Gov. Pawlenty, sounding at least as obedient as any other governor of either party to the powers of government education, called for even more money to be spent on schools during his State of the State address. Year after year, more and more money is spent on a system that clearly is failing.

I have never heard a governor stand up before a large crowd and say, "Well, thank goodness our education system is working'' or "Let's have a big hand for the schools and the great job they are doing cranking out so many cracker jack kids.''

No, every year it is the same begging and pandering. In this state, if not every state, it is merely orthodoxy to believe that as much money as possible should get shoveled into the government schools. And, unbelievably enough, this is because the schools are failing.

I used to worry about this, the amount of money we spend on education. But I have stopped worrying about it. I can't do anything about it.

And, to be perfectly clear, I am not a teacher basher. Most teachers love what they do, do it well and don't complain. They know, deep down, what they are up against. I can still be an administration basher, but that's a different story.

I have arrived at an entirely new theory that takes teachers off the hook. Actually, my theory takes everybody off the hook: teachers, politicians, taxpayers.

Maybe human beings are just dumber than they used to be. Yes, I'll say it. Maybe we spend as much money as we do on education because we are trying to coax acceptable results out of stupid people. We even expect them to go to college!

There. I said it. Stupidity could very well be the problem.

This never gets looked at. I don't know, maybe it is the modern diet, or the radio waves in the air from so many cell phones or the fertilizers they use on golf courses. I don't know where to begin to search for the root cause of so much stupidity, but I bet if you would be honest with yourself you would agree that stupidity is a problem.

To this day I can still make myself amazed that a couple of years ago two kids, about 15, asked me for my hockey tickets. They were in Rice Park. I was walking to the game. For some reason I decided to quiz them.

"If you tell me where Edmonton is, you can have the tickets,'' I said.

They could not. I know, it's not that big of a deal. But come on, we're spending billions of dollars on education.

It's not just kids in school who might be a touch off their game. We have been sending more and more stupid people out into society. This point was driven home last week with absolute clarity.

A 28-year-old mother of three children died, horribly, from water intoxication during a Sacramento, Calif., morning radio show stunt. The wacky morning radio crew on some station out there had a contest to see who could drink the most water without going to the bathroom. The winner would receive a Wii video game console.

The woman drank so much water she died. She even talked to the radio hosts on the air, complaining that she didn't feel well and the people on the air were so stupid they didn't realize the harm that was being done to the woman. And, of course, the woman must be held accountable as well.

I realize you don't have to go all the way to California to find examples of stupidity, but that one was so glaring it stood out. You don't have to go far at all to find examples of stupidity, and I'm not going to get into a contest with myself pointing out the local examples. Sometimes, when I find myself in deep thought about the newspaper business, I know with certainty that we will never go out of fashion. We might change our appearance. We might experience tough financial times.

But we will never go out of fashion because much of what we do is chronicle stupidity.

That's why I was not alarmed when Pawlenty called for more money for the schools. Probably, we all know that stupidity is a problem that cannot be solved by throwing more money at it. And, as though to prove myself correct, that's what we do because we are so stupid. We spend more money.
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Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5474. Soucheray is heard from 2 to 5:30 p.m. weekdays on KSTP-AM 1500.

Test results add up to a good case for vouchers
An urban, low-cost private school did a lot to reduce the achievement gap for blacks.
By Mitch Pearlstein

As Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislators consider how to improve urban education, they may want to ponder research findings like these:

Citing data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), political scientist Abigail Thernstrom and her historian husband, Stephan Thernstrom, have written about how African-Americans, by the 12th grade, "are typically four years behind white and Asian students," with Hispanics "doing only a tad better than black students." Translated, this means that black and Hispanic students are finishing high school, on average, "with a junior high education."

But how many local minority students might be "finishing high school" in the first place?

A 2002 report published jointly by Minneapolis Public Schools, the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and the Minneapolis Foundation showed four-year graduation rates for the Class of 2000 were

• 47 percent for "Asian Americans";
• 31 percent for both "African Americans" and "Hispanic Americans"; and
• 15 percent for "American Indians."
• For "White Americans," it was a still-terrible 58 percent.

What about other achievement gaps locally?

In a 2003 study of 19 states with high school exit exams, as reported by the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership, Minnesota was found to have the "largest achievement gap in the country between African American and White non-Hispanic students in math," as measured on the state's Basic Skills Test.

Might dreadful results like these be caused by financially shortchanging inner-city schools?

A common myth is that schools across the country with lots of low-income students are less-well-funded than schools with fewer low-income students. The opposite, actually, is more routinely the case. Minnesota, in fact, recently ranked fifth best in the nation in terms of "extra poverty-based funding per student living below the poverty line." This (benevolent) gap was $3,075.

But given that African-Americans in Minneapolis are doing unusually poorly academically, how do these conflicting findings compute?

To complicate matters even more, consider Ascension School, a K-8 Catholic school in north Minneapolis. Students are overwhelmingly minority; they're overwhelmingly non-Catholic; and in 2005, 90 percent of eighth-graders there passed Minnesota's Basic Skills test in math and 95 percent passed Minnesota's Basic Skills test in reading.

In contrast, eighth-graders in Minneapolis public schools, in 2003, passed at these rates in math: 82 percent for whites; 57 percent for Asian/ Pacific Islanders; 41 percent for Hispanics; 40 percent for American Indians; and 28 percent for blacks. Please note, though you probably already have, that the 82 percent passing rate for whites in Minneapolis public schools was substantially below Ascension's 90 percent for all its kids. MPS scores were significantly better in reading than they were in math; but again, they were significantly below Ascension's reading scores.

What are tuition rates (for non-parishioners) in inner-city Catholic schools in the state? According to the Minnesota Catholic Conference, they average under $3,200 for elementary schools and under $8,000 for high schools. By contrast, as long ago as 2003 -- in the wake of a recession -- federal, state, and local revenues in Minneapolis Public Schools totaled $13,658 per "pupil unit."

Now consider findings like these on voucher programs across the nation, as summarized by William G. Howell and Paul E. Peterson, both of Harvard:

"Voucher interventions that serve African American students seem particularly promising. ... [A]ttending a private school, compared with attending a public school, boosts African American students' test scores, educational attainment, likelihood of pursuing an advanced degree, and future earnings. Even studies that find little comparable benefits for whites typically find that private schools help African Americans."

This leads the two political scientists to conclude:

"The importance of such findings for the education of African American students has been underappreciated. ... With these new data from randomized field studies confirming prior observational studies, the positive impact of private schools on African American students' educational performance can no longer be dismissed as the product of some mysterious selection effect."

For the life of me, I can't understand how any educator, politician, editorial writer, or anyone else can read all of this and not believe vouchers are worth at least a try.

