Where do I stand?

By Bill McCorkle

How would I manage the budget for technology that shows at approx $4.5 M?

The District has proposed issuing 30 year Bonds to pay for the technology. According to Superintendent Dr. Tim Baird's response to a parent at the OPE PTA presentation of Prop P, he mistakenly believes that we can only issue 30 year Bonds. This is not true. Del Mar has just issued a 4 or 5 year bond to pay for their technology which approximates the useful life of the equipment. It makes no sense to me that the tax payers will pay 3x that $4.5 Million due to interest and the "technology" will no longer be in use when we start paying for the bond in 14 years. By changing the term of the borrowing, the interest costs are reduced significantly. This will require an in depth look into how funding could be shifted to pay off the bond four years from now, but is a more viable option. The district does have a need for funding to bring technology into the classroom, I cannot dispute that. There are currently no available funds in the annual operating budget for these expenses. The fact that the Superintendent would like to borrow $5 Million to create an endowment bewilders me. Why not wait 5-7 years to take a new bond out to replace the technology rather than borrow it up front and pay interest for the 5-7 years?

Do you believe that the solar proposed by the District makes financial sense?

I have taken an in depth look at the electricity costs for last year and at the current year's budget. When I use the savings percentages that Dr. Baird is predicting in electricity of 60% I come up with only $385k in savings using the District's budgeted numbers. This works out to an almost 15 year payback period before the district would actually start saving money. If you include the interest costs of financing the project the payback period approaches 45 years. When I use a more realistic savings percentage of 35% the savings drop to $224k with a 25 year payback period and these numbers do not even include the carry cost of borrowing the money which will bring the payback period to almost 70 years. In my opinion, the district is proposing this to convert money from the Bond which can only be used on Technology and Capital improvement purchases so that they can increase the operating budget with these savings, regardless if the purchase of the Solar equipment makes financial sense. I would love to have solar at each of the schools, but I will not ignore the economics of the purchase which just do not pencil out.

Can the district Out Source some services (i.e. Landscaping) to save money?

I currently run a large Commercial Property Management Company and I have tried the outsourcing route. The biggest problem I ran into is that the employees have little pride in their work and their loyalty resides with the outsourced Company and not with my Company. It becomes more of a management nightmare than the savings are worth. I found that you could find efficiencies in your processes that would allow you to work with a reduced staff and accomplish the same type of savings.

The monies from Prop P are not a bad thing for the district if they are managed properly to keep the borrowing costs to a minimum. It would be nice to leave a good portion of the funds available so if the Board needed to move capital expenditures out of the annual funding to get us through these tough times. In the past 20 or so years the district has been able to contribute money to reserves. I believe that if the District is managed properly we can get back to this habit very quickly. This would allow us to retire the proposed debt early, thus saving the interest costs for future years.

If you want new, rational members of the board and ask you to Vote for Cindy Gray, Shira Martorana and Bill McCorkle. We will provide the proper oversight needed to stop the current boards spending habits without having ties to the Unions!

We need support to defeat the incumbent Marla Strich, and Dr. Baird's handpicked Board members. Please pass the word. As parents, we will be affected by the Boards decisions and we feel that parents need to have a say. If we elect someone who will rubber stamp everything that the superintendent wants the district will eventually go broke. The job of the Board Trustee is to provide OVERSIGHT which it has not done over the past 15 months. If we are elected, that will not be the case in the future.

If you can support us financially we accept online donations at http://www.mccorkle2010.net/donate.php, or if you prefer you can mail a check to 1433 Village View Road, Encinitas, CA 92024. If you would like to help by putting a sign in your yard please feel free to let us know.