District Budget and Finances Meeting March 2017 (Boring but important.) 1. Bond Restructuring The District will be doing a bond restructuring for the 2007 bonds. There is currently a $17.5 million balance on the bonds, and the restructuring will free up $1 million when it is complete. The District is currently working to pay off $3.5 million on working cash bonds. They may re-issue these for $2 million to have some cash balance protection. If you are not sure what working cash bonds are, here is a simple explanation of working cash and the bonds that are sold by the District to populate that account: 2. Evidence-based Financing It appears that evidence-based financing for schools is stalled in the Illinois General Assembly at this time. Evidence based funding would help District 201 if implemented. Here is the wording of the proposal: 3. Transportation Services Acquisition
The District is still looking at a plan for acquiring First Student to provide transportation services in house. From the Belleville News-Democrat: On Monday night, Belleville District 201 officials told the school board they were still negotiating on possible changes to the district’s school bus services. The district’s current transportation contract is coming to an end, so it has been exploring three options: extending that contract, offering the service itself or hearing proposals from other companies. Last month, Assistant Superintendent Brian Mentzer said the district asked its transportation provider, First Student, Inc., for a proposal for a one-year extension of its current contract. “Negotiations continue with First Student on a daily basis,” he said on Monday. The district has also been working on the cost estimates of offering the service itself instead of contracting with a bus company, which would involve purchasing buses and employing drivers. Belleville District 118 Superintendent Matt Klosterman has said the two Belleville districts talked about joining forces to offer bus services. Both districts currently have a joint contract with First Student. During its meeting Monday, the District 201 School Board approved a letter of intent to buy or lease the property at 2012 Mascoutah Ave. in Belleville, which is currently a First Student transportation facility. Mentzer said the letter doesn’t require the district to do anything, but it does allow school officials to negotiate the sale of the property with its current owner. Superintendent Jeff Dosier said it gives the district more insight into its options. “We don’t want to close any doors,” he said. Kurt Schroeder, vice president of the board, abstained from the vote on the letter. District 201 could have also asked for proposals from other transportation companies, but Mentzer said district officials haven’t pursued that route so far. School board members have not yet been asked to make a final decision on any of the options for transportation services. Source:: http://www.bnd.com/news/local/education/article139701728.html#storylink=cpy A cartoon featured on Feb. 13 showed marshals escorting the first black child into an all-white elementary school in 1960, 6-year-old Ruby Bridges, so that she would have the same educational opportunity as her white peers. Unproven voucher systems and charter schools will likely result in economic re-segregation of students by how much income their parents make, creating unequal learning opportunities using government tax dollars. If it wasn’t OK in the 1960s, it certainly shouldn’t be OK today, to have segregation in any form in schools receiving taxpayer dollars. Nothing has occurred in our nation since the 1960s that would justify such probable economic re-segregation.
Betsy DeVos, as depicted in the cartoon, was escorted through an alternate entrance to a D.C. public school to bypass protesters, most likely because of the previous two sentences. Protesters are fearful she will try to impose her unproven ideas about education on our country. The protesters were rejecting the economic re-segregation of schools based on the financial resources of well-off parents being combined with voucher money to send their children to more exclusive educational learning opportunities to the detriment of the children without those financial resources: defacto economic re-segregation of publicly funded education. DeVos had the perfect platform to make the case for her views during her confirmation hearings. She did not. Why? Public schools cannot survive already stretched thin educational tax dollars being diverted to for profit schools, charter or otherwise. Involve all stakeholders in educational reforms please. RICHARD HODSON PRESIDENT, ILLINOIS FEDERATION OF TEACHERS LOCAL 434 BELLEVILLE FEDERATION OF HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS Belleville Federation of Teachers is seeking applicants interested in pursuing a career in secondary education. Each applicant will be evaluated according to several criteria. The deadline is March 31, so don't miss this opportunity. Eligible applicants can apply online in just a few minutes.
Thank you to everyone who took the time today to show support for public schools! Strong community support is important to maintaining successful public schools. When studies show that 76% of parents are either satisfied or very satisfied with their local public schools, it's hard to believe the hype that the public school system in America is failing. Let's fix the small percentage of schools that are failing without throwing all the successful ones under the bus. We can't just sit back and watch as organizations try to transfer our public dollars into their private pockets. If you're proud of your local public school, or know a teacher, paraprofessional, counselor, librarian, nurse, custodian, principal, administrative assistant, engineer, cafeteria worker, bus driver, or anyone else who helps to drive the engine of our public schools, then remember to thank them. (Or just share or like this post and maybe they'll see it.) :D Sincerely, Belleville Federation of Teachers Local 434 A Union of Professionals ALEC's education agenda is focused on privatizing America's public schools. Its bills undermine public education and teachers' unions and also divert taxpayer dollars from accountable public schools to unaccountable for-profit education corporations. ALEC masks its true agenda in "feel-good" language, such as shifting from terms like "vouchers," which are broadly unpopular and rooted in segregation, to "opportunity scholarships" or "tuition tax credits." ALEC bills expected to crop up in 2016 include:
In 2016, ALEC will be pushing several new initiatives designed to undermine worker rights, limit reduce wages and benefits, weaken job standards, and break unions, both on the state level and by undermining the power of local governments. Weakening Unions. Several states have introduced ALEC's anti-union "Right-to-Work Act" in recent years, and the ALEC model has become law in Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia--bringing the total number of "right to work" states to 26. ALEC's "Public Employee Freedom Act" is its right-to-work bill for public sector workers. These laws have the aim of defunding unions by encouraging workers to free-ride on union representation by allowing them to opt out of paying union dues to cover the costs of representing employees on the job.
