The PG reports:
Meanwhile, the board plans to approve a resolution next week as a formal objection to not receiving state reimbursement for a portion of the ongoing high school renovation project.How can the State reimburse Mt. Lebanon when we're behind in filing the proper documents for the PlanCon process? Part H (PDF), Project Financing addresses the financing used for a project. Calculation of the temporary reimbursable percent for a project's financing occurs at PlanCon Part H. Once PlanCon Part H is approved, reimbursement on a project commences. Have we done this?
Participation in a long-standing process called Planning and Construction Workbook, or PlanCon, entitles school districts to be compensated for embarking on capital improvement projects.
According to Mr. Steinhauer, Mt. Lebanon is owed about $450,000 per year, eventually totaling $11 million, but the state budget has not provided for any reimbursements to school districts the past two years. Some 125 districts are being affected, and many have drafted similar resolutions.
The documents are being sent to the offices of Gov. Tom Corbett and Education Secretary Ron Tomalis, as well as to state senators and representatives. Many of them are unaware of the lack of reimbursements, Director Mary Birks said.
"We are bringing it to their attention so that they know what the issue is," she said.
The High School Renovation Process (saved in Google Docs) illustrates how behind the board is in the process. It shows that PlanCon Part F was the last submission approved. However, the February 20, 2012 agenda indicates "That the Board approves submission of PlanCon Part H to the Pennsylvania Department of Education in substantially the form presented." This is the last item I can find pertaining to PlanCon Part H. Was it ever approved by the PDE? Did the board approve it after that - approve the approval?
I have been told that even after PlanCon H is submitted, approved by the state,
and the state's approval is accepted by the District, that an application for state subsidy must be submitted for each scheduled payment. Has that been done?
Reimbursement is not reflected in the budget. Once approved, the budget cannot be reopened, unlike the Municipality. Just as the Covenant tax money was never shown in a budget, this PlanCon money will disappear as well. How could the State provide reimbursement in the past two years when the paperwork was allegedly submitted last February?
The Lebo Shell Game lives on. As a reader commented previously,
"Jan Klein has and will continue to plug the state reimbursement hole with our tax dollars to balance the budget - read that extra millage - and that extra millage will not be reduced when the state payments are finally paid !"
24 comments:
Gee, wonder where the auditors have been hiding... The state's and the school district's.
Isn't there something in the ethics policies about lying to the public!?
If it turns out that PlanCon H wasn't submitted two years ago, we should start another petition the Governor and PDe to have the finance director and superintendent removed from their positions for fraud.
Ah! Poor Mrs Kline,she just can't get an honest budget. Now we really know why we need concessions from the unions. Tell me this, why should the board write letters to the state and carry the union's dirty laundry? The PSEA has all the union dues to donate to the legislature.I 'll bet Birks and Lebovitz and Remeley and Cupiuccy and Pasti and Booper are just crying their eyes out while voting for a budget that is six mills too high.
Hey Pooch, see what happens when you ignore the public and let Timmie and Tommie take care of the motions as presented.
Hey $27-Pizza guy, see what happens to board members who think they are entitled to things they haven't earned.
JoPo wrote "the audit report reflects that we received $663,311 less than was budgeted in revenues primarily due to the State not yet approving our PlanCon Part H for reimbursement of their share of the high school renovation bonds."
Why was the reimbursement budgeted before, if we know it was not guaranteed?
http://jposti.blogspot.com/2012/10/audit-feasibility-study-and-strategic.html#!/2012/10/audit-feasibility-study-and-strategic.html
One more reason to vote for Liberterian George Brown.
You know Senator Matt Smith is going to chime in on this unless it's to point fingers at the Corbett administration.
Dan Miller, nice guy that he is, isn't going to buck the democratic party and question the districts claims or timing.
And the Allegheny County Republican is so deft and dumb that they can't even recognize their Governor and party is being played as patsies.
They wake up after the next election wondering how they got their clock cleaned and lost the governorship and house.
We need to change things in Allegheny County and the state and change it fast.
Mr. Brown a suggestion, get in front of the press that you will make it your first priority to uncover the truth and timing of the reimbursement issue.
