The Fox guarding the hen house in Chesterfield County

H/T to Ms. Brenda Stewart and her efforts to bring this malfeasance to light.

After attending and speaking at meetings of both the School Board and the Board of Supervisors this week, The Taxpayer is dismayed.  It is obvious to all that many of these "public servants" have forgotten who they are in office to serve.  As with our federal government, it appears that local officials seem more intent on amassing larger and larger budgets to fund government with less and less consideration of those who are paying the bills.  Over the coming weeks leading up to Chesterfield's attempt to extract even more money from its citizens by increasing the real estate tax rate or putting pressure on the system to increase the assessments, we plan to share some examples of the way that Chesterfield (county side) and the School Division have spent the public's money.  We will try to distill information from many of the examples of poor spending practices that we have collected and tell as simple a story as we can of the way those practices waste our money and leave us vulnerable to continued exchange of our scarce resources for much less than acceptable value.

When the Board of Supervisors can defer a case involving the size of a chicken coop to hold six chickens and the distance from the property line to locate it, but cannot wait another month to properly address issues raised with a contract for turning over millions of dollars of the public's park facilities to a private contractor who will make millions using those facilities, I think the Board of Supervisors has misplaced its priorities.  No one is playing softball in January.

See below for just a few examples related to public park facilities that should concern Chesterfield's taxpayers, many of whom are struggling while county executives with six-figure salaries do nothing to require accountability of those who are failing to properly execute their responsibilities.

Does this look like THE Model for how to take care of the taxpayers’ business in Chesterfield County  

Warbro Athletic Complex and Daniels Park at Ironbridge

 

1.  Cancel a 2010 concession contract that pays you $16,000 annually two-thirds of the way through the contract and “negotiate” a payment of $6,000 for the eight months contract was in force.  

2.  Turn those concessions over to a firm with no contract in place for the remainder of the year and get no payment in return.  (Loss:  $10,000)

3.  Turn nine public softball fields over to a firm with no contract in place and get nothing for four months despite having a contract awaiting approval that requires $65,000 annual rent payments.  (Loss:  $21,668)  Exposure to potential liability by allowing occupancy of real estate with no written contract:  Unknown.

4.  Contrary to terms of contract awaiting approval, continue to pay water and sewer charges that are supposed to be paid by firm using public facilities with no contract in place.

5.  Allow Dominion Virginia Power to turn a Chesterfield account for electricity over to a collection agency because the firm operating public park facilities with no contract has not had the meter put in the firm’s name as required by the contract awaiting approval.

The Taxpayer is mightily curious about what standard of performance our public servants are being held to.

More to come! Drip... Drip... Drip...

Durfee and Jaeckle fight bloated and mismanaged public schools

The Chesterfield Observer had these nuggets this week...

Citing concerns about the cost of debt service, Matoaca Supervisor Marleen Durfee and Bermuda Supervisor Dorothy Jaeckle last week cautioned against some items in the capital improvements plan (CIP) for Chesterfield County Public Schools (CCPS).

It looks like TWO Taxpayer Hero Awards are in order...

Durfee continued to focus on whether additional classroom space is needed when overcrowding can be remedied by redistricting. While Robious Middle is over capacity, there are vacant seats in adjacent districts at Providence and Midlothian middle schools.

Durfee hits it on the head

“We should not only consider deferring some projects but not having some projects,”

They went on to list the poor choices

• $13 M to Midlothian High with new gym, larger band room, and more office space
• $5.8M to Watkins Elementary 150 more seats, office renovations, and a new bus loop
• $9 M Clover Hill High HVAC replacement project

Remember that old Clover Hill is closing?  Nice!

“Is fixing [the HVAC at Clover Hill] and having the school sit empty for a year a wise use of [taxpayers’] money?” asked Durfee.

The Taxpayer has already covered the expensive technology plan; but, it is nice to see that these two supervisors ask the tough questions... They must know The Taxpayer

The supervisors also questioned whether the school system should spend $12.3 million on new technology upgrades over the next five years, asking whether CCPS can afford to keep up in today’s economic times.

Unfortunately, it appears the bloaters were hard at work.  First up Wyman.

“We have to maintain our competitiveness in technology... perhaps at the expense of something else.”

Then Rajah

“We’re stripping our kids of the opportunity to improve their horizons.  That’s going down a dangerous road…if kids fall behind in technology.”

The Taxpayer knows plenty of kids that can dance technological circles around their grown-up counterparts without spending $12.3M that should be returned to the private sector.  We know technology is fine; when there are jobs in the private sector to use them in.  Look at this fancy quote from Sunny Reed, VP of Friends of the CC Public Libraries.

“There are a lot of kids who don’t own computers and use the computers at the library to work on school projects. If you limit the amount of time the libraries are open, you limit students’ access to computers and other resources. That creates an uneven playing field,”

A noble organization with a noble cause; however, how many kids do you see playing games on those library computers?  So now they cannot PLAY GAMES on Thursdays.  Time are tough in Chesterfield.  Keep those scissors at the ready.

Robbing Virginia's Retirement Funds to put off tough decisions

From today's Chesterfield Observer and here...

One of the school board’s last remaining hopes for a budget bailout was dashed 

So now the bloat has to deflate??  Not so fast according to BOS Art Warren...

“There are still options available to us.”

Huh? Or this quote from Dorothy Jaeckle...

“If we had a revenue neutral tax rate all along, I could support revenue neutral."

What does that mean? Obviously the hole in the bucket has a fix and The Taxpayer hopes it isn't The Taxpayer's heiney.  The CO reminds us that the property tax is only 45% of the revenue stream.

We interrupt this program for some bad bloat karoake sung by:
Tenor School Board Chairman David Wyman:

“Obviously, I’m disappointed that they didn’t consider the tax rate increase,”
“I remain uncomfortable about what kind of funding we’re going to get from the state,”
“It’s been a rough couple of months."
"We have tried to work through the issues to help people understand the difficult straights we are in."

Bass Vice-Chairman Marshall Trammell

“It means we’re going back to our second list of cuts and potentially look at some additional things as well"
“They are already taking a hit, and we don’t want to add to that,”

Alto  BOS Marleen Durfee

“The state has not stepped up to the plate and done its job,”

That sound of fingernails on the chalkboard... Yes... we have a bad case of Chesterfield Idol.

The Taxpayer needs something soothing... Jaeckle recovers nicely with a tune about fighting the bloat

“more scrutiny of expenses.” CCPS has “too many people and programs” and should be “giving back responsibilities to parents and students…We’ll come away stronger for it,”

Jim Holland hits the chorus in perfect pitch

“reductions are difficult to make…but we can maintain our core services.”

Art Warren takes us to the bridge and drives it home...

“We have to be realistic about what the future might bring…Families are cutting back, [so] this is the time to take a deep breath and become more fiscally responsible.”

Now to the heart of the problem...

The state is considering giving school divisions a “holiday” from paying into the Virginia Retirement System. If approved, that measure would save the school system $16 million for FY11. But the holiday would not be a long-term solution to the school system’s budget problems since it would only be in effect for one or two years.

The School Board is only planning for the short term bandaid fix.  Last year it was the "stimulus" funds that went right into school operations.  This year they are plugging the gap with funding that should be reserved for retirement funds.  Do you see a trend?  Instead of strategic cuts that will get us to a sustainable budget.  we get a bunch of bandaids and we are convinced it is merely a flesh wound.  We need a tourniquet stat, it just might save our life and surely we will bleed to death without it.