Thread by @SEALS_065

Update From Stacy Henry, Board Member Area 5 re: @CentralSD:

I continue to attempt to keep the Citizens and Taxpayers within the Central School District updated on the happenings in the district and where we are financially. Here is more information regarding the district, and

my take on how it impacts our children and taxpayers.

Beginning next school year, we are projected to deficit spend. In 2020-21 we will deficit spend by $1,881,047. Simply put, we are projected to spend more money than we will take in. It will force us to use the funds we have

set aside in our rainy-day fund to make up the difference. The following school year, 2021-2022, we are projected to deficit spend $5,043,401. We will use the remainder of the rainy-day funds to make up this difference. After the 2021-22 school year, all money in the rainy-day

fund will have been depleted. In the 2022-23 school year, we will deficit by another $5,762,437. Additionally, we will end the year with a balance of minus $1,344,472. Which means we will not have the money to pay our normal bills. As you can see, over the next 3 school years,

@CentralSD is projected to run a combined deficit of $12,686,885.

On July 9, 2020, the board was given a presentation on the new district office. The total cost was $8,277,352.96. This cost breakdown includes a charge of $91,995.80 to repair the elevator in the new office.

We paid $91,995.80 of taxpayer $ to repair a single elevator in a building that was not a school! Let that sink in. That fact just blew me away. This is another reason why you get a complete building inspection from a licensed building inspector prior to voting to spend

$3,283,500.97 of taxpayer $ to purchase a building on behalf of the taxpayers. Something we did not do.

What ran through my mind when I walked into the new building for the first-time last night, was guilt and shame. I felt guilt and shame over the fact that I was walking on

brand new carpeting and taking my seat in a brand-new high back chair. Coyote Canyon Elementary School is the school in my District Area 5. Coyote Canyon was built in 1987, 33 years ago. The classrooms at Coyote Canyon all still have the original carpeting in them from when the

school was built 33 yrs ago. And I believe that all of the other schools are in the same situation.

I felt shame because I remember when my sons were attending schools in the district before I was a board member. We use to get letters from their schools during the summer saying,

please send your students to school with water, because during the summer, rooms were getting so hot and the old AC systems could not cool them down. My wife and I use to donate cases of water to our son’s classrooms for the kids who forgot their water, or could not bring water.

We could have begun working on that problem back then instead of saving for this district office.

We have finally replaced the air conditioning units in the schools this past summer. However, when I asked if we would also be replacing the old duct work in the schools to go along

with the new AC I was told that we were not as it was cost prohibitive. So, we have new AC units pumping air through 33-year-old duct work. But I wonder, what’s the condition of the AC and duct work at the $8,277,352.96, 16,894 square foot new district office. What I can say is

that unlike the schools, there is brand new carpeting and furniture throughout.

In these board meeting, I continue to be attacked by other board members because I am not jumping for joy over that fact that we have this new sparkling district office. I happen to believe that we

can run the district from portable trailers if need be, and still get the job done. When I was a police officer, I worked on a Special Enforcement Team for years. We handled complex search warrants, gangs’, drugs, and high-risk individuals, our office was a portable trailer and

it worked just fine.

We have spent at total of $8,277,352.96 of taxpayer $ on this office building. And like I have said in my previous post, our entire district student population is only several hundred more students than Etiwanda High School. We could have used that money to

put automatic lock-down systems in all of our schools like at the high schools. So, in the case of an emergency and the schools needed to be locked down, we could ensure that all doors were locked and secured automatically. Or, like the new district office, new carpeting in the

schools.

There are approximately 40 employees housed in the district office. The cost of the district is $8,277,352.92. What that translates to, is it cost the taxpayers $206,933.82 per employee housed in that building. Board President, @Joankubes1958 Weiss, Clerk /

VP, @kathycucamonga Thompson and Board Member @barbararich61 continue to describe that building as a district asset. It is only an asset if we could sell it and make a profit, which we can absolutely not do at this point because of what we have had to after purchasing it. As it

stands now, that building is a taxpayer liability. But this kind of thinking is why @CentralSD ranked 29th out of 33 of all districts in San Bernardino County when it comes to financial stability.

One last point. The first meeting in December is our organizational meeting where

we elect our board officers for the upcoming year. Prior to 2016, there was a Board Policy in effect stating, “The Board shall each year elect one of its members to be (clerk) / (vice president). This member shall be one who previously has not served in office. After serving one

year in office as clerk/vice president, the elected member shall serve one year as president of the board”. In Dec 2016, I was a new board member and the only one who this rule applied to as the other board members have been there for many years, over 20 years each. They have a

served as President & Clerk/VP of the board several times each. This rule was only going to apply to me. This meant, by rule I would have become the clerk and by rule, the next yr I would be the board president. I often referred to the policy as the, “anti-discrimination rule.”

In this instance, for the first time in the history of the board, prior to selecting our new officers, the outgoing president, @Joankubes1958 called for a motion to change a board policy prior to the swearing in of the new board. By the way, we also have a board policy that any

changes to board policy has to have at least three public readings in three successive meeting to give the public an opportunity to weigh in on the change. This board policy was violated and disregarded by @Joankubes1958. A vote was called to abandon the new member board policy

and it passed by a 4-1 vote, with me voting no and protesting. I was effectively barred from a policy that the other board members used when they were first elected. I have been a board member since 2014 and I have still never been clerk or president of the board. I am the only

sitting board member who has never been clerk / vice president, or president of the board. I was reelected in 2018, by capturing over 72% of the vote. It was the 4 highest win percentage in all of San Bernardino County in all election races that year. This is what I’m up against.

My friends, change is hard, but I will keep working to make what I believe are the right choices for our students, and you, my neighbors, and in many cases, my friends.

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