You know the republicans and the Governor aren't smart enough to take this on and the democrats would love to pin this on the Governor. They want his office.
So if you're really going to shake things up... now is the time to show us.
Rep. Seth Grove is working on it, Mr. Brown.
http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=H&SPick=20130&cosponId=12195
Contact him and see what he is doing.
What a bunch of hokum smokum! I certainly hope 4:31 isn't Mr. Brown, because what kind of nonsense is this from Seth Grove: "I am told by the PDE that the Commonwealth is currently able to reimburse all projects in Part H for which school districts have filed completed paperwork; however, if all of the projects in Part H were to have filed complete and updated paperwork tomorrow the PDE would be approximately $25 million short of being able to reimburse all Part H projects."
And others worse from there!
Lebocitizens aren't concern right now with all the projects I Part H.
The question is... did MTLSD submit and get approval of PlanCon H or not and is the state delinquent in payments as accused?
Why was 1) a bond issue sold for $75,000,000 and 2) bids awarded on the high school before the reimbursement was accepted by the State in PlanCon Part H?
Why didn't the auditor write a finding about the unapproved PlanCon H high school reimbursement?
Where were Mrs. Cappucci and Mr. Remely, our Master Design Team folks, on this issue? They are the folks responsible to see the PlanCon Part H approved before bids were let because they were the Board representatives on the Master Design Team along with Dr. Steinhauer.
According to the last organization chart I saw of the District the facilities folks report to Jan Klein and then Jan reports to the Superintendent. Where was Mrs Klein on this? She was busy issuing the $75,000,000 of bonds two years before the bids were accepted and that wasted at least $5,000,000 in principal and interest payments on the $75,000,000 bond issue.
Dr. Steinhauer is our Superintendent and is the individual hired by the Board to run the District properly but here we are with a headline in this weeks Almanac that says, "No fat left on Lebo school budget" And for that Mrs Klein received a 6.9% compensation increase last year.
Dr. Steinhauer, I think you need to reconsider that compensation increase and suggest a salary rollback of 6.9% before you get blamed for the fiscal mess we have.
John Ewing
Seth Grove claims he reduced exceptionss by 70% that allowed school districts to bypass Act 1 referendums.
Yeah, we know what affect that had here in Lebo!
More hokum smokum politician babble.
Just like the windfall restrictions supposedily enforce on district tax increases due to the reassessment.
Enough loopholes to drive a truck truck through.
Exactly, the questions that should be asked, Mr. Ewing.
You know Matt Smith won't, doubtful Dan Miller will and Corbett and the PDE will run away as fast as possible.
So that leaves us with the new guy who claims he's going to work to change things. This is as good a time to start and makes John's excellent questions front page news.
If you going to run a safe campaign George, don't bother.
This is weird. The May 21,2012 agenda shows
PlanCon G Acceptance: RESOLVED, That the Board accepts the Department of Education’s approval of PlanCon Part G as reflected in their letter dated May 11, 2012, and directs that approval be made part of the formal minutes.
The August 20,2012 agenda shows
PlanCon I Approval: RESOLVED, That the Board approves the submission of PlanCon Part I in the form presented.
The Sept. 10, 2012 Discussion meeting shows
PlanCon Part I Approval: RESOLVED, That the Board accepts the State’s approval of PlanCon Part I in the form presented and includes it in the minutes.
But it was never voted on. Is that when they realized that they never got approval for PlanCon Part H?
Elaine
Here is where the agendas are listed on the district website. http://www.mtlsd.org/district/schoolboardmeetingannouncements.asp
Maybe someone else can find somthing about PlanCon Part H.
Elaine
This is from long term memory so someone tell me if I make a mistake, please.
PlanCon Part G tells you what your reimbursement is but it is not final until PlanCon Part H is approved by the State.
If that statement is correct then We have been told what our reimbursement should be in Part G but are still waiting on Part H for final approval 3-4 years after the bonds were issued. That is not ideal.
PlanCon Part I is an Interim statement of change orders that should be filed by the District as change orders occur. Elaine Gillen has done a fine job of keeping us up to date on these change orders so we don't have to file a RTK request to see the minutes detailing them to know they total over $1,000,000 already.
