Improve Jeffco Schools

Email to Jeffco Board on Budget Reduction

December 5, 2025 / ijsadmin

4 December 2025

Greetings Board members,

First, welcome to the new members of the Board. As members of the so-called “Cleanup Crew” you have a big job ahead of you. Only time will tell if you can actually clean anything up or just make things worse.

Obviously, your first task will be to address a structural $65M budget deficit (yes, if you review the 9/30 Board meeting you will see that the deficit is actually $65M and not the $60M number everyone is parroting, although we’ll see how much Copeland has already been able to cut in January).

To address drastic budget cuts a truly competent organization would normally take an approach that first attempts to identify programs and positions that are not providing true value to the organization. That could mean that some groups and departments don’t see any cuts, while others see significant cuts if they aren’t providing true value. I don’t know if that happened, but from the presentations it certainly didn’t appear that was the process. Keeping that in mind, let me provide some suggestions on some programs/areas on which you might want to perform a deeper analysis along with providing several other suggestions that you may want to consider cuts, or deeper cuts, to.

Assistant Principals/Deans – I grew up in an era where there were no, or very, very few, Assistant Principals or Deans. Over the years, there has been AP/Dean creep and now schools are just overflowing with them. Are they all really needed? How did education even happen in years past without them? A very strong argument could probably be made that there is no correlation to the number of APs/Deans and academic achievement. If that is truly the case, Jeffco should very seriously consider reducing the number of APs/Deans at each school by 1. That small, away from student, cut could potentially save the district $20M.
Additional School Closures – I’ve heard Superintendent Dorland publicly state that “everything” is on the table with regard to cuts and that the district is looking for a sustainable financial model. Therefore, let’s take a look at several schools that are inefficient, costly to run and so small that they aren’t providing equitable opportunities to the students in the building.
- Arvada High School – Capacity 1748 students, 2024-25 Utilization 43%. 2025-26 Enrollment – 690. Projected 2029-30 Enrollment – 590. Let’s face it, it is a dying school. Plus, it is costly to run. It is the most costly high school at $19,410/student and has operational and maintenance costs of $1.2M/year. And that doesn’t include district level supports to the building which averaged about $.5M/school for the ROTS schools. Since this school is bigger, we could probably safely assume a total savings of approx. $2M/year by closing this school. The truth is that the district will have to face the fact that Arvada needs to be closed sooner, rather than later. Might as well bite the bullet now.
- Jefferson HS – Capacity 1135 students, 2024-25 Utilization 53%. 2025-26 Enrollment – 591. Projected 2029-30 Enrollment – 512. This is a dying school too. The district made a weak attempt to close it last year because of that fact. Operations and maintenance costs are around $700k/year, adding in district supports, the district could probably save $1.5M/year by closing Jefferson.
- There are a number of elementary schools with under 250 students that should also be seriously considered as candidates for closure. During the ROTS process, the district saved approximately $1M/year/school closed. In alphabetic order, starting with Adams with 241 students.
- Columbine Hills – Current Enrollment – 242 students
- Dutch Creek – Current Enrollment – 230 students
- Eiber – Current Enrollment – 250 students
- Mortensen – Current Enrollment – 212 students. 2024-25 Utilization – 48%
- Normandy – Current Enrollment – 254 students. Projected 2029-30 – 219 students. 2024-25 Utilization 49%
- Semper – Current Enrollment – 241 students
- Slater – Current Enrollment – 218 students
- Welchester – Current Enrollment – 244 students
- West Jefferson – Current Enrollment – 188 students, although due to geography you unfortunately can’t close this school.
- Westgate – Current Enrollment – 246 students
- Maintaining all of these small schools with declining enrollment across the district (watch the state demographer’s recent presentation) does not make for sustainable operations. Obviously, you can’t close all of these schools and there are other considerations, but it’s not that difficult to see that the district could easily save another $10M/year by a further round of school consolidations (and I didn’t even look at middle schools).
