The purpose of this article is to reiterate the overwhelming need for an outside independent performance review of the BOE budget.

TUF has obtained an end of year audit for the 2006-2007 BOE budget performed by Lerch, Vinci and Higgins LLP. At first glance it's a little difficult to read so I'll run through the numbers germane to the point. They are in section 2,

$12,923,880, Unspent money at the end of the BOE budget year. $6,687,325, Money needed for outstanding bills and start up costs for next year. $6,236,555, Money appropriated from taxpayers but left unspent.

When I checked with John Calavano, Board Secretary however, on my interpretation he replied that $5.6M was a more accurate figure. Thus I will use that number. The bottom line is that at the end of the 2006-2007-budget year the BOE had not spent $5.6M. Note this is above the $2M that is purposely left in reserve for a rainy day or a roof collapse and is $5.6M of taxes that they collected that either were not needed or were needed but were denied to the students of Franklin.

What is most disturbing about the left over dollars is that this year, as has been the habit every year, when the failed budget went before the Council, the BOE argued that they "could not spare one cent of the budget" as it will irreparably harm the education of the students. Council did its own analysis and found $1M that could be cut. Adding that to the $5.6M not spent the BOE has over-budgeted or not appropriately allocated $6.6M. Recalling the $800,000 covered in a prior TUF article we now have reached almost $7.5M in question. And regardless of whether the money was not needed or was needed and not spent the net result is that approximately $7.5M was appropriated from taxpayers that has not been used for its intended purpose and should have stayed in the hands of the people.

I want to be clear; most of the $8M is not spent and can be recycled. Currently the administration is attempting to spend some of the $5.6M. TUF does not have enough information to determine if the money needs to be spent now but we hope that the current attitude is NOT "as long as we have it we might as well spend it".

Two additional points,

• We want to remind people that the district has a new leader in Superintent Seto who has already begun to clean up some of these issues. These problems occurred under the administration of Mr. Westfield.

• The BOE on advice of the finance committee (consisting of three BOE members) approved the budget. Thus if indeed the budget is faulty the problem lies either with finance committee or with their ability to analyze the budget. We believe that the problem is the latter, that it is not possible for the finance committee to accurately assess the information that the staff provides.

Further while it appears Mr. Seto is making progress it is difficult to imagine that he can find all of the problems and that he would be greatly assisted by an independent outside review of the operational budget.

The main sticking point that many members of the BOE claims is preventing them from voting for an outside review is the cost of such a review. Initially TUF guessed that it would cost $20K. It appears that even a partial review would cost $100K. If however a $100K review disclosed even 1/2 of the $7.5M that would be a 4000% return on the money. Going in the other direction, if you still think that $100K is too much to spend on a "non-student related" expenditure then think of how $7.5M was not spent for the kids that possibly should have been.

It's time for the BOE to admit that analyzing a $115.4M budget is beyond the capacity of three part time volunteers no matter how hard they work and no matter how well meaning they are. I do not blame them for missing this but I will blame them if they do not learn from what has happened.

Based on the information above TUF is calling for the BOE to face reality and provide Franklin with two things:

• An outside independent operational review of the budget

• Since the BOE overtaxed the community by $6.5M (or 5.6% of $115.4M) and that the state limits the budget increase to 4%; If we had been taxed correctly this year's budget should actually be less than what we were taxed last year. At the very least, I will not support a budget that is 1 cent higher than last year's.

Furthermore should the budget not pass I call upon the Township Council to cut it back to a maximum of last year's total.

Phillip Kramer
Director of TUF

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