Budget Hearing Tonight! Waste of Taxpayer Dollars!

At a time when cuts are being made to neighborhood schools due to bad decisions being made by the school board majority, promises have been broken to voters who approved the mill and bond in 2012 and teacher morale in Jeffco is at an all time low, we now have Budget Hearings. The first of which is tonight!

 

The 2015/2016 Proposed Budget can be reviewed prior to the public hearing on the Jeffco Public Schools website at www.jeffcopublicschools.org/finance/index.html with a direct link to 2015/2016 Proposed Budget document.

 

The Board majority has proven that they are not interested in being accountable to the community and ignored the previous Community Budget Survey results but you should take a close look at the proposed increases while considering that many of our children have 35 kids in one classroom.

 

Who is Lisa Pinto Clips (2)Comm. Offc Budget Increase pg 113 (1)

 

The communications chief, who has only been employed since January and has already taken a vacation after 4 short months, has a proposed 4% increase. Really! This is the person who apparently believes and had the audacity to state out loud that kids with single parent homes can’t thrive and will end up in prison, violated student privacy and HIPAA without thought, uses social media to attack anyone who “likes” social media accounts she doesn’t approve of, sits by while a student is publicly slandered, gives interviews on politically biased radio talk shows attempting to be a victim and turns any crisis into a situation about herself. She is not and has not invested in Jeffco Public Schools, hasn’t even completed a year of work yet and she deserves a 4% raise??? Who in their right mind proposed this?

 

Check out the exploding communications office budget! While the chief has chased away some amazing talent in that office and saved about $20K for now in benefits for those employees, purchased services have gone from $17,900 to $105,377! Materials and supplies goes from $6K to over $12,000! When you look at that bottom line, it looks like a savings for now but don’t forget that of 4 highly qualified people who used to work in communications, 3 haven’t been replaced yet so the costs will go UP, UP, UP. How is this good for 86,000 students?  

 

While we should be investing in Reserves, increased mental health services, smaller class sizes, greater resources and security for our children, the communications office is turning into a black hole for taxpayer dollars with no end in sight.

 

There’s also our Superintendent, Dan McMinimee, who hired the communications chief and continues to allow the insanity and waste of taxpayer dollars. He also sat silently as a Jeffco student was publicly slandered and knew about it in advance according to CORA documents.
He just  denied the Governor access to Lakewood High School for a bill signing, embarrassing the school district and the Jeffco community.

Do you think he deserves a raise?

Superintendent Raise
Apparently he needs another $2,200 for these efforts. Will that extra $2,200 compel him to direct the communications chief to appropriately do the job intended? Will it inspire him to stop the BOE majority from publicly attacking students and district staff?
Dan McMinimee
If you’re shaking your head in disbelief, you’re not alone.