2011 Education Fund budget. Combined, all of these reductions will result in a balanced District budget for the 2010-2011 school year. A copy of the Operations and Maintenance and Transportation budgets presentation, which includes the outlined reductions, is available on the District’s website, http://www.geneva304.org<http://www.geneva304.org/>, by clicking on the “Geneva 304 Finances” link.
This deck is puzzling. The Operations & Maintenance section seems pretty straightforward, while the Transportation Fund has several peculiar features. For starters, they bring in FY 2012 to show that over FY 2011 and FY 2012 they will generate a $360,486 surplus. Presumably, this has to do with going to a two year cycle on new bus purchases, with the planned purchases in June of 2011 falling in FY 2011 and creating a $4,144,743 deficit for FY 2011. Then for FY 2012, they show a surplus of $4,505,229, from not buying new buses. Of course this is predictated on the deck being correct. As I review the deck, I have the following questions regarding the accuracy of the numbers in the Transportation budget section:
1. On page 7 of the deck, the FY 2011 Projected Expenses = $7,902,908, while on page 9 they total $8,688,870, an unexplained increase of $785,962.
2. On page 7 of the deck, the FY 2011 Projected Deficit = $4,144,743, while on page 9 it totals $4,930,705, the same unexplained increase of $785,962.
3. Then on page 8, the list of Transportation budget reductions totals $947,337, yet on page 9, they show reductions of $785,962. Where did the other $161,375 go? And how did the $785,962 get added to the 2011 expenses and the deficit from page 7 and then subtracted to reduce the deficit from $4,930,705 to 4,144,743 on page 9? Note that the FY 2012 numbers do not change from page 7 to 9, so what is going on with the FY 2011 numbers?
4. The projected two year surplus of $360,486 is completely dependent on generating a surplus of $4,505,229 in FY 2012, which is completely dependent upon the assumption that Local Projected Revenue will increase by $3,976,385 from FY 2011′s $1,763,165 to $5,739,550 in FY 2012. There is no explanation in this deck as to why anyone should believe that local revenues will increase by 325% year over year. It also is very dependent on the assumption that state funding will be unchanged from 2011 to 2012 at $1,995,000. We all know Illinois is broke, so how comfortable are we with that assumption?
So, who can really say based on this deck that the Transportation budget will or won’t be balanced over a two year period? What is certain is that buying buses in 2011 will create a $4+ million dollar deficit and that to get back to even in 2012 requires us to believe that local revenues for this budget will increase by 325% while state support remains at current levels. Now there may be logical explanations for this, but if there are, they should be explained in the deck so that anyone can review and understand them. While it’s great that the District put the deck up quickly for a change, it does no good to post one with numbers that don’t tie. If only I lived in town with a cable company that carried the Board meetings so I could review the deck while watching the DVR’d meeting commentary. Perhaps it would make sense then. Or perhaps not. But of course that would require a Board that actually wants to increase public access, rather than one trying to minimize it.