Reduce 2026-27 COLA by 1% – Essentially, if the CPI is 2.5%, 2026-27 salary increases would be 1.5%. Obviously, this wouldn’t be a popular reduction, but it would save approximately $7M. This has to be put into the context of the massive cumulative raises, significantly more than inflation, that the district has handed out over the past 5 years. The massive salary increases are primarily responsible for the gigantic budget deficit. It shouldn’t be an impossible task to claw some of that back. There is ample precedence for this as many public companies do this when they are experiencing budget pressure.
1:1 Computers – The district asked a question about this on the budget reduction survey, so this isn’t something that hasn’t been considered. However, instead of relying on some half-baked, poorly written survey question, maybe the district should review the current literature along with conducting some rigorous analysis of what has transpired in the district. However, it is hard to see how the 1:1 initiative has been a roaring success as academic achievement rates are pretty stagnant from 2018/2019 when the 1:1 initiative was first introduced. Potential savings are probably $2M – $3M per year along with potential academic benefits.
SELS – Are SELS providing value or are they something that just “feels” like they are providing value? Obviously, there are a lot of divisive opinions and conflicting research. However, shouldn’t the district evaluate the true effectiveness and value? Of course!. Here is one study for consideration: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-53332-001.html. I can’t calculate the savings, but if there is a SEL in every school, the savings could be substantial.
Community Superintendents/Communications Office – Are all of those Community Superintendents really needed? The district has closed over 20 schools and has continuing declining enrollment. Has the number of Community Superintendents been commensurately reduced? If not, the district should consider reducing the number of Community Superintendents by 4 or so. And, what about the Comms Office. That seems to be grossly over-staffed to me. The total saved from these cuts could approach $1M.
Instructional Coaches – Are they providing value commensurate with their cost? Maybe someone should ask that question. Certainly, academic results aren’t improving by any significant degree so a good case could be made that they aren’t really providing any value other than, once again, some “feel good” value.
Paycut to highly paid Admin staff – A common cost cutting method used in public companies is to enact a pay cut to highly paid employees. For example, a paycut scheme could consist of a 2.5% pay cut to anyone earning over $150k, gradually increasing to maybe 5% at over $200k. While this doesn’t yield significant savings, it is more symbolic and relieves some pressure on a sore subject from the unions.
IT Department – IT departments are almost always over-staffed, and I say that as a former CTO. I would think that the IT Department could fairly easily find $2M in savings.
Bring some POODs in-house – Several years ago, Susan Leach was working on a proposal to use one of the closed schools to bring in-house some POOD students. Since this is one area where costs have skyrocketed, maybe the district should reconsider looking at the viability of her idea. Could the potential cost savings approach $5M? Probably, if done right.
PERA Costs – Are you aware that total PERA costs to the district are 21.4% of salary and an additional 11% to the employee? That 32.4% is killing the district’s budget and employees’ take home pay. Private sector employees and employers pay 12.4% total for Social Security and then many employers match a further 3% contribution to a 401k for a total of 18.4%, 14% less than what Colorado school districts and teachers are now paying. Yes, there are some benefits to PERA for a small number of people over Social Security, but is that total cost really worth bankrupting school districts? Once again, many private companies have switched to the Social Security and 401k match, and they have done that for a reason – cost. Maybe, instead of always complaining that education is underfunded, it might be time to take a look at the misallocation of funds that are going into PERA. 32.4% is just absolutely ridiculous. Something needs to be done. It’s time to talk with all of your legislature buddies.

