The request: “I would like to request a comprehensive/complete and accurate financial report for the Century of Excellence Campaign covering from the inception date through August 31, 2017.”
Capital Campaign Financial Report through August 31, 2017 (2 pages)
This is what I had asked for, but never heard back from "Mary Birks, For the Board." This is what should be on the MLSD website, not the one page summary. Do you think it will be changed?
From 7/31 to 8/31 (one month), revenues equaled $1456.31. Expenditures equaled $6731.30, not including disbursements that totaled $19,843.94. Not good. Now we know why Jan Klein avoided posting page 2.
9 comments:
I’m confused, under revenues the only one is interest of $9.83 in fiscal year ending 6/30/13.
If there was no revenue such as donations, capital or stock contributions where did the interest come from? Please don’t tell me the interest is from the reserve (loan) from the General Fund.
Have the Mt. Lebanon elves really found a way to spin gold from straw?
OMG. Look at the spending on "design", and catering and flowers etc. What a boondoggle. So much donor money wasted at the expense of the kids. The donors should be horrified.
Reports, shamorts, this campaign was doomed from the very first concept for it. Can you imagine anyone thinking that they could raise $30 million in six years!
Then there is the feasibility study which any sane person would read and figure out that there isn’t overwhelming enthusiasm support for it. The only people that did favor it were the nine directors and the administration.
Now looking at the latest numbers it looks like the Campaign has no hope of getting out of the red, let alone achieving its initial goal.
What is funny that the Timmy Team really thinks that they can reset this train wreck with a community that one of their own says the taxpayers should be embarrassed by their riches.
Of course the Timmy Ticket thinks they can reset this train wreck. An election is coming up. It is amazing what will be promised before November 7. (And two days before a certain commissioner candidate's hearing for public drunkenness and similar misconduct.)
Do you think the Timmy Ticket will admit to failure? They are much too arrogant to admit failure. Chalk this one up to another reason why we shouldn't vote for the Timmy Ticket. Almost a million dollars was loaned/transferred/invested/misappropriated/.
Elaine
This is what I would like to know... The $50K feasibility study... how does interviewing a few insiders as to whether they think raising money for more stuff is a good idea = a feasibility study?
This would be the test of feasibility... a scan of school districts across the nation of similar size and budget/tax-base... how many of them have capital campaigns? How successful are those campaigns? What makes these initiatives in like school districts more or less successful?
The 2012 study did not tell us anything about feasibility. It just confirmed that some MTL residents have a very high sense of self and that they can have and get anything they want.
They believed the feasibility study Jason because they set out believing it before it was even done and they had visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. They think every day is Christmas and we Santa Clauses will be bringing them wondrous gifts.
While we on the subject of fundraising, I wonder if anyone has ever attempted to add up all the money Mt. Lebanon pumps into the district thru the Blue Devils clubs, band boosters, activity fees, student parking fees, game admissions, hoagie sales, car washes, gift wrap and candy sales, fairs and on and on.
With all that, they still claim they don’t have enough. They want more from Harrisburg and where do you suppose Harrisburg will go for more money for them?
Of course, higher sales taxes, taxes on cell phones, utilities, liquor!
Jason here’s another possible answer to your question on why they thought the fundraiser was a good idea from Lebomag.
“The Mt. Lebanon School District relies on real estate tax for 67 percent of its budget and on state funding for another 20 percent. Since 2006, state law has limited a school board’s ability to raise real estate tax millage, based on a financial formula calculated for each district annually by the state. Also, over the past few years, state funding has not kept pace with rising costs. So Mt. Lebanon, like many school districts across the state, is having to make some hard choices when it comes time to finalize the budget.”
So how come they had “hard choices” to make when they had almost a million dollars in the bank to gamble/loan/invest in a poorly thought out and run fundraiser.
Plus if money was in short supply why were they passing out very generous salaries and benefits to the campaign managers some of whom had very lean resumes.
And lastly, if they were being forced into making “hard choices” on budgeting for our kids’ educations why were they handing out 6% bonuses, extra vacation time and $20k bonuses?
One other thing overlooked in this scheme is the fact that by using donations as seed money they could pursue sports facility enhancement without criticism since “donors” were behind them. Thus avoiding the ire of taxpayers.
This was all planned out and why the finances were hidden from public view in my opinion.
4:28pm, some good points, and it's even worse than that ... that's not even exactly how it rolls out in reality, count the # of times in recent years that school districts are able to get exceptions to the limitations on tax raises.
Yes you are correctly it is very, very rare that a district’s tax hike beyond the limit is denied.
We may be seeing signs though that the district realizes that it’s poor-mouth charade is being seen through and the fundraiser was a way around tax hikes for extravagances.
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