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Mitch Pearlstein is founder and president of Center of the American Experiment. The findings above are from his forthcoming study, "Achievement Gaps and Vouchers: How Achievement Gaps are Bigger in Minnesota than Virtually Anyplace Else, and Why Vouchers are Essential to Reducing Them."

What did Hopkins School District know and when?
As the district plans 2007-08 budget cuts of $4.25 million to get out of statutory operating debt, Hopkins parents are asking tough questions and saying more transparency is needed in future.
by Jenna Ross, Star Tribune

Armed with audit reports, board minutes and a website, a group of parents is asking how and why the Hopkins School District got millions of dollars into debt. And they've found some answers.

The parents say that since 2001, the district, while claiming to have made $18 million in budget cuts, has actually increased spending.

They say that the school board knew -- or should have known -- that the district was headed for statutory operating debt almost a year before announcing it.

And they contend that though the district appears to be open about its finances, more transparency is needed.

"We firmly believe ... that financial stability and trust are unattainable until the district and the board provide a clear picture of how we got to where we are," the group's website states. "At this point, the picture is anything but clear."

This week, the Hopkins school board is expected to give preliminary approval to its 2007-08 budget.

The budget includes $4.25 million in reductions that would close an elementary school, reduce staff and, possibly, require study halls for high school students.

The reductions are part of the district's effort to get out of statutory operating debt, a legal term used by the state for a deficit that exceeds 2.5 percent of a district's overall spending.

Last year in November, the district announced it had overspent its revenues for 2004-05 and was $4.5 million in the hole -- a 5.4 percent deficit.

Since then, parents have been told that the overspending was unexpected, said Tom Mooney, whose son goes to Hopkins High School.

After the deficit became public, the district explained its descent into debt as a conscious move by the school board to retain programming. But board members said they hadn't realized the district had slipped into statutory operating debt until an audit of the 2004-05 school year showed the district's unreserved fund balance in the hole. A $2 million budget error earlier had led them to think the district actually had a positive balance, they said.

Board questioned

Mooney and the parents' website contend that this is untrue.

The group found a July 2004 audit that shows overspending of $2 million and a negative $1.2 million reserved fund balance after the 2003-04 school year. They matched that to board minutes showing the board had approved that audit report at its Dec. 16, 2004, meeting.

The timing is important. The district's announcement about statutory operating debt last November came less than a month after voters approved an operating levy increase in a referendum.

"If they knew, and went ahead with the referendum, that's a bit of a fraud," Mooney said.

Barbara Klaas, the board's treasurer for two years, said she simply did not know about statutory operating debt before the referendum.

"What I would ask someone concerned about that is, if they knew we were in financial difficulty, would they have opposed the referendum, which would have only exacerbated the situation?" she said.

Both the parents and the board members could be right.

It's true that the audit showed that $2 million over-expenditure, said John Toop, director of business services. And that over-expenditure indicated that the district would be in trouble at year-end, Toop said. The audit report's cover letter says as much. This and other documents are posted on the parents' website, www.hopkinsschoolfinances .org, and the district's website, www.hopkins.k12.mn.us.

"It's possible that the auditor could have brought this to [the board's] attention," Toop said. "But the message has to be communicated in such a way. And people have to be willing to receive that message."

The school board now has its own audit committee, of which Klaas is a member, that will look more in-depth at each financial report.

The question of how much the board knew and when is brought up in a review of the district by the Minnesota Department of Education. The review -- conducted by Charles Speiker and Debrah Firkus, members of the state department's financial management assistance team -- was presented to the school board in June. Parents had been trying to get a copy of the document for months, they said, but just got one in November. Interim Superintendent John Schultz said that's because the district was told that the document is a draft.

Although the review team does not "suggest that they could characterize the minds and motives of board members," it does find that the board was aware of the district's deteriorating financial state.

'The board was aware'

Under the subhead "The board was aware," the report states:

• "The Board had all the necessary information from its audits for the past several years."

• "Each year the auditor stated to the board that fund balances were shrinking or actually negative..."

• "There were no surprises."

Mooney puts it this way:

"I could show a fourth-grade class this graph of the district's fund balance and ask them what comes next," he said. "And they would know."

The state review also criticizes the district's accounting practices and lapses in reporting to the state. In recent years, enrollment projections for future years rarely matched with reality. Financial information sent to the State Department of Education was often not finalized, was late or was never received at all. And budgets were built on estimated rather than actual spending.

Though the district had been "cutting" from its budget -- in amounts totaling $18 million in five years -- those cuts did not result in "actual expenditure reductions," the review states. In fact, the district's spending increased as it was sliding into debt, according to state and district documents gathered by parents.

Much of what the review suggests in terms of proper accounting procedures and more accurate projections has been implemented by Toop and his business department. For example, the district now uses a dynamic, computerized planning model that calculates what changes in enrollment mean for revenues.

Michael Kremer, the former superintendent who resigned in the statutory operating debt aftermath, said he requested the fiscal review by the state before leaving the district in March. However, he said he had not seen a copy of the findings and could not comment on them or other Hopkins matters.

"I made it clear, when leaving, why we found ourselves in the SOD position," he said in an e-mail. He was quoted at the time as saying that the district had made $18 million in difficult cuts, the board had been led to believe that the general fund balance was $2 million more than projected and the discrepancy was not caught until October or November 2005.

David Doherty, who has two children in the district, said that what Kremer made clear isn't necessarily the whole story. "Some of the things we've discovered seem inconsistent with what we were being told," he said.

Even if the superintendent encouraged overspending and even if the district's business staff was in upheaval, the school board should have provided the district with oversight, Mooney said.

"There's an election in a year, and I think somebody needs to ask, 'Why didn't you protect us?' " he said. "How much did you know? And if you didn't know, how could you not?"

Doherty said that "the district has a long way to go before they regain my trust. I'm not the only one."

Interim Superintendent Schultz called some mistrust normal during the district's "transition" period.

But he said the district has a long history of communicating the truth to its residents and intends "to provide as much communication as possible."

Fewer teachers may mean more study hall in Hopkins
Proposed cuts at Hopkins High School could mean limits on how many classes students can take and two required study halls a year.
by Jenna Ross, Star Tribune

Ethan Lang is one of those teens who has his whole life planned out: Graduate from Hopkins High School in 2009 with a killer transcript. Major in political science at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Become a U.S. senator.

As such, Lang is also one student who would be greatly affected by the Hopkins School District's proposed cuts to high school programming. The district could increase class sizes, cap credits and add study halls in an effort to cut about 12 full-time teaching positions. The administration expects that eliminating that staff will save about $645,000 -- about a third of cuts the district is considering for the 2007-08 school year.

As a determined, competitive student, Lang hates the cuts. As a student representative to the Hopkins school board, though, he said he sees why those cuts are necessary.

But some parents worry that capping the number of classes students can take will make those students less competitive when applying to colleges.

