Report Inappropriate Comments

5 key accusations from Councilman Sinapi’s no confident resolution directed at the school finance director:

1, misled

2. Incorrect information

3 cannot be trusted

4. must be able to trust

5. In the best interest of the students

Councilman, are you committed to holding administration officials and political leaders on the city side to these same standards in your resolution?

Let’s examine if these facts raise to the level of the Councilman’s definition that warrant no-confidence.

Misled – last year the city council budgeted $5 million in the asphalt budget and the mayor promised to spend it all on road repairs. Only $2 million was spent and the remaining $3 million is being used as a slush fund to plug city overspending.

Must be able to trust –a week ago the council budgets another $4 million for asphalt budget.

Cannot be trusted – the administration and the city council do not know how much money is in the surplus account yet they approve a budget that taps it for another $2.5 million since they couldn’t pass a balanced budget

Cannot be trusted – City establishes a policy over the last 15 years of not funding theoretical raises for teachers, yet last week they budget $1 million for theoretical firefighter raises.

Incorrect information – state mandated year end financial reports are not filed on time by the city finance director that are used to assist in setting the new budget and no one on the council says a word.

Misled – budgetary transfer resolutions typically proposed as part of the annual budget process to the city council by the mayor to show how much money is being moved to and from line city items are not filed and no one on the city council says a word.

In the best interest of the students:

1. In the last 10 years $36.8 million in new property tax dollars was allocated to the city budget. $14,000 was budgeted to the schools

2. City strips $6 million from the school department budget 10 years ago and takes all the money to balance their budget.

3. city stops paying for bond money approved by voters in 2006 to fix failing school building and makes schools pay the principal and interest before they will release the money. No other school department in the state has to pay this cost.

4. City finally decides that they will start to pay principal and interest and hails it as a major contribution to the schools operating budget.

and on and on with the hypercritical figure pointing comments by city leaders