$65M is a big budget hole. Be very careful of what gets cut. Make sure it’s the true fat and not people/programs that provide value and make a difference.

Robert Greenawalt

Jeffco Schools is Getting Screwed with the latest Meyers Pool IGA

January 13, 2025 / ijsadmin

How much is the Meyers Pool replacement going to cost Jeffco over the long-term?

At last week’s Study Session multiple Board members raised concerns regarding the potential long-term costs associated with Jeffco’s obligation to the new Meyers Pool. Those concerns and questions were reasonable and should have been expected. Yet, COO Gatlin was totally unprepared to provide specific answers and seemingly left several Board members feeling uncomfortable, as they should be. As COO, Gatlin gets paid good money to not only anticipate those questions, but be prepared to provide solid answers. He could have called other similar facilities to get an understanding of lifecycle costs, or asked the construction team for estimates, but no, in true Jeffco form, he did absolutely nothing. Was he demonstrating his incompetence, or, even worse, was he attempting to hide the lifecycle costs he expects the Board to commit to paying in the future?

For non-professionals like me, it only takes 5 minutes to ask an AI model a simple question, something Gatlin could have also done, but didn’t. In this case, asking Claude.ai

What are the estimated life cycle costs for a large indoor swimming and diving facility?:

Returns the following:

# Total Lifecycle Cost Analysis (50-year period)

1. Initial Capital Investment: $10-15 million
2. Total Annual Operating Costs (50 years): $47.25-63.38 million
3. Major Replacements and Renovations: $8-12 million (see below for a complete breakout)

Since the Arvada complex cost 3x as much as this answer returned ($45M), we can estimate that the 50 (48 unguaranteed) year total for Major Replacements and Renovations will be in the neighborhood of $24-36 million, meaning Jeffco’s 1/3 share will be $8 – 12 million. Evenly spread over 48 years means Jeffco should expect annual capital costs of $170,000 – $250,000 in 2024 dollars.

Should the Board be comfortable with that? Certainly not and for 2 key reasons:

1. Based on March 2021 data, Arvada based swim teams were being charged approximately $30,000 per year in Apex program fees. So, even after paying $20M to build the pool, Jeffco will now also be spending 6x to 8x MORE than before in costs for those same swimmers. That just doesn’t make financial sense.

2. In 2021, the Jeffco Board was told that Jeffco swimmers were responsible for approximately 10% to 15% of the total Meyers Pool usage. If that is the case, why should Jeffco be responsible for 1/3 of the complex’s total lifecycle capital expenses? That’s 2x to 3x the amount that a usage based model would give as Jeffco’s share. And when Jeffco was paying usage fees, wasn’t Apex using those fees to pay for on-going capital requirements? Exactly what is Jeffco getting from all of the money it is dumping into Meyers? Again, this doesn’t make financial sense for Jeffco schools.

On top of all of this, what competent COO, attorney and Superintendent would bring the Board a 50 year agreement that is based on a 2024 fixed dollar amount of $25,000 that was not indexed to inflation? In 2055, 30 years from now, that $25,000 would be equivalent to $12,000 today (2.5% annual inflation). That is barely going to pay for lightbulbs then. That means that Jeffco would be paying for more and more of the facility maintenance as time goes on because more things would be classified as capital expenses in the future.

It is the job of the Superintendent, COO and attorney to anticipate issues and protect the district. In this instance, all three of them have failed miserably.

Finally, all of this begs the question of what do the city of Arvada and Apex know about the projected costs. Did they choose the initial capital fund amount of $1.5M to make it sound like they were making a sizable contribution to fool Jeffco and take even more advantage of the district? It sure seems that way.

In summary, this agreement, much like the original IGA, screws Jeffco schools and should be rejected.

# Expected Lifetime and Major Replacement Cycles

## Structure and Building (50-year lifecycle)
– Roof replacement: Every 20-25 years ($500,000-750,000)
– Building systems upgrades: Every 15-20 years ($1-1.5 million)
– Pool shell resurface: Every 10-12 years ($200,000-300,000)

## Mechanical Systems (15-25 year lifecycle)
– HVAC replacement: Every 15-20 years ($750,000-1 million)
– Pool mechanical systems: Every 12-15 years ($300,000-450,000)
– Filtration system overhaul: Every 10-12 years ($200,000-300,000)

## Equipment and Fixtures (5-10 year lifecycle)
– Starting blocks: Every 8-10 years ($25,000-35,000)
– Diving boards: Every 5-7 years ($50,000-75,000)
– Lane lines: Every 3-5 years ($15,000-20,000)
– Deck furniture: Every 5-7 years ($30,000-45,000)

Major Replacements and Renovations: $8-12 million

Jeffco Board meeting - 7 January 2025 - Weiss Aftermath

Jeffco Board Retreat Video – 7 January 2025 – Weiss Aftermath

January 12, 2025 / ijsadmin

After weeks of no communication from the Jeffco schools Board of Education relating to the sudden firing of Chief of Schools David Weiss, the BoE finally decided to hold a meeting to discuss steps going forward on January 7th. While Director Reed wanted to label this meeting as “transparency”, the facts tell a different story.