Much of the discussion is about study halls. The administration has recommended that students initially be assigned to two study halls per year -- one per semester.

The idea of being required to sit in study hall every day upsets students, said Ashley Bailey, a junior and a student government representative to the school board.

But that wouldn't have to be the case. Administrators and teachers are creating alternatives to traditional study halls that allow students other opportunities -- such as volunteering, tutoring or doing independent study -- that require less staff time than classes.

"We want to make sure that students who want to earn additional credit can," said Principal Willie Jett. "We're seeing if we can do that while still cutting teachers."

Though they might not be core classes, volunteering and the other alternatives will look good on students' college applications, Jett said. Study halls will not show up on transcripts, and each transcript will include information about credit caps and available classes.

Wayne Sigler, director of admissions for the University of Minnesota, said that's important. Students are judged individually and in light of what their high school offers, he said.

"We ask, 'Have they taken full advantage of the opportunities available to them?' " he said. "We factor in the circumstances."

Block schedule likely to stay

In its recommendations to the school board, the Hopkins administration made it clear that it wants to keep the high school's block schedule. In such a schedule, students generally take four 90-minute classes each day for a half year. In a six- or seven-period day, students take six or seven classes, most for an entire year.

Block schedule supporters cannot say enough about the in-depth study it allows. "People love the block schedule," Bailey said. "Love it."

Principal Jett has worked at Minneapolis North, Champlin Park in Anoka and Osseo's Park Center High School. Osseo, like many other high schools in the west-metro area, has a six-period day. Jett said class time is more meaningful with a block schedule than with a six-period day.

Administrators also said the four-block day allows smaller class sizes, greater student choice and increased efficiency. Each teacher teaches more credits per year with a block schedule, according to officials.

Dealing with the cuts

But parent Michele Adamich doubts that a four-block schedule is all the district claims, she said. Other school districts have gone with the six-period day because it's more economical, she said, and "guess what? They're not in statutory operating debt."

The Hopkins School District is making cuts after landing in statutory operating debt, defined as overspending revenue by 2.5 percent. Last year , an audit showed it was $4.3 million in the red.

Lang said that many of his friends are upset about the cuts because they don't know the whole story. "At this point, there's not much else we can do," he said.

Lang is looking ahead to his junior and senior years. He trusts that Georgetown will understand his transcript and look to his activities.

But he's not willing to give up on taking extra Spanish. "I'm trying to switch things around to do it next semester," he said. "I just really want to get that done."

Fiscal Responsibility
by Jeffrey DeSutter, Hopkins

The recent announcement of the Hopkins School District's closing of Katherine Curren Elementary School was alarming, but should have been surprising to no one.

We living in the school district's reign have long known we live in an area that highly values its kids (as shown in our property taxes). There should be large amounts of money allocated for our schools, because we know education and knowledge are tools incomprehensively powerful. We approve our referendums with the hope and assumption that our district leaders will put the money to its most efficient of uses. That has not been the case.

Hopkins High School is still in its honeymoon phase with its multi-million dollar expansion, enjoying things like a new theater, lunchroom, and commons area with, I kid you not, a new fireplace. Now I'm all for allowing the school to produce these things, but at what cost? A fireplace and million-dollar proscenium theater are great, but when books aren't available and schools start shutting down, we have to start wondering -does our school district have any sense of fiscal responsibility?

The School Board recently voted unanimously to close Katherine Curren (my alma mater). We must do more to be fiscally responsible. It's as simple as that. I can guarantee you the same type of mismanagement of finances wouldn't fly in the corporate world - why should we expect anything less for our children? I hope in the future, our district's leaders will learn that fireplaces and new curtains are nice, but so are classrooms and blackboards.

Where will the budget axe land?
by Jenna Ross, Star Tribune

As the Hopkins School District considers cuts to its elementary school programming, parents face off on what's most fair.

Donna Montgomery was one of seven Hopkins elementary school principals who pored over possible budget cuts. She looked at the possibilities -- closing schools, cutting programs -- and hated them all, she said.

Eventually, the principals came to the school board with two options to reduce the elementary program's budget by about $1.2 million.

Neither is pretty, Montgomery said, but both maintain the district's quality programs.

The first option involves closing Katherine Curren Elementary, the district's smallest elementary school with about 400 students, and reducing other programming. The second option would keep Katherine Curren open, while making significantly deeper reductions to programming and staff at all the district's elementary schools.

In anticipation of the board's Nov. 16 decision on Katherine Curren, parents, educators and administrators have chosen sides on which option better serves the district's children.

But the arguments all center on the same issues: cuts to the Learning Resource Teacher program, potential savings, diversity concerns and enrollment trends.

Learning Resource Teachers

Darcie Rossborough has a kindergartner and a first-grader in Meadowbrook Elementary.

She loves the school, but says she would rather have it close and her children moved than see the deeper cuts that would be necessary if Katherine Curren is not closed.

Her children, she says, get a great deal from the district's Learning Resource Teacher program, in which one licensed teacher, or LRT, assists each classroom teacher for 15 hours a week.

The alternative to closing Katherine Curren involves eliminating the LRT positions in all of the district's elementary schools.

Rossborough looks to other district's smaller class sizes and calls the LRT program Hopkins' "salvation."That's one of the major things that attracts me to the district," she said. "We're spoiled rotten."

If Katherine Curren is closed, the LRT program still will be reduced; there will be fewer LRTs working fewer hours. They would no longer be assigned to individual classrooms, according to the district, but instead would work with smaller groups of children who need extra help.

Joyce Stutzman has been an LRT in the Hopkins District for about 15 years, first at Gatewood Elementary and now at Eisenhower Elementary. Nearly all of her 15 hours a week are spent working with children. She teaches the health program, among other things.

Her work allows teachers to have preparation time and gives children "another set of hands to hold," she said.

At a public forum last week, some parents of children at Katherine Curren said they'd be OK with the district eliminating the LRT program. Their roles could be filled by parent volunteers, they said.

Potential savings

When Marianne Aydil, a Katherine Curren parent, looked at the proposed cuts to the district's elementary programming, she had an immediate gut reaction: This doesn't make sense.

The proposal says a large portion of the savings from closing Katherine Curren would come from eliminating about eight full-time staff positions.

Aydil didn't think that was right, so she did her own research, using methods from her work as a project manager. And she came to a very different conclusion: Closing the school would save significantly less than the $645,000 the district hypothesized. In fact, she says the district would be lucky to save $200,000 by closing the school.

So Aydil proposed her own idea -- reorganizing the district into primary and intermediate schools. For example, Katherine Curren would serve kindergarten through third grade and then feed to Eisenhower Elementary for grades four through six.

District administrators stand behind their numbers. But they studied Aydil's proposal.