Source: http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/05/13099/alec's-2016-agenda-snapshot For more on ALEC, go to http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/What_is_ALEC%3F Your Union and District leadership discussed some possible changes to opening day activities for teachers. Thanks to the input from many teachers, as well as the actions of your Union leadership, the District plans to make some changes next year which will hopefully afford teachers more time in their classrooms at the start of the year.
Please don't hesitate to forward any future concerns or complaints on to your campus reps or the Union leadership! We're here to look out for you! The term ‘Right To Work’ is a misleading phrase used by opponents of unions and collective bargaining, to eliminate the leverage unions have to negotiate fair wages & working conditions. The choice of words is meant to convey something that it is not. Federal law prohibits anyone from being required to belong to a union to hold any job. However, federal law also requires all workers, union or not, to receive the same wages, benefits and protections negotiated and provided by that union. Therefore, it has been customary to permit unions to collect ‘Fair Share’ payments from non-union workers. Fair share requires non-union members pay the equivalence of union dues to the union. The rationale for this is the union incurs significant costs negotiating the benefits received by all members, union or not. Federal law also mandates the union legally represent non-union members for any work-related disputes. This may require the union to incur expensive legal bills defending non-union members. Some union and non-union members object to their dues or fair share being spent for political activities that they oppose. However, everyone has the right to direct any of their dues that would otherwise be spent for ‘political activities’ to be allocated toward a non-religious charity of their choice. In other words, no one is required to spend any of their money supporting political causes that he or she personally opposes. If Fair Share were eliminated in Illinois, some of our people will quit so they can save money on dues. When enough members drop, the bargaining unit loses leverage to negotiate better wages and conditions for all workers. Our pay and benefits in District 201 are comparatively good because our union has nearly always had 100 percent membership. Make no mistake! If Fair Share is eliminated, and just a portion of our people quit the union, you can expect a diminution of our pay and benefits relative to inflation. Currently, 25 states have ‘Right To Work’ laws, and teachers’ unions in Illinois are under assault from two directions. Governor Rauner refuses to even discuss the Illinois budget until Democrats agree to sacrifice public unions. The current Supreme Court vacancy and Senate gridlock has the possibility of affecting the outcome of this case. In light of the recent election, this topic will most likely come back to the Supreme Court. That is why we need to be vigilant about protecting ourselves. That is the function of our union. The next U.S. President and Congress have significant power to affect your paycheck. Our union leadership has a vision. We are working regularly behind the scenes to better serve you. BFT Local 434’s vision is to be active and engaged in the school and community. In the upcoming months, we will be holding several events. In February our Young Members Focus Group will be meeting. This group helps us build our future capacity. Please let us know if you are a young member and are interested in being a let if this group. Also in February we will be holding a PERA Q & A. All members are invited. This will be a chance for all members to ask questions after summaries evaluation scores are received. This is a chance for you to speak out and ask questions so we can work for equitable and fair evaluations. Finally, in March, we will be inviting all school board candidates to a Meet and Greet. We will be negotiating a new contract in two years and these people will be on our school board. Now is the time for us to be active at the local level and build a strategic alliance with our board. We can let our voices be heard and select pro-union and pro- teacher candidates. Please be watching for further information on these events. The district currently is running at a surplus of about $16 million due to retirements and other cost-saving measures of around $2.2 million. Revenues are up about $600,000. Due to some changes with working cash that increased the district’s borrowing capacity alongside these cost saving measures, District 201 is no longer on the Financial Watch List for the State of Illinois. This is a huge achievement for the district and something that makes it more fiscally marketable. The state currently owes the District about $2.56 million for the last fiscal year. For the current fiscal year, the amount is around $3.4 million so far. Some of this will be recovered as the state makes payouts for special education ($316K) and transportation ($195K for special education and $485k for regular education). It is just a matter of waiting as the state slowly releases funding. There will be a long-term planning meeting for people close to retirement at the district office as soon as the state decides on final changes to the pension. Right now Mr. Mentzer is holding off until these are more solid and there is substantial enough information to meet. If you have questions on paychecks, call Brian Mentzer or Josh Lane (ext. 8255). The district appreciates patience on the first payroll and will work to make any corrections right away. Last Updated: September, 2016 |
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Proud alumnus, union member, and educator in District #201 since 2006. Contributors
Dr. Hentze is the author of High Finance with Hentze, a monthly blog that provides news about District 201's current financial state. |