This meeting was:

Held with very little notice
Inconveniently held in the middle of a work day. It was scheduled so inconveniently that one of the Board members could not attend
Held as a “retreat” in a location outside of the Board room which relieved the district of its normal practice of recording Board meetings
Video was initially withheld when requested via CORA (CORA Request PR-2425-223) with staff lying in the CORA response stating there was no video available
Video still not being published by the district even after it was revealed they had recorded the meeting

No, the Jeffco Board, and district, did everything in their power to hold this meeting as quietly and under the radar as possible. Nonetheless, thanks to CORA, and sources inside the meeting room that captured the district’s recording of the meeting, here is the complete video:

Letter to Jeffco CAAC Regarding Review of Moss Adams Recommendations

December 10, 2024 / ijsadmin

Below is a note I sent to members of Jeffco CAAC relating to their supposed upcoming review of the November 2021 Moss Adams recommendations.

Dear members of the CAAC,

CAAC Notes and Agenda show that you may finally be getting around to performing a review of the now 3 year old Moss Adams recommendations. Reasonable people would have expected this review to have been done in early 2022 based on Superintendent Dorland’s November 2021 promise of a 30-60-90 plan to address the issues. However, I guess 3 years later is the best we can expect from a group of people who let the bond program proceed with more than $160M in overages with nary a peep.

Why review this 3 year old report now though? My guess is that District staff want you to fully participate in the cover-up of the overages, incompetence and mismanagement that ran rampant during the course of the bond program so that they can use you as cover to the community.

Moss Adams provided Jeffco with 14 Observations and 18 Recommendations. In critically looking at just the first 8 Observations below, it is hard to find any recommendations that were implemented completely and with fidelity. All of this begs the question of why Jeffco didn’t immediately address the recommendations? Will you ask that question? Jeffco certainly does a lot of talking about continuous improvement, but when they just blatantly ignore sound and best practice recommendations, you have to wonder why they did that.

It will be interesting to see whether you, with your report and questions, will be part of the problem, or part of the solution. Unfortunately, up to this point, you have been part of the problem in allowing the program to continue with its cost overruns, deception and mismanagement.

Anyway, below is a brief synopsis of the first 8 Moss Adams Observations. I doubt that you will read through them, but just in case you have a revelation and decide to do the job voters thought you would do, you might find these interesting, and probably far different than what the district is going to present to you.

Observation 1 – Bond Expenditure Management and Controls: Bond proceeds were used only for listed purposes as identified in 5B.

Recommendation – The District should continue doing what it is doing. Bond proceeds are being used appropriately.

Area of Concern – Unfortunately, Jeffco used bond proceeds for purposes that were not identified. Are you aware that a Bond Communication Specialist was hired at a cumulative cost of around $500,000? That would not be an appropriate use of bond funds in the eyes of many taxpayers.

Observation 2 – Non-Capital Bond Expenditures: The District allocated administrative costs to the Bond program. However, there are no formalized policies and procedures that define what positions constitute senior District administration.

Recommendation – Jeffco should consult bond counsel to determine what labor allocation components are allowable per the bond language.

Area of Concern – Jeffco attempted to deceive taxpayers. Taxpayers were told that the bond would not be used for salaries of senior Jeffco staff. However, bond proceeds were used to cover some, if not all, of Tim Reed’s salary. Tim is one of just a few Executive Directors in the district. Many people would consider an Executive Director to be part of the district’s senior leadership. Jeffco did not fulfill its promise to taxpayers and some after the fact policy can’t make up for that.

Observation 3 – Independent Bond Program Audit: The District has not required the completion of an annual independent financial audit which contradicts the requirements set forth in the bond program.

Recommendation A – The district should commission and complete an annual independent financial audit.

Recommendation B – The district should consider completing an independent performance audit of the bond program.

Area of Concern – Plain and simple. Jeffco did not fulfill these recommendations. Moss Adams thinks that Jeffco’s annual financial audit “does not validate the compliance of expenditures per the bond language or closely evaluate the Bond Program. Best practice suggests that an annual independent performance audit should be performed to ensure that funds are expended only on the specific projects listed in the bond measure.”

Voters’ expectations were that a separate and independent financial audit would have taken place. The former auditor, CLA’s Paul Niedermuller was not independent. He had a financial interest in keeping the district’s regular auditing business which a bad audit of the bond program might put into jeopardy.