At a board workshop last week, they presented the results of that study. They found that Aydil's proposal would require more busing and because of these increased transportation costs, the primary and intermediate plan would save only $100,000.

The district's proposed cuts are largely coming from principals themselves and have been carefully considered, said Nik Lightfoot, director of administrative services. But some parents are calling for more ideas, more specific studies and more time. Many want the administration to take another look at administrative costs.

Diversity

Parents of Katherine Curren students who spoke at public hearings on the possible closure of their school had a theme: closing the school would have a profound effect on its many "at-risk" children. The school's percentage of students of color and students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch is the highest in the district.

Closing the school would force those students to start again in a new and different community, the parents said. The closure would be unfair to that population.

But Ed Ratner disagrees. According to an efficiency study done this summer, the cost of educating a Katherine Curren student is about 11 percent higher than the average for students at the district's other elementary schools. Ratner, parent of a fourth-grader at Meadowbrook Elementary, said spending more on a small population of students is what's inequitable.

He would like to see the district's diversity spread among as many classrooms in as many schools as possible.

And other elementary schools' principals have said their schools are equipped to welcome those students.

Montgomery, Gatewood's principal, said the entire district emphasizes equity. Recently, Gatewood has focused on making each student feel welcome with daily bulletins celebrating the accomplishments of many cultures. And the school's staff cares deeply about all its students' success, she said.

Also, if Katherine Curren is closed, many of its staff members will remain in the district, Lightfoot said, providing the same sort of support they have been giving students at Katherine Curren.

Enrollment

Parents from both sides have backed up their arguments with warnings that students will leave the district in response to cuts. With open enrollment, parents have choices, both sides have stressed.

Kirsten King is a parent of a kindergartner in Katherine Curren and a former teacher in the district. At a public forum, she said that she's "had that discussion" about enrolling in another district if Katherine Curren is closed.

"If even 50 people leave the district, the cost savings of closing Katherine Curren will be negated," she said, referring to the revenue the district receives from the state for enrollment.

But parents who feel closing the school is best for the district overall said that leaving the school open and making other cuts will result in just as much flight, if not more.

"There are eight times as many students in the other elementary schools," Ratner said. "If parents feel like the quality suffers, the impact could be huge."

Hopkins schools get more bad news
by Jenna Ross, Star Tribune

An enrollment drop in the Hopkins district worsens its situation. One administrator says he's "running out of ideas."

The Hopkins School District's budget is looking even bleaker, thanks to a drop in enrollment district officials are calling "dramatic" and "an aberration."

The district lost 177 students during the 2005-06 school year, more than 10 times the loss it had been expecting.

The numbers for this year are also below projections. Actual enrollment, counted Oct. 1, came in at 109 students fewer than expected. The numbers translate to about $600,000 in lost revenue, according to the district.

If enrollment does not increase as the year goes on, the numbers could affect the budget for years to come, said John Toop, the district's director of business services.

"If you're budgeting for X and it ends up Y-squared, there are bound to be problems," he said. "And that loss multiplies itself each and every out year."

Despite the drop, the district's financial advisers are recommending the school board hold its 2007-08 budget cuts to the $4.25 million already planned, said Nik Lightfoot, director of administrative services.

District officials had said that after the $4.25 million in cuts, no further cuts would be needed before 2011 unless enrollment decreased. If the enrollment losses turn into a trend, more cutting will be likely before then.

The school board's financial advisers have recommended that the board revisit this year's budget to see if any more cuts could be made outside the classroom. "But I'm running out of ideas," Toop said.

The $4.25 million reduction, of which $2.6 million is from the district's general fund, was supposed to bring the district out of statutory operating debt and build up a 5 percent fund reserve. That would have also opened the possibility of adding back programming for the 2008-09 school year, because the district's revenues would have exceeded its spending.

Now, with the same cuts, the district is looking at a 3 percent fund reserve and no possibility of adding back programming in 2008, Toop said.

Though the district has taken decreasing enrollment into account when budgeting, this year's drop was larger than ever before because of some "anomalies," officials said.

Open enrollment into the district increased while the number of Hopkins residents leaving the district through open enrollment decreased. Yet the district's resident enrollment dropped by 219 students. There was an unexpected loss of these resident students in fourth grade. And the number of home-schooled high school students also increased.

In past years, retention rates were close to 100 percent, Lightfoot said. Some years, Toop worked with numbers showing enrollment increases through the school year.

The district will research why these drops are happening, Lightfoot said, but it's often tough to track students who have moved, for example.

The district is already considering $1.2 million in cuts to elementary schools, including closing Katherine Curren, the smallest elementary school in the district. It is also looking at $1.3 million in cuts to junior and senior high programming, including increased class sizes and credit caps.

The school district landed in statutory operating debt last year after overspending its operating revenues by $4.3 million through the end of the 2004-05 school year. District officials said they did not realize the overspending had occurred until November 2005, when it was revealed during a routine audit.

Statutory operating debt is defined by the state as overspending revenues by more than 2.5 percent. The Hopkins district had overspent by 5.4 percent.

Hopkins district considers deep cuts to climb out of debt
by Shruti L. Mathur, Star Tribune

Closing an elementary school downtown is one of many options the district is weighing to get out of statutory operating debt.

The Hopkins School District is looking to make deeper cuts to get out of statutory operating debt, including possibly closing Katherine Curran Elementary School in downtown Hopkins.

The district said it needs to cut $2.6 million out of spending for the 2007-08 budget to be on track to get out of debt within three years. But it has raised its target figure for cuts during 2007-08 to $4.25 million out of the current budget of $82.4 million, to also take into account anticipated increases in costs, such as salaries and fuel costs. And the district plans to continue making cuts through the 2011-12 school year to rebuild a reserve fund balance.

Closing Katherine Curran Elementary School would save about $645,000 a year. The district said it would need to make an additional $555,000 in cuts at the elementary level.

It would also need to redraw elementary boundary lines, dividing up the 400 students who attend the school among the remaining seven elementary schools.

At the elementary level, the district is also considering cutting the learning resource teacher program, elementary instrumental music, counselors, media specialists and the High Five Program, which is a school-readiness program for 5-year-olds who don't meet the kindergarten age cut-off.

District administrative staff will be recommending cuts to the school board for the junior high program during a meeting tomorrow night and cuts to the senior high program on Oct. 10.

The school board plans to decide on preliminary cuts during meetings throughout October and give preliminary approval to the 2007-08 budget on Dec. 21. Final budget approval is not required by the state until the end of June. The school board will pass a preliminary budget before that time and vote on the final budget in June.

John Toop, director of business services said there aren't typically any significant changes between the preliminary budget and the final budget.

A final decision on closing Katherine Curran Elementary will be made at a Nov. 16 meeting. The district is planning to hold public information sessions and hearings on Oct. 30 and Nov. 13.

