Well i'll just say that the Janesville School District and the School Board is filled with idiotic people who have no idea how to spend the money they come up with at all. Just Saying. I'm sure that many of the teachers and parents agree.

I think what everyone has to remember is that the original accusation of overspending was made by a professional politician who is looking to get elected to higher office. Any publicity is good publicity in politics. I doubt if you'll ever see or hear any of the board members who jumped on the bandwagon apologizing. They will have some "politic speak" answer for their actions that will just be more double talk.
Unfortunately, Mr Bunton got very little respect from the current board. He is still the better person as he came in to find the answer for the present CFO.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. If the district wants to use operational maintenance funds to complete some approved change orders, then there is no problem.
--
Are your budgets always exact? Perfection is a fallacy. It was handled appropriately within normal spending practices. I blame the board for freaking out over a rather normal procedure.

rossnmeg...you say the overage is minimal??? I would not call a $2 million (or more) a minimal overage. The $70.8 million referendum was already the state of Wisconsins LARGEST EVER school referendum. But, the greedy people wanted MORE so they just bleed the tax payers MORE.

My question is why is the board NEEDING to wait until March 22 to hear from builder JP Cullen? Isn't that that the fox guarding the hen house? Didn't the city have a project manager on this project watching the task completion and tracking the budget? Did JP Cullen project manage their own work? If that is the case, JP Cullen could have skimmed and skirted all kinds of tasks and dollars and no one would be the wiser. I'm not saying that's what JP Cullen did, but please someone tell me JP Cullen did not project manage their own work!

Okay, let's not revisit the pot calling the kettle black. There is no "shell game" here. The referendum approved the borrowing for the purpose of the high school renovations. There was some overage (apparently minimal) which was covered from operational maintenance funds. Why is that suddenly damnable? It's common sense!
--
When you've exceeded your budget for the month and you have to start scaling back other bills or expenses, do you curse your car for needing gas 5 times this month instead of 4? Come on, get real.

Voters in 2006 approved BORROWING up to $70.8 million. They DID NOT vote that $70.8 million was going to be the total amout. More than the 70.8 was spent so the took money out of the district’s operating fund to pay for it. Then they went to the tax payers again to back-fill the district’s operating fund. This is just a shell game and the tax payers keep paying more and more. It's good that people like Tim Cullen are trying to keep things up front for the tax payers. Lets get rid of all the shell games.

Rocksolid; Thank you very much for the info and your time. I too have dealt with Mr. Bunton in the past and I would say "battled" and some were contentious.

Now, Mr. Cullen..... Where is your response on your actions 2 weeks ago!!! Your answers may have future ramifications on you employment by the taxpayers.

The staffing at the high school needs to be looked at more closely. There are several classes with a small number of kids in them that could easily be combined to make one class. My daughter is in two really small classes and I think there is more than one section. If they did that, couldn't the number of teachers be reduced to save money? Is every teacher's schedule really full?

One more thing. I should not have used the word "battled" as our discussions were never contentious. In fact, Doug and I got along very well even when we had different ideas.

Just wanted to clear that up.
Bill Sodemann

whoops - I meant "tear" not "tare".

docwMB:
Of the 1.9+ million of interest, just over 1 million was used to lower the tax levy (passed by the board), about 200K was used to cover the cost of issuing the bonds (pre-approved and known by the board) almost 700K was used for changes to the original project (wrestling rooms at both high schools etc.) and just over 26K is still left over.

As to the 1.74 million that was used from the maintenance budget, every year the board approves a maintenance budget. Some of the items were done in conjunction with the referendum because it was more cost effective to do so. An example is the tennis courts at Parker. They were already slated and budgeted to be repaired but that work was delayed until the referendum work was done as it would have been foolish to repair the courts and then tare them down and move them the following year to coordinate with the expanded parking lot etc.

I do not have a detailed list of all of the other items that were part of the 1.7 million that came from the maintenance budget over a 3 year period but we never get a detailed list of all of the maintenance projects. I suspect that much of that amount came in smaller increments. If the contractor, while working on the main project came across another item that needed repair, they would notify the administration who would then decide if it made sense to fix it a lower cost at that time or to wait.

I hope that helps. Again, as a reminder, I voted AGAINST the referendum. I have no motive to defend the spending that was done except to defend the truth. I battled with Doug Bunton many times as I was trying to persuade him to endorse my idea of a much smaller project (fixing not expanding the high schools) that also involved a centrally located civic center type of building that would be utilized by both schools (like Monterey is used for football) as well as for the general community (concerts etc.) instead of the 2 field houses. The point I am making is that although Mr. Bunton and I did not always agree, he always provided me with straight forward and honest information and for that I respected him.

Sincerely,
Bill Sodemann

So we still have no itemization; vague answers;... 2 weeks for all to get their stories straight. Mr. Cullen got his info from someone!

$1.943 million of interest spent on WHAT?

$1.74 million spent on repairs/ "labelled maintenanace" by the contractor? There is a maintenance staff at the school district. Why pay the contractor.

The referendum was for $70.795 million; taxpayers were obviously missled by the school
district or are now trying to hide the "EXTRAS" as stated 2 weeks ago. Someone obviously told Mr. Cullen about this; why would he make it up. He also stated that the School Board NEVER approved the added spending; and now it is all "fine" after spending 30 hours "combing" the records.

WHO APPROVED THE OVERSPENDING?... AND ON WHAT? still has not been answered. Be specific! We as taxpayers were NOT told the TRUTH again!!

Maybe this will give the board the wake up call they need to stop their micromanagement.
--
I wont hold my breath. :)

billnewbie, there was a change of staff.

Bill was right! Big deal. Why did they even come out and say they were over by millions in the first place? Where did all this come from? Cullen said he was told this, but where did he get these false ideas? Why wouldn't the board and the district do a little research prior to making this such a big issue for two weeks? Pennington spent over 30 hours figuring out something that wasn't even true. Could these 30 hours have been spent elsewhere?

I am more confused by this article. So this project was not over budget? Who told Tim Cullen that it was? Where did this $3M number come from? Pennington is satisfied with the accounting. Satisfied with what part of the accounting? How can this simply be about jumping the gun? Tim Cullen also owes us some answers. I don't like how this is just being brushed over like it is no big deal.

Bill Sodemann was right after all. He said the overage was misstated. But it seems reasonable to expect the district's leaders to be interested enough in the financial aspects of this project to know the correct amount spent when the project was complete. Waiting six months after the project was complete to review the receipts to be certain how much was spent seems to me like someone wasn't doing their job.