I posted this FIVE months ago!
No wonder it's been in the Quiet Phase all these years! Holy Shit!
How much longer are we going to put up with this?
Update February 8, 2018 7:21 AM
Total Revenue as of 7/31/17 $621,473.37
Total Revenue as of 12/31/17 $672,267.20
+$50,793.83
Total Expenditures as of 7/31/17 $756,791.06
Total Expenditures as of 12/31/17 $712,870.13
($43,920.93)
HOW CAN THIS BE?
Update February 9, 2018 4:35 PM Click on the link and watch what happens.
https://www.mtlsd.org/page.cfm?p=1154
Sloane Astorino is the Director of Advancement for the Mt. Lebanon School District. Ms. Astorino oversees the Century of Excellence Campaign and is the Executive Director of the Mt. Lebanon Foundation for Education.
15 comments:
I am so upset right now, so I just sent this to the school board. I am not an accountant. I teach people how to sew! Seriously, I don't understand why nobody else sees this stuff.
Elaine
"How can the total expenditures of Fund 27 (Capital Campaign) go down $43,920.93 from the first report I published on Lebo Citizens?
It is a shame that you don't read my blog.
Please, no response necessary. The numbers speak for themselves.
Elaine Gillen"
It’s that Mt. Lebanon math.
The biggest question is how do auditors miss this stuff and where is the state Auditor General? People are being paid good money to check this stuff.
If the district gets an Act 1 exemptions from the PDE it will be obvious how broken the system really is.
Wait a second. I don't see Sloane Astorino's name on the website anymore.
Elaine
Want to read something really funny?
Five years into this campaign and knowing the financial information now available, the ineptitude of this $42,000 that surveyed on 27 people is painfully obvious.
Nine of the 27 surveyed were school board directors (2 still are directors). Wonder who the other 18 were. Did Pursuant Ketchum ask you to participate in the survey?
A community of 33,000 and they talked surveyed the opinions of just 27 people for $42,000. Hahahahaha
https://www.mtlsd.org/uploaded/District/Century_of_Excllence/Pursuant_Ketchum_Feasibility_Study_0812.pdf
““We’ll probably be seeing a lot more of this type of funding in my kids’ lifetime,” Posti said. “It’s exciting for us to create a model for what can be done to support public schools.” — Jo Posti, the Almanac Aug. 2015
Some model, Jo! How to burn through a ton of money in one easy lesson.
Just great!
I confess that I hadn't watched the last school board meeting until today. Here are a few takeaways, at least mine.
Tim Steinhauer donated to the MLFE in December, not to the Capital Campaign.
The board majority would like to have an outside evaluation of the Capital Campaign.Jo Posti, the one and only co-chair of the Capital Campaign Cabinet, spoke at the 39:50 time stamp here. http://multimedia.mtlsd.org/Play.asp?12137119808477854!5 She was a little cranky because the reset document was postponed. She would like to make that presentation this month. They learned many things, such as people don't want to give to the endowment as Pursuant Ketchum told them. People want to donate to the capital campaign instead. The hope was that the interest accrued from the endowment would help pay back the district, which isn't happening. She also took a swipe at Hugh Beal for donating $700 to the Riemer, Strotmeyer, Diamond campaign, who were using the capital campaign as their platform. Wow!
As usual, Larry was excited to hear the reset presentation, even though he sits on the Campaign Cabinet. We may get all our questions answered and not need an outside evaluation. Yeah, that wasn't staged.
Elaine
I think you’re onto something here. Why not have the media ask some questions?
Wow, Posti’s reset sounds like a bunch of amateurs muddling through an endeavor as best they can, learning one step as at time. That’s all we’ll and good, if, this campaign was being run by a bunch of volunteers that have never done this kind of thing before.
Trouble is though, we’ve been paying top dollar to what we were talented experienced experts. Pursuant Ketchum certainly isn’t a newcomer to fundraising, and for the hundreds of thousands in salaries and benefits paid to the experienced (ha) Campaign manager’s one would think a reset would have come sooner than 5 years into the campaign that was suppose to raise $6 million in that time frame.
Ms. Posti’s, what do we call it, indignation with Riemer and calls for an outside audit is totally unjustified.
She ought to be asking herself as campaign co-chair- where have I been for the past 5 years. In that time the campaign shouldn’t have just past $1 million in actual and pledged donations. It was suppose to have past $6 million!