To prepare for elementary school redistricting, the Hopkins district has started working with Teamworks International, a firm that worked with the Wayzata district in redrawing attendance boundaries last year, said Eileen Harvala, public relations coordinator for the Hopkins School District.

The school district landed in statutory operating debt last year after overspending its operating revenues by $4.3 million through the end of the 2004-05 school year.

District officials said they did not realize the overspending had occurred until November 2005, when it was revealed during a routine audit.

Statutory operating debt is defined by the state as overspending revenues by more than 2.5 percent. The Hopkins district had overspent by 5.4 percent.

Why weren't we told sooner?
by Len Japs, Minnetonka

I am a retired citizen that lives in the Hopkins School District. It is frustrating to me that Hopkins School District, one of the best funded school districts in the state, is in statutory operating debt, or to me, the same as bankruptcy.

I know the superintendent just resigned, but I have a question which the district still has not answered. Why didn't the school district tell us about their bankrupt finances before last November's election? I certainly might have voted differently on both the school board candidates and the tax-increase referendum, had I known about the financial mismanagement at the district.

The district's calendar year is from July 1 to June 30. The school district did not publish the financial results until the middle of January 2006 – over six months after the financial year ended. Is it not a law that financial results must be published by Oct. 1? Why did it take Hopkins so long when corporations complete the same reporting in weeks? Did the school district purposefully delay the reporting to achieve a favorable vote on additional referendum taxation from its constituents?

I ask, is it the superintendent who is responsible for the financial mismanagement, or is it the board who hired him and approved the budget? If the superintendent is at fault, then should we not also look to the School Board chair and the treasurer who set the agenda and was responsible for the budget in this fiscal nightmare? How much is it going to cost us this time, and what services will be cut for our kids and grandkids because of this financial disaster?

Hopkins school district repeatedly asks -- and gets -- extra funding through school referendums. The taxpayers in Hopkins are generous with their schools!

How is that money being spent? Is it going to the students? Is it buying new books and computers?

Well, at least part of that money is being spent on generous teacher salaries. In fact, for 5 of the last 6 years for which there is data available, Hopkins ranked #1 in teacher salary.

How much is enough?
 

You find the same excessive spending when it comes to superintendent pay.

Hopkins ranks #1 in the state in superintendent pay.

Hopkins is one of the best funded in the state. And they still went broke.

Hopkins School Chief Resigns
by Dan Wascoe, Star Tribune

The school board will seek a replacement for Michael Kremer with the help of former MnSCU chief Morrie Anderson.

Michael Kremer, Hopkins' school superintendent since 1993, resigned Thursday as the result of a financial shortfall discovered late last year.

With almost no public discussion, the school board accepted his resignation Thursday night, then quickly voted to hire Morrie Anderson, former chancellor of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system (MnSCU), to advise the board and head the district's staff until a temporary replacement is found for Kremer.

Anderson, 63, also is a former state revenue commissioner and former chief of staff to Gov. Arne Carlson. The board did not say what it will pay Anderson, but Chairman Dale Feste said he and Anderson will work that out shortly.

Anderson said he is not a candidate to replace Kremer, who will take paid leave until the end of the school year, then receive $87,000, half his annual salary, as a severance payment.

Feste also said a plan is underway to help the district emerge from its statutory operating debt in just 18 months, more quickly than state law requires.

The usual time is three years. The district fell into statutory operating debt by exceeding a state threshold for overspending.

The district also is seeking legislative approval to shift $300,000 from its community education fund to help pay current operating expenses.

Kremer submitted his resignation letter about noon Thursday but did not attend the board meeting. Shortly before it started, a staff member walked to the board table and removed Kremer's nameplate from its usual spot.

Kremer's letter said that the district's debt "has compromised the community's support" for Hopkins' public schools and that he hoped his resignation, a year before his contract expires, will help "begin the healing process, [and] rebuild longstanding confidence and trust in the organization."

Feste said that because the school board considered its statutory operating debt status "unacceptable," it began discussing a possible change of superintendent early this year. But not until the last few days was an agreement reached for Kremer to resign.

Anderson said he had been asked five days ago to help manage the transition. He said his first priorities are to help find an interim superintendent and to spend "a fair amount of time" resolving the debt problem. He also said he wants to help renew trust by holding community meetings.

He has no school district leadership experience, but he said his work with MnSCU, the state Revenue Department and other activities should help. He also is helping to reorganize the Metropolitan Mosquito Control District and is chief executive of a personal rapid-transit company.

The problem that led to Kremer's departure was an unexpected budget shortfall that left the Hopkins district with a debt of $4.3 million, more than 5 percent of its operating budget. That is above the 2.5 percent threshold defined by the state as the brink of "statutory operating debt." That put the district under state supervision to monitor its finances.

Kremer took the blame for the error.

State Sen. David Hann, R-Eden Prairie, said Hopkins could have avoided its dilemma by complying with state financial reporting requirements.

"I'm not so sure there was enough scrutiny of what was going on," he said.

He added that the reports can help board members and the public better understand school finances.

Hann, a former Eden Prairie school board member, also said board members often try to be collegial with superintendents.

That "can tend to diminish the desire to scrutinize," he said. "Every board has to wrestle with where to draw the line."

In Hopkins, debts mean all-day kindergarten will have to wait
The school district will put off the program for another year while it tries to make up for debt left over from last year
by Sam Barnes

The Hopkins School District has decided to delay all-day kindergarten for another year while it digs its way out of the debt it built up last year.

The district had planned to begin offering all-day kindergarten next school year on a tuition basis, but the school board voted last week to remove the program from the budget for 2006-07. Instead, the district will study it as an option for 2007-08.

The change will save $45,000 next school year.

School board Chairman Dale Feste said the board had "mixed" emotions about making the change but decided that "with our budgetary challenges, perhaps we need to study it a little further."

He said the district will continue to offer a half-day "kinder-campus" day-care program, for a fee, to fill out the day for half-day kindergarteners. About 270 families are signed up for that program this year.

The move was the latest in a series of cuts the board has made to get the district's finances in order.

The district discovered last fall that it had overspent its revenues by more than $4.3 million during the 2004-05 school year. That placed it in "statutory operating debt," a legal term used by the state for a district that runs up operating debt greater than 2.5 percent of its operating budget. At the end of last school year, Hopkins had built up a debt equal to 5.4 percent of its budget.

The school board last Thursday approved an $82.4 million budget for 2006-07 which includes projected revenues that will exceed spending by more than $2.43 million. That amount will offset debt carried over from last school year.

That reduction should allow the district to get out of statutory operating debt by the end of 2007, according to the district's estimates.

"At this point in time in time our calculations indicate that," Feste said.