According to this blog we still don't have Part H approval and if that is true we don't have approval of our reimbursement from the State yet.
You may remember the board was given a reimbursement percentage when Mr. Kubit was president but that was cut in half when it was adjusted in a way Mr. Kubit could not explain clearly to me or to Mr. Huston when asked at two meetings. Soooo! Where is the approval of the
1/2 reimbursement we should be getting in Part H.
Dr. Steinhauer, a member of your staff has some explaining to do to the board and you, sir, need to explain this financial shortage to the public as well as the union.
In addition you need to explain how you will fund the 4.4% teacher salary increase that will hit the budget in the 2014-2015 school year. If we are in a "no-fat" budget this year how will we fund the teachers next year on a 1.7% Act 1 Index increase?
The teachers contract will increase 4.4% in salary alone, then plus pension and benefit costs. Those costs are 57% of the budget. 57% times 4.4% equals a 2.5% increase in the total budget. How do we fund the teachers salaries if it pushes up the total budget 2.5% on teachers salaries alone and do that on a 1.7% Act 1 increase?
John Ewing
No doubt about it. Some administrative changes are in order.
According to the February 2012 minutes, PlanCon part H was submitted to the PDE:
http://www.mtlsd.org/district/stuff/february%2020,%202012%20board%20meeting%20summary.pdf
Not sure what happened to PlanCon part H after that.
Thanks for finding that. l wonder if the State ever received it since nothing was ever accepted. At least nothing was ever on the District website or approved by the board.
Elaine
This is not adding up for me. The board voted to approve the submission of Part H in February 2012. On the Sept. 10, 2012 agenda, the board was ready to accept the State's approval of Part I. Then the vote fell off the face of the earth.
On October 9, 2012, Josephine Posti wrote on her blog:
"We had some very productive discussions during last night's Board meeting. The first was regarding our financial audit which was conducted by Maher Duessel. There were no findings in this year's audit, affirmation of the first-class work Ms. Klein and her staff do for the District. There were two areas of concern that I asked about during the presentation. One: the audit report reflects that we received $663,311 less than was budgeted in revenues primarily due to the State not yet approving our PlanCon Part H for reimbursement of their share of the high school renovation bonds. The State is currently about 18 months behind schedule on these reimbursements - a reimbursement we accounted for in the budget but did not receive. The good news is that we under-spent by $810,171 less than anticipated during 2011-12, primarily in utilities."
Elaine
Now that I think about it, Dr. Steinhauer needs to explain how he will fund the 4.4% teacher salary increase for the 2014-2015 school year AND the $900,000 grievance.
Both need to be explained publicly before we elect a school board member to the House of Representatives and then we find out we ALREADY lost the grievance.
John Ewing
From the 10:37 post,
$810,171 minus $663,311 equals $146,860 that fell into the funds balance in 2011-2012.
So why is the board hesitant to use the funds balance in the amount of $150,000 if $146,860 accumulated to the fund balance in 2011-2012 ?
The only answer that makes sense is they need the $150,000 to pay the grievance.
Don't forget that grievance isn't a one time deal.
It will effect the salary and pension bottom line each and every year.
The superintendent, the finance director and the board know this and will tell their constituents the true impact it's going to have on the millage.
So much for being transparent.
It'll be interesting to see if Ostergaard, Goldman, and Kiubit stick to their guns on the budget or if they will capitulate as they always have. Remely of course will vote yea even though he'd - ha, ha, ha - like some concessions.
Just like he voted to keep the HS project under $80 million. Keep that long forgotten promise in mind when the polls open.
John, we're not losing the grievance until AFTER the election.
11:01,
Do you mean we are not announcing the loss of the grievance until after the election? 8)
John
What will it take to get the school board's and the state's attention---a mass exodus from this community?
START SCREAMING, FOLKS!
Oh sucks folks, that 10:06 is just another one of those "crazies" on Elaine's blog.
First they were hijackers when they opposed the $150 million high school. Now they're crazies for not wanting another .5 mill increase to pay for more administration raises and vacations.
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