At this point, no one knows how much of the bond program has been subjected to auditing. Over the past 5 years the bond program has not been mentioned once in the CAFR.

The second Moss Adams review was not an audit. It was also rife with errors, so many in fact that Moss Adams had to redo the initial report they gave to the Board of Ed. You can ask either me or CFO Copeland for my analysis of these reviews if you want more info.

Complete annual Financial and Performance Audits should have been conducted on the program as prescribed by Best Practice and Moss Adams. Failure to conduct these audits is a major Red Flag and is indicative of the district attempting to hide something. The district can never be trusted with another bond program if full Forensic Financial and Performance Audits are not conducted on this program.

Observation 4 – Bond Program Project Scope and Budget Establishment: Jeffco reported that the Bond program was based on the 2016 Master Plan. However, the planning documents did not align with the program’s budget or 2018 Flipbook which was shown to voters.

Recommendation A – Jeffco should ensure that all foundational documents and reporting align and can be reconciled.

Recommendation B – Jeffco should define and document processes in place for master planning budgets and estimate.

Area of Concern – Once again, Jeffco has not fulfilled this recommendation. Moss Adams – Nothing aligned. “Both the 2016 Master Plan and the 20190110 H Bond Cash Flow (version 1).xlsb documents provided insufficient information to support the suite of projects included in the Bond Program.”

The documents did not reconcile to the 2018 Flipbook.

None of the documents presented to the Board and public reconcile.

This is a huge issue. Nothing reconciles. 5+ years later and it is impossible to get any of the numbers that staff present to the CAAC or Board to even reconcile with the 2018 Flipbook. Impossible! That is not transparency and prevents a fair evaluation of the management of the bond program.

Observation 5 – Project Identification and Voter Transparency: Jeffco developed the Flipbook to inform parents and the community. However, the Flipbook did not reconcile to the bond issuance or key documents.

Recommendation – Jeffco should ensure that there is clear and consistent reporting that provides stakeholders with accurate information with clear reconciliation.

Area of Concern – Jeffco failed to fulfill this recommendation. Moss Adams – Nothing reconciled. Successful bond programs provide specific information. The Flipbook and community information should be up-to-date and consistent to promote accountability and transparency.

Even the latest Flipbook, developed 15 months after this recommendation, contained misleading, inaccurate and missing information. And it’s replacement, the interactive map, has an immense amount of missing information and budget numbers that do not align with the 2018 Flipbook. It is a Master Class in deception and cover-up.

Observation 6 – CAAC Oversight: No additional guidance related to the Bond Program oversight or reporting expectations was provided to the CAAC.

Recommendation A – There should be CAAC bylaws and a handbook

Recommendation B – Best practice is that there should be a CAAC Chair.

Area of Concern – Jeffco failed to fulfill this recommendation. Moss Adams – Bond language stated that the bond program would be monitored by the CAAC. Jeffco had no written guidance on monitoring of the bond program. Only projects with variances over $500,000 were eventually reviewed. Best practice is that projects with 10% or $1M in variances should be reviewed.

It took over 18 months to finally get CAAC bylaws and still the committee doesn’t have a Chair. Why isn’t there a Chair? There is no way a committee that didn’t follow the recommendations itself can evaluate the full extent of whether the district fulfilled the complete set of Moss Adams recommendations.

Observation 7 – Flipbook and System Data Comparison: Projects were not included in the Flipbook and budgets exceeded Flipbook budgets.

Recommendation A – District needs policies and procedures to ensure consistent estimating, reporting, accountability and communication.

Recommendation B – Reporting to stakeholders should be updated to accurately provide details on all projects as well as budget and scope changes.

Area of Concern – Jeffco failed to fulfill this recommendation. Moss Adams – Projects were not identified in Flipbooks, budgets weren’t adhered to. This continued on through the end of the program.

Observation 8 – Completed Project Budget Analysis: Majority of projects exceeded original budget, many by more than $500,000.

Recommendation – District should develop and provide specific reporting to help stakeholders understand budget and scope variances.

Area of Concern – Jeffco failed to fulfill this recommendation. Where is the specific reporting that helps stakeholders understand budget and scope variances? The monthly CAAC report doesn’t link back to the 2018 Flipbook. No one understands why the program is $160M over original, budget estimates.