To achieve those savings, the district had planned to cut 13 teaching positions. But it was able to keep a full-time counseling position and half of a media specialist job at Hopkins High, as well as 2,000 hours of time for elementary resource teachers.

The district earlier decided to forgo a new world language program it had planned to start in elementary schools, which would have cost another $200,000 a year.

The district's goal is to maintain a fund reserve equal to 3 to 5 percent of its operating budget. It is hoping to reach that point within the next three years.

"We're hoping by 2008 or 2009," Feste said, "but there are a lot of variables there," including future funding from the state and energy costs.

The budget can be viewed in detail at www.hopkins.k12.mn.us.

Moving beyond statutory operating debt
by Michael Kremer

As many of you know or have read, Hopkins Public Schools is in statutory operating debt, and is aggressively working to remove itself from that situation. At no time is statutory operating debt acceptable, and as superintendent, I take full responsibility for this situation.

I'm sorry for the difficulties and challenges that being in statutory operating debt has placed on our school community, particularly our students, their parents, and our staff. I'm also grateful for the budget input and suggestions offered by residents through our public meetings, or via voicemail and e-mail. That input will be invaluable as Hopkins School Board members move toward adoption of the preliminary 2006-07 budget on Thursday, March 2.

Statutory operating debt is similar to over-spending a line of credit. In our case, we had an $80 million line of credit from the state and, instead, spent $82 million.

The district has had six consecutive years of budget reductions totaling $18,200,000 - a time when the district searched and found places to cut while still striving to provide the best possible education program for its students. Cost drivers during this time have been health insurance, liability insurance, utilities, and transportation. For example, our energy costs increased by about $1 million this year. Overall, our cost of doing business is approximately 5 percent per year. For four of those six years, state funding did not keep pace with inflation. During the next legislative biennium, 2007 and 2008, we are only projecting a 1.5 percent to 2 percent increase in state funding. This creates a revenue gap that must be closed through budget adjustments, including the reduction or elimination of programs.

There are some tough realities facing our school district:

• We must make budget cuts to remove us from statutory operating debt. We anticipate that those reductions will total more than $3 million for 2006-07. However, the proposed 2006-07 budget removes the school district from statutory operating debt by eliminating the $2 million over-spending problem.

• We must work toward the school board's goal of re-establishing a 3 to 5 percent fund reserve.

• We must realize and understand the impact of a slight but steady decline in enrollment through the 2009-10 school year, flattening out to an enrollment of approximately 7,405 students in 2010-11 school year.

We also must realize that our budget reductions will not keep us from providing the best education possible to our students. We are, and remain, a top-quality school district. Despite the reductions proposed for 2006-07, much of what makes Hopkins Public School unique remains intact.

Because of the statutory operating debt situation, we are changing how we conduct business within the school district to ensure that this doesn't happen again, and ensure that the district regains, and then maintains, its fiscal health.

Our commitment to the students, families, residents, and staff in this school district is genuine. We will continue to provide the best educational programs possible. We will rectify this statutory operating debt situation. And we will continue to engage as many of you as possible in our current and future budget discussions and decision-making.

We have one more budget information meeting, which is scheduled for 6:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 28, in the Board Room at the Eisenhower Community Center, 1001 Highway 7.

Hopkins school district response raises questions
By Jerry Bich, Wayzata

This letter is in response to a letter from David Abrams regarding the Hopkins School District's recent money management issues.

Mr. Abrams' letter raises many questions in my mind. First he states that

"state support of public education has increased at approximately one half the pace of inflation since 1990."

That may be fact; however, I would like to ask:

(1) What was the per pupil expenditure by the Hopkins School District in 1990 and what is the per pupil expenditure in 2005 (or the closest year for which the data are available)? [see answer below]

(2) What is the total inflation since 1990 and how does that compare with the increase in per pupil expenditure? [see answer below]

(3) How many times since 1990 has the Hopkins School District gone to the voters in local referenda? [see answer below]

(4) How much money in total has the district been given by the voters in these referenda? [see answer below]

(5) How did the Hopkins School District rank in per-pupil expenditures in 1990 versus 2005? [see answer below]

(6) Mr. Abrams cites the deep cuts that have been made in administrative functions. Please quantify these steep cuts. People might better understand your plight if we knew that 50 percent of your administrative staff had been cut or whatever the number is. [see answer below]

Mr. Abrams attempts to absolve the school board of responsibility by stating:

"The Hopkins school board has worked in good faith with the best available information at all times."

He also cites "human errors in accounting." Past articles in the Star Tribune and in the school district's own press releases have cited "staff turnover in the business office" and "the hiring of an inexperienced business manager" as reasons for the budget errors and over-expenditures.

I am sure the school board and the superintendent were all working in good faith. That does not excuse the errors that were made. I would indeed call them mismanagement. Who interviewed and hired the "inexperienced business manager?" Why would an $85 million a year corporation (the school district) hire an inexperienced business manager? That alone I would consider mismanagement. In private business, the person responsible would probably lose their job over a decision like this. What caused the "staff turnover in the business office?"

I would assume that performance reviews, at a minimum, are being negatively affected by this glaring issue. The manner in which all parties involved, the superintendent, the chairman of the school board and now a member of the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee are coming forth in the press with various rationales to explain away the problem is somewhat troubling. The superintendent (Star Tribune, Dec. 16, 2005) said:

"there's no one else to blame but me."

I'm not sure if he alone should get the blame, but a resolution needs to be reached in this matter and it should not include absolution of everyone involved.

Lastly, I would remind the superintendent and the school board that they cannot "over-communicate" on this issue. The more people know about the issue and the planned resolution, the better. Lack of communication generates questions in peoples' minds. At the present, what I read in the press does not give me a comfortable feeling about the management of our school district.

By the way, I am a 26-year resident of the district, retired, and do not have any children in the schools.

-------------------------
EDITOR'S NOTE: Here are answers to some of the questions raised by the writer:

1.  Hopkins' total per-pupil expenditure rose from $6,297, including transportation and capital expenses, in 1990 to $10,496 in 2005, an increase of 66.7 percent.

2. Inflation during that same period was 45.3 percent, according to John Toop, acting business manager for the district.

3. The Hopkins district has sought approval of local levies on five occasions since 1990 and won all of them.

4. The district's excess operating levies were bringing in an additional $1,366.22 per pupil per year as of 2005.

5. The district ranked 68th out of 431 districts in per-pupil expenditures in 2004. Financial profiles are not out for 2005 and the 1990 numbers were not immediately available.

6. As for administrative cuts, the district says it has cut almost 32 administrative positions since 1999.

School funding HAS NOT been cut
When one counts all the pieces of the funding pie, there's more for education and the results in student achievement are admirable.
By Alice Seagren

In a recent Opinion Exchange article Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., painted an incomplete and inaccurate picture of K-12 education funding in Minnesota ("The destructive decline in school funding," Jan. 24).

