Fact check questions fiscal responsibility
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Editor,
I appreciate the Valley Journal’s printing of the Ronan School Board candidate interviews that appeared in the April 30 edition of the Journal. Hopefully, it helped voters determine who they cast their ballots for in the district election.
After reading the responses to the interview questions, it is evident that a “fact check” is needed for the responses given by the two incumbent trustees. One trustee stated, “We have worked hard to stay within our budgets and now we have money that we can fall back on and not have to cut staff.” The other trustee said, “One thing I have always been proud of is the fact that our district is fiscally sound.”
Following are some facts related to the District’s fiscal policies that will allow the reader to decide if the District is fiscally sound. Despite a five-year increase of over 13 percent in the District’s high school and elementary general fund budgets, the District has found it necessary to spend $650,000 from reserves in Fiscal Year 2013, and thus far $850,000 from reserves in Fiscal Year 2014 to prop up their general fund budgets. The reserves that the District is dipping into to pay their bills is not money it has saved and set aside by not spending all of their general fund dollars, but is federal dollars that the District receives each fiscal year in lieu of taxes on tribal land in the District called Impact Aid. At the end of Fiscal Year 2009, the District had an ending balance of $3,365,886 in the Impact Aid fund, and the March, 2014 Board minutes shows a balance of $2,788,989 in the Impact Aid fund, a decline of $576,891. It is evident that the District cannot live within its means, even with significant increases in general fund dollars each year, and must dip into an ever dwindling supply of reserves that come from the federal government. What plans does the District have to fund operations if the federal piggy bank goes dry?
Given the facts, is District No. 30 operating in a fiscally sound manner? You decide.
Gale Decker
Ronan