Jeffco’s Capital Improvement Program is $165M Over Original Cost Estimates

June 14, 2024 / ijsadmin

Jeffco’s Capital Improvement Program is running $165M over original cost estimates. In 2018, Jeffco told voters that their Capital Improvement Program would provide $563M in upgrades to district facilities and provide an additional $56M to Charters to upgrade their facilities. Jeffco also received additional revenue of $118M in bond premium and over $16M in earned interest giving the program a current total of $836M to work. Over the course of the program the Board approved $56.5M in new projects and $12M of original projects were dropped leaving $44.5M in net new projects. All of this means that Jeffco burnt through their $86M in program contingency and the district’s $122M share of premium and interest with only $44.5M in new projects to show for it.

What happened to that $165M? Certainly some of it was caused by inflation, but the fact of the matter is that Jeffco apparently didn’t plan for ANY inflation. That is malpractice. However, even projects at the beginning ran over budget, so inflation isn’t anywhere near the real reason for the overages. Certainly, there was added scope, but since the Board didn’t approve that added scope who did, and what was the process for those additions? Unfortunately, no one knows. That is not a good thing. Shouldn’t there have been a Board and community discussion on how to prioritize the use of the bond premium and interest instead of it just disappearing in some black hole? Best practice says that should have happened, but in Jeffco the money just disappeared and no one can explain where it went on who approved it. All of that is shady and plain wrong in my book. Unfortunately, neither the CAAC nor the Board seem to care. That means that neither of those two groups should be trusted when they want to make promises when asking for the next bond.

Here is my calculation in obtaining the $165M in overages number. $165M is just ridiculous, not just in the shear number, but also in the percentage of the entire program.

In order to calculate district overages associated with the CIP, I started with the program’s current revenue and removed costs associated with Charters. I then took the program’s initial estimated cost which was $563M and adjusted it by adding Board approved additions to the program and removing projects that were canceled. For projects that were canceled, I adjusted the amount by the 5% that was added to all project costs at the beginning of the program. For ROTS I, I used the Net addition amount of $12M that was initially told to the Board during the approval process. Detail is listed below.

Here are the steps:

1. Start with the current projected program revenue, $836M.

2. Remove the amount allocated to Charters, $64M.

3. This will leave the funds available for district projects, $772M.

4. Determine the program’s current adjusted budget

a. Reduce the original $563M program budget by projects that were canceled (not including closed schools that were part of ROTS I and II). Adjust for 5% cost increases that were added after the program was started.

b. Add back in the original estimates for projects that the Board approved. For ROTS, this is the net increase for the affected schools. For example, that would be $12M for ROTS I.

5. Subtract adjusted program budget from district funds available to get an Overage amount, $165M, since there are no funds remaining.

6. Adjust Overage amount by Unallocated remaining. Since there is currently a deficit in Unallocated remaining, that increases the Overage. This total is $165.5M.

7. Divide Overage by Adjusted Budget to get Overage percentage, or 27.2%.

Note: Non-Board approved additions totaling $23,048,093 are categorized as Overages.

Approving the JCEA contract at the Study Session was wrong!

June 6, 2024 / ijsadmin

Last night, the Jeffco Schools Board approved the JCEA contract prior to hearing its full financial consequences and without giving a large component of its constituents, parents and taxpayers, a chance to publicly comment on how bad that contract is.

That was flat-out wrong! Was that intentional? Was the Board afraid of what it might hear?

Let’s take a look at some of the things that should have been heard:

First, the size of the increase, 5% COLA, 2% one-time (bonus) along with Steps and Lanes, seems massive in comparison to inflation and private sector increases. This is on top of recent large JCEA increases as shown in ths image from Board Docs.

In total, JCEA has seen around 40% in increases over the past 5 years. That’s a pretty big number in anyone’s book.

