Rochester School Most Expensive

According to the Vermont Department of Education data, recently posted on its web site, the Rochester School during FY2007 is still the most expensive K-12 school in the state. We were also first the two previous years.

Rochester ranked third in overall spending (total budget divided by number of equalized pupils) second in cost/pupil (total budget minus revenue divided by number of equalized pupils) and second in tax rate (before CLA adjustment).

The numbers were overall cost/pupil $17,093, cost/pupil $12,092, and tax rate $1.56.

From FY 2006 to FY 2007 this data shows that the overall cost/pupil increased by $528 and the number of pupils decreased by 6. In spite of this the cost/pupil was $547 less and the tax rate dropped by 32¢. That’s like saying that the price of some item decreased from $1.25 to $1.50.

How can this be? The short answer is by "creative" but less-than-honest budgeting.

During FY 2006, the supervisory union and the school board combined to overspend their budget by $190,000, thus causing a negative balance of the $190,000.

After two failed votes on the budget, instead of cutting expenses by $120,000, the school board proposed borrowing $190,000 to be paid back over three years. This looked attractive to enough voters so the third budget passed.

The borrowed money raised the amount of revenue, thus decreasing the amount of money to be raised by taxes for this year and produced a bonus cost/pupil and a false tax rate. We, the tax payers are going to pay the full amount of this year’s expenses but it’s going to be over a period of three years. This is an installment plan to make the school officials and their budget look good but in no way does it reduce spending.

To further illustrate how borrowing money to increase revenue works, consider the following:

If the school officials had borrowed $500,000 instead of "only" $190,000, the cost/pupil could have been lowered to about $10,200 and the tax rate to about $1.35. That would not have been very smart business and neither was borrowing $190,000 to pay for operating expenses!

A school board’s main function is to act as a "watchdog" to make sure the administration spends wisely and responsibly. They aren’t doing that!

Mickey Lary

Rochester

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