Trustees are tasked with setting an annual budget, do they have all the relevant financial data to make critical budget decisions before asking the community to tax their neighbors?
Editorial
In a recent special meeting held at Timberlake High School, a two-year $15 million dollar supplemental levy was approved by the board.
The vote itself raised a question: Is it legitimate for an absentee trustee to call into the meeting 74 minutes after the call to order so that a vote can be cast to reverse a failed vote?
Four trustees spent 67 minutes conversing and deliberating over difficult financial decisions in an emotionally charged environment before a motion was made to approve Superintendent Lisa Arnold’s levy recommendation with slight modifications. The motion failed in a 2-2 split vote.
While the board entered into additional discussion after the failed motion, it was interrupted by displeased audience members. These interruptions were not the first time the audience full of staff and faculty had disrupted the meeting and had been cautioned by the chair that the disruptions were out of order.
One woman can be heard saying, “Call Bob Jones.”
Chair Michelle Thompson replies, “Mr. Jones is not here this evening.”
A man is then heard stating, “He submitted his approval.”
“He is not here,” Thompson reiterated. “He must be here to cast a vote.”
Roughly 7 minutes later Trustee Bob Jones called into the meeting. The failed motion was brought forward again by Trustee Randi Bain, Jones seconded the motion and it passed with a 3-2 vote. Jones did not participate in the discussions or deliberations leading into the vote, nor did he ask any questions about the modifications to the original proposal.
During deliberations, Thompson said she would like to see a reduction of three additional positions at the district office. She believes what is being asked for in reductions to admin is minimum compared to what the schools have been asked to endure.
Arnold replied that she was unsure what positions could be cut at the district office.
The audience laughed and scoffed at Thompson when she asked Arnold to review reducing the admin positions. “What’s your suggestion? Who? Who? What positions at the district office are you suggesting be cut?” shouted a woman from the audience.
“This is extremely hard,” stated Thompson after reminding the audience it was inappropriate to interrupt a board meeting. “When we are asking for principal assistants, college and career counselors, [and] all these other positions to go by the wayside, but we are only willing to cut one person at the district office—I think we really need to consider what we are looking at.”
Trustee David Quimby responded to the disruptions by stating, “Every morning I go to the gas station and every morning I ask people what they think of the levy and almost everybody says they voted no.”
“They want to see cuts,” continued Quimby. “The cuts they want to see are admin.”
Quimby echoed the sentiments of the board when he stated, “I don’t want to cut anybody’s job, but we got to do something. We’ve got to show the public that we’re trying. I’m afraid it might not pass again…and then we’re really hurting.”
“I wish everybody would try to work together,” he said. “We don’t want to cut teachers, we don’t want to cut counselors, so we have to cut somewhere. We need to stop double routing kids…people are upset about a lot of things.”
“People in this community are hurting. There are people who cannot afford their houses, but nobody talks about them…keep that in mind.” Quimby summed up his remarks by saying the attacks on people who voted no “needs to stop” and that the district needs to respect them and understand that they have valid reasons for their vote.
When considering the financial situation at Lakeland, this publication questions how the trustees can be expected to make financial decisions when relevant financial data has not been presented to them in a useful manner.
In order to help the public better understand expenditures at Lakeland, Kootenai Journal recently asked the district to provide its list of subscription services and its list of memberships and associations. The request was denied based on “records do not exist.”
How is it possible that the admin of a large public entity does not provide the governing board tasked with setting the budget a comprehensive list of its subscription services, the benefit or use of the service, the frequency of payment, and when the next payment is due?
For instance, in the 2024 November expenditure report (which is a 20-page list of monthly expenses) the district paid $32,600 for a service listed as “Cheerful Chatter SLP Services September 2024” and $16,882 to “OETC Tier 3 Classwize” for a 1-year subscription. Meanwhile, the district pays Fatbeam over $20,000 per month for internet and network services.
When asked, a trustee could not identify what OETC stood for, nor what the service actually entails. Same for Cheerful Chatter, the trustee could not say with certainty what the service was for and the district paid another $35,425 to Cheerful Chatter in December, which appears to be a monthly expense. It is unknown if these services are district-wide or specific to a certain school building or grade level.
This kind of information should not only be presented to the board and made available to the public, but it is a useful administrative tool that should have already been created and regularly updated by the administration for its own use in managing the district’s operations.
Why has no previous administration established and used this very basic financial report, and why has no previous board asked for this kind of transparency before making challenging budget decisions?
Kootenai Journal remains hopeful that the current board and administration will correct the mistakes from previous years and initiate a more robust and transparent financial disclosure system.
The trustee seats held by Jones and Quimby are up for election this November. Jones has served in the district for decades. Quimby has volunteered with the wrestling program for years and is in his first 4-year term as trustee.