This laughable reset is in my opinion a day late and a dollar short, Ms Posti.
This fundraising campaign reminds me of the book and movie “A Bridge Too Far” where the generals thought too much of themselves and were blinded by their goals, ignored obvious intelligence, and then failed to adapt as their plans failed.
One would think Co-chair Posti would be familiar with the private sector concept of ‘agile marketing’ and have initiated it very early in the campaign rather than waiting 5 years to start a reset.
There should be in my opinion an outside audit to see if there is anything worth salvaging from this fundraiser and then if there is, bring in new leadership that very first step will promise transparency every step of the way.
It would be interesting to replay all of Mr. Lebowitz’s Board comments regarding the campaign over the last five years when it was in the quiet phase.
In the 5 years that The Campaign for Excellence has been running have we ever heard from any the people involved that they wouldn’t come anywhere near their $6 million goal.
Did we get any warning from Klein or Steinhauer that expenses were exceeding revenues?
Did anyone protest that they couldn’t afford generous the salaries/benefits as the board approved new staff, software or promotional literature?
We got certain leaders proclaim they were excited about the fundraiser. We even heard speeches about how people would be thanking us 100 years from now for the campaign.
We can read now, “The Century of Excellence Campaign is a forward-thinking initiative to help our school district, through philanthropy, continue to meet the high standards of educational excellence that Mt. Lebanon is known for, our students require for future success, and the community expects.
Raising private money to support public education is a new reality of school funding.”
What we never heard even once in the five that they overreached or there needed to be a reset. All we heard was “we’re in the quiet phase.”
Now these same people, some of whom I believe were ardent proponents for a $150 million high school, want us to let them quietly do a reset.
Are we OK with that?
Thank you Elaine for directing us to Posti’s performance at that school board meeting.
Something struck me as very odd in it. Madame Chair Posti, the woman that is leading a failed effort to raise $6 million seems more concerned with SB member Beal’s $700 donation to an election committee than the fundraiser’s failure. Wonder why that is?
Is she going to go after Pursuant Ketchum for the $100,000+ we have them for a faulty survey that said this fundraiser would net the district $6 million?
How about she goes after Klein and Steinhauer to tell us when the $910,000 of taxpayer money put into the campaign is going to be paid back?
Beal’s $700 doesn’t bother me in the least, the failure of the Posti led campaign does.
Fool me once Jo-Jo shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me!
5:03 AM, Larry also donated to the same committee. Why is Josephine singling out Hugh? Larry is also a campaign cabinet member.
Where was Josephine when I pointed out that the other committee had not filed their final election finance reports? https://lebocitizens.blogspot.com/2017/12/while-were-talking-about-election.html
Josephine tried to sell us on a $30 million campaign. Then she tried to sell us on a $15 million campaign. Then a $6 million dollar campaign. And now we are to celebrate that they have just surpassed the $1 million mark in donations - paid and pledged. But as my friend once pointed out that you can't count on pledges! Didn't Katie Caste once say that they had raised $1.2 million when she was running on Josephine's favorite ticket? Katie was the treasurer of that Century of Excellence campaign!
When is Josephine going to find another co-chair to her failing campaign? I guess nobody wants to be on that sinking ship with her.
Elaine
Jo find another co-chair?!!!!!!!!
When is the board going to figure out that she and the committee don’t have a clue what a fundraiser is suppose to achieve.
Hint: its suppose to make money, not lose money.
Something else curious about Co-Chair Posti. Isn’t she suppose to be a PR/Marketing expert?
So, why did she allow this information to appear from the Mt. Lebanon Public Information Office on February 25, 2016.
“SCHOOL NEWS
FEBRUARY 25, 2016
School District Capital Campaign Progresses”
“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.
Last year, the district launched the Century of Excellence Capital Campaign, a private funding initiative to bridge the gap between the balance sheet and the wish list. The campaign’s goal is to raise $3 million for things that would enhance the quality of education but fall outside of the budget, and another $3 million to establish a sustainable endowment.”
Notice that the article claims the district launched the CEC Campaign “last year”. Clearly that is incorrect!
The financial statement available here on this blog show the campaign was really launched sometime in FY 2012-13.
Was this just a simple error or an attempt to cover up the slow pace of donations and buy more time to raise the $6 million promises?
One has to wonder!
Just noticed something else odd. The article states Sloan Astorino was communications coordinator for The Pittsburgh Foundation.
Hmmmm?
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