Dayton claimed that K-12 funding in Minnesota decreased over the last 15 years. This is simply not true. Even after adjusting for inflation, Minnesota's support for public K-12 education increased nearly 27 percent between 1991 and 2007.

While I don't know how Dayton arrived at his incredible and untrue conclusion that education funding has decreased over this period, my best guess is that he looked at only one piece of Minnesota's education funding pie -- the basic formula -- while ignoring other important funding sources like categorical aids and local revenues.

In focusing only on the basic formula, the senator left out funding for: special education, class size reduction, equity revenue, Q Comp, gifted and talented education, transition aid, integration aid, operating referendums, sparsity and capital revenues. Presenting such an incomplete picture of our actual education funding system is an insult to taxpayers, who generously support public education in Minnesota.

Another important fact left out of Dayton's article is that Minnesota students continue, on average, to achieve at or near the top of nearly every measure of student learning.

Our students who took the ACT tests last year achieved the top average scores in the nation. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading tests, Minnesota's students finished second. Granted, we face the challenge of closing the achievement gap, as Dayton notes. But misleading Minnesotans about our support for public education is not the way to face that challenge.

While it's important to adequately fund our schools, it's also important to ensure that we're receiving good value for our investment. That's why the Pawlenty administration is focused on bringing accountability to K-12 education through more rigorous and focused standards and the introduction of performance pay for teachers.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty and the Legislature boosted education funding by $800 million last year -- bringing the total state investment to $12.6 billion for the two-year budget. We also enacted significant reform for teacher pay and training.

As commissioner, I will continue to work with state and federal education leaders, regardless of political affiliation, to make sure our schools use their resources wisely. I'm hopeful that Minnesotans understand their substantial support for our K-12 schools is appreciated. Rather than point fingers, we should come together to make our excellent public schools even better.

------------------------------
Alice Seagren is Minnesota's commissioner of education.

SOD Dilemma
By Ross House, Golden Valley

The Jan. 5 Sun-Sailor and Sun-Post contained a letter from Peter Adolphson with regard to the Hopkins School District's statutory operating debt (SOD) dilemma. To try and learn more about the problem, I went to the district's website.

The site includes an executive audit summary, dated June 30, 2005, which does little to dispel concern about what went wrong. The summary presents a table for general fund operations and financial position for the five-year period of 2001 to 2005. During that time frame there was only one year (2002) when revenue exceeded expenses. The general fund balance went from +$2.387 million to -$3.079 million in that five-year period, a swing of more than $5 million.

In the same five-year period the food service fund went from +$868,000 to -$305,043. The summary states:

"Total expenditures exceeded the budgeted amount by $1,236,796. We recommend the district review its budgeting process to determine if the budget development process is resulting in sufficiently detailed information for budget monitoring purposes."

The amount spent is 25 percent more than the amount budgeted for expenses in the food service fund.

After reading the audit summary, one is left with the conclusion that there have been ineffective internal controls to monitor revenue and expenditures. The School Board members and the superintendent have a responsibility to the residents of District 270 to scrutinize revenue and expenditures on a regular basis. Neither the board members nor the superintendent seem to have met their responsibilities. As Mr. Adolphson concluded, "Some changes are in order."

Hopkins' debt is about good people in bad circumstances
Years of state neglect and a desire to keep cuts away from kids combined to put the district in its position.
By David Abrams

I write this letter in response to the letter from Peter Adolphson, regarding the Hopkins School District and his allegations of mismanagement of district funds ("Hopkins district mismanaged its way into debt", Jan. 11). State support of public education has increased at approximately one half the pace of inflation since 1990.

During Mr. Adolphson's tenure in the House there was no increase in funding for public education. These issues and many others such as the cost of testing, No Child Left Behind, the state and federal governments' retreat from special education funding commitments, and limited local control of revenue streams have all combined to make school district management especially challenging.

The tone of Mr. Adolphson's letter was unfortunate and counterproductive. None of us are pleased that District 270 [the Hopkins School District] is in statutory operating debt. We are, though, and it is up to all of us to work together to remedy this situation.

The Hopkins school board has, for many years, worked closely with the Citizens' Financial Advisory Committee to establish priorities in the budget-setting process. The committee has repeatedly, during the current six-year cycle of inadequate state funding, recommended that the school board make every effort to keep budget reductions away from the kids. The result has been deep cuts in administrative functions as well as spending down the fund balance (reserves) to which Mr. Adolphson referred. Our rainy days are here right now and have been since before Mr. Adolphson was a legislator.

With regard to Mr. Adolphson's letter:

• Comparison of statutory operating debt to bankruptcy: This statement was disturbing both in its lack of accuracy and in its inflammatory nature. Bankruptcy generally involves a situation in which financial obligations can no longer be met. District 270 still meets its financial obligations. Any suggestion that this is not so is reckless and irresponsible.

• The state has, for years, paid 80 percent or less of its K-12 financial obligations in any given year. Districts must wait until the following year to receive the balance of the prior year's funds. This use of local dollars to balance the state's books has caused hardship and unnecessary debt service throughout the state.

• Seventeenth-best funded school district: Mr. Adolphon's error in his statement on this topic is understandable. The formula used for education funding is nothing if not arcane, and it causes a great deal of confusion. The Association of Metropolitan School Districts and the Minnesota Department of Education rank Hopkins District 270 as 61st out of 343 in the state in total revenue per pupil for general education funding. In state funding alone (independent of local referenda) District 270 ranks 335 of 343.

• Accusation of school board malfeasance: This accusation was particularly disturbing. The Hopkins school board has worked in good faith with the best available information at all times. We are all aware that statutory operating debt has resulted from our spending down of the fund balance combined with human error in accounting. To suggest that it is anything else is simply irresponsible.

• Incredible new programs: Elementary school programs have been proposed in response to ongoing Citizens' Financial Advisory Committee recommendations that the school board actively pursue ways to increase open enrollment into our district. Proposed programs represent efforts by District 270 to keep up with neighboring districts where they have already been implemented.

All-day kindergarten is planned as revenue neutral: Tuition will cover expenses. World language programs for elementary schools will increase costs but are considered an investment in maintaining our leadership place in this competitive environment. There is no doubt that these issues are controversial and that further discussion will take place before decisions are made.

I continue to be impressed with the commitment that our residents, staff, school board and volunteers have to our district and our children's education. This is why my family moved to District 270 and we support the decisions that have been made to date.
------------------------------------
David Abrams of Minnetonka serves on the Hopkins School District (District 270) Citizens' Financial Advisory Committee and Program-Based Budget Committee

Where's the accountability?
By Peter Adolphson

We all recently learned that the Hopkins School District is in statutory operating debt. For us ordinary folks, that is the equivalent of bankruptcy. Typically, in cases of mismanagement, those in charge resign their positions. It is time the board and management take responsibility for their poor stewardship of the district.

