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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Ind. Gov't. - "The Indianapolis Public School Board adopted the district's $448 million budget this week, but don't ask board members for too much detail -- they never saw the actual budget before voting on it"

It gets worse. From today's "Behind Closed Doors" column in the Indanapolis Star:

The Indianapolis Public School Board adopted the district's $448 million budget this week, but don't ask board members for too much detail -- they never saw the actual budget before voting on it.

Member Kelly E. Bentley voted against the budget, saying the administration had not answered her questions about how money was allocated in it.

Another board member and the superintendent told her the summaries provided by the administration should have been more than enough. Bentley countered that the board's job was fiscal oversight.

"I think as a school board we have that obligation," Bentley said in the meeting, "and I'm not sure how resources get allocated to schools."

The district's practice has been to give board members the fund-by-fund budget numbers along with a breakdown of any changes or decreases by area. But the actual line- item amounts are in a separate budget that Bentley said board members did not receive.

Board member Marianna R. Zaphiriou told Bentley that she felt her request -- and the suggestion that other board members weren't asking enough questions -- was wrongheaded.

"Part of that implication is that some of us should feel uncomfortable, and we don't," she said. "I have no reason to want that level of information. I don't feel the need to request that information."

Superintendent Eugene White told Bentley she was welcome to make an appointment and go line-by-line through the budget with district finance officials. But he said he wouldn't waste the board's time by giving it the entire budget to review.

"We have not, and we don't intend to, give you the specificity of each of those items," White said. "It would be too prohibitive for you to go through that. . . . We're not going to bring that to you. We're asking you to approve the budget, and to go any deeper than that would take a lot of your time and be ridiculous."

The budget passed 6-1.

My Thoughts: Absolutely incredible!

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 30, 2009 05:53 PM
Posted to Indiana Government