Consider what has happened over the last few years:

•  Hopkins School District is the 17th best-funded school district in the state. It's better funded than Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Edina and Wayzata.

•  From 2000 to 2004, the Hopkins School District's operational revenues increased from $67.8 million to $83.4 million - a whopping 23 percent. During the same period, the district claimed it made over $15 million in budget reductions. Meanwhile, enrollment declined 3 percent.

•  In 1998, the district reported having $9 million in a savings account called a "fund balance." At the end of the 2005 school year, the positive fund balance is gone and we are $4.3 million in debt.

•  Since 1990, Hopkins School District has asked its constituents on numerous occasions to support increased levies. In every case, the citizens have approved the levy.

•  For several years, Hopkins School district has apparently failed to follow state law that requires providing to the public and to the Department of Education information demonstrating that their collective bargaining agreements will not cause structural imbalance in the district’s budget. (Minnesota Statute 123B.749) 

Hopkins School Board policy states it will maintain a 3 percent positive fund balance. Yet it has deliberately violated its own policy and adopted budgets every year since 1999 that put the district on the edge of statutory operating debt.

Incredibly, with all of its problems in finances, the district wants to add two new programs that will add costs in the future.

By all measures I can find, Hopkins School District is wealthy and well supported by its constituents. Why did the board decide to put our district financially at risk? Why wasn't the public made aware of these circumstances before the last election? It takes incredibly poor management to drive such a financially-rich school district into bankruptcy. Some changes are in order.

Peter Adolphson
Minnetonka
------------------------------------
Peter Adolphson is a Minnetonka resident, a former Representative for Senate District 42A, and is currently a member of the Hopkins Legislative Action Commission (a parents advisory board to the school district).

What does the Hopkins School District’s debt mean to you?
By Brett Stursa, Staff Reporter

Typically, a column is space filled with more answers than questions. But this week, I have more questions than answers. Throughout this past month, the financial boondoggle of the Hopkins School District has been a slow one to unfold.

What’s certain is the district has accumulated so much debt the state has stepped in and slapped the district with a “statutory operating debt” label. Technically, SOD means a district spent more than 2.5 percent of its fund balance. In Hopkins’ case, it generated a $4.3 million deficit, which is 5.6 percent of its operating expenses.

For a district of Hopkins’ high reputation, it’s hard to understand what could have brought it to such a miserable financial

situation. In fact, the district has been riding on the edge of statutory debt since 1999. District officials say the debt was needed to maintain its programming and keep up with neighboring schools. They also blame high turnover in the business department for not catching the extent of the debt earlier.

But do those excuses justify the financial mess the district is in now? If higher-ups in the district and the school board knew how close the district was to statutory debt and knew about turnover in the business department, why weren’t they tracking the financial status of the district closer? It wasn’t until someone was preparing information for an independent, state-required audit that district officials became aware of the debt.

The announcement of the statutory debt comes on the tails of voters approving an excess operating levy. Voters approved the referendum Nov. 8; news of the debt became public Nov. 17.

Voters in the Hopkins School District overwhelmingly supported the excess operating levy renewal the district requested. The approval allows the district to revoke its existing referendum revenue authorization of $1,366 per pupil and replace it with a new authorization of $1,500 that will last for 10 years. Sixty-five percent of the voters supported the referendum.

To the 6,711 voters that showed up at the polls in November, would this financial information have made a difference in the way you voted? District officials, from preliminary reports, were aware that SOD was pretty much inevitable, and yet did nothing to educate voters about it. Was this the right decision?

We have yet to see a public discussion about the audit. Although we were prepared to see one at the school board’s Dec. 15 meeting, the audit apparently wasn’t ready. When will we have a public discussion about the audit? Board members were encouraged to ask questions of the auditor privately between now and the end of the year, when the audit is due to the state. But it’s still unclear when or if there will be a public school board discussion for citizens to hear where millions of taxpayers’ dollars went.

Informational meetings are scheduled for January for the public to hear about next year’s budget, but will those include information about what occurred during the 2004-05 school year?

Do average citizens care about the financial books in Hopkins School District? Thus far, it seems there is confidence that the school board and superintendent can handle the situation. Is that confidence well placed?

Citizens support the Hopkins School District. There are many examples of why the support is well deserved and how the schools in Hopkins continue to meet the needs of a diverse population of students. The district should be applauded for the successes it achieves.

But when it makes mistakes, the district needs to be held accountable. Questions need to be asked and the district needs to answer those questions so that its high reputation continues.
----------------------
Brett Stursa is a Staff Reporter for the Lakeshore Weekly News.

Hopkins Superintendent responds to Stursa Article

In December, Brett Stursa, a staff reporter for the Lakeshore Weekly News, raised a number of questions about Hopkins School District 270’s budget and debt situation. She raised those questions in a column; however, she never raised them to anyone at the school district.

This happened despite the information about our budget and statutory operating debt being given to her editor, a meeting with her editor and other media representatives to review the budget and statutory operating debt situation, a copy of my newspaper column explaining the situation being given to her editor, which was never published, and her editor attending a public school board meeting Dec. 15. I raise these points to illustrate that Hopkins Public Schools is not trying to hide anything about this situation and is not making excuses for it, has been proactive in providing the media with access to the information as we know it, and is definitely not misleading the community in any fashion. To imply otherwise is wrong.

I have stated publicly that at no time is statutory operating debt acceptable. And I have stated that as superintendent, I accept full responsibility for this situation. I have also said that we are working aggressively to correct it.

Hopkins School District has had six consecutive years of difficult budget decisions, resulting in more than $18.2 million worth of reductions. The Citizens Financial Advisory Committee (CFAC) and school board have recommended sitting on the edge of statutory debt since 1999.

For the 2004-05 school year, the district intentionally adopted an unbalanced budget fully expecting to end the fiscal year with a negative fund balance. This was done to maintain the district’s educational program as much as and as long as possible in the wake of no additional funding from the state, and being prevented from seeking additional operating levy authority from residents.

There is risk involved with having no fund balance, but the district intentionally chose to spend money on programs and services for students. However, that negative fund balance slipped further than expected, and now the situation needs to be corrected.

Due to multiple employee turnovers in the district’s Business Office, the increasing negative fund balance was not detected until this year’s audit of the 2004-05 budget. Again, I state that had I known about it earlier, we would have done something about it earlier.

How did this happen? There was an approximate -$2,000,000 difference from what the Hopkins School Board had been led to believe was the district’s general fund balance going into fiscal year 2005 and what was actually true. The district thought that it was ending the 2004 fiscal year, covering the 2003-04 school year, with a general fund balance of +$811,803; instead it ended the year with a deficit of -$1,173,426, which created the -$2,000,000 swin