However, what is more concerning is the lack of value that kids and taxpayers are getting from these large increases. Let’s take a look at the recent Spring ELA MAP results in comparison to last year’s. Keep in mind that one of the Superintendent’s evaluation goals was

The percentage of students who meet/exceed literacy standards and show evidence of being on or above grade level will increase at least 2-5% during the 23-24 school year

MAP Reading	Spring 2022-23	Spring 2023-24
Grade	Met or Exceeded 2022-2023	Met or Exceeded 2023-2024	Difference between 2023 – 2024
2	49.2	47.1	-2.1
3	51.2	50	-1.2
4	54.7	53.3	-1.4
5	54.5	53.3	-1.2
6	49.1	45.9	-3.2
7	49.7	51	1.3
8	49.6	47.7	-1.9

These are not the promised 2% – 5% increases, these are decreases! How does that even happen when Jeffco had $61M in ESSER III funding to address academic issues? Did the Board just reward teachers for these horrendous results? Why should teachers even care what happens in the classroom if they are going to be rewarded no matter how bad the results are? Did the Board even consider the message it just sent to the teachers and community?

In case you’re wondering, while Math scores were a bit better than Reading, they too didn’t get close to the goals the Board set for Dorland.

MAP Math	Spring 2022-23	Spring 2023-24
Grade	Met or Exceeded 2022-23	Met or Exceeded 2023-24	Difference between 2023 – 2024
2	40.9	39.8	-1.1
3	41.4	42.1	0.7
4	32.3	33.4	1.1
5	32.8	33.7	0.9
6	29.1	29	-0.1
7	28.4	30.5	2.1
8	31.8	36	4.2

What’s even worse, if that is even possible, is that the Board approved the contract prior to a complete discussion on its financial implications. Was it paying attention when CFO Copland told it what the contract does to the budget? There’s a $33M budget deficit this year and a $40M deficit in FY 27, which is bad enough. But, to keep the deficit at only $40M in FY 27 Copland already had to cut expenses and limited COLA increases to just .5% in FY26 and .9% in FY 27. Think about that in the context of the 5% COLA this year. There is no way the COLA increases will be that limited. The deficits she showed the Board are not going to be even close to reality. They are going to be much, much worse. In essence, the district is headed toward a financial disaster and this contract is a large contributor to that. But, but, but… Jeffco is going to go out for a Mill. The Board might want to think long and hard about exactly how much it can get from a Mill and whether it will be successful. It is going to be a very hard sell given the tax environment and the current public perception of Jeffco schools.

Unfortunately, the Board didn’t hear any of this before it approved the contract last night. There is something very, very wrong with that.

Jeffco’s Board set a low bar for expectations when they recognized the “talented teachers” at Lasley and Lumberg elementary schools

April 28, 2024 / ijsadmin

At the April 2023 Board meeting, the Jeffco Board recognized the “talented teachers” at Lumberg and Lasley elementary schools.

Lumberg and Lasley "Talented Teachers" — Lumberg and Lasley “Talented Teachers”

The fact is that the levels of academic achievement at Lumberg and Lasley are atrocious.

Take a look at the 2022-23 CMAS Results for Lumberg:

That’s 11% proficient in ELA and 5% proficient in Math. The Jeffco Board wants people to believe that the “talented teachers” at that school deserve to be recognized.

Things are only marginally better at Lasley with 24% proficient in ELA and 16% proficient in Math.

Even growth at these schools is horrendous!

What was the Jeffco Board attempting to accomplish with this recognition? Should the teachers at these schools now think they are doing a great job? And what about teachers in other schools who see this? What should they think? What happened is that the Board just set an extraordinarily low bar for achievement and recognition the district. How can we ever expect to see things improve when the bar has been set so low?

Jeffco leadership is a joke.

The cover-up is worse than the crime in Jeffco Schools’ bond program

April 24, 2024 / ijsadmin

Here is a video documenting how Jeffco schools is failing to fulfill its 2018 campaign promise of contributing $138M in Capital Transfer to the bond fund and subsequently embarked on a deliberate and deceptive scheme to hide that fact from the Board and public.

Watch this video to gain a better understanding of just some of the deception and lack of transparency that has been pervasive in the bond program since its inception.

I find this unacceptable. However, once I saw this I now fully understand why Dorland and the Board have avoided having full performance and forensic financial audits performed as recommended by the first Moss Adams report. Because of that inaction, they are now active participants in the cover-up of the mismanagement of the bond program.

This is also why it will be a very long time before Jeffco regains my trust to vote for another bond.

The latest Moss Adams report was inaccurate, provided no value and demonstrates why forensic and performance audits are needed

January 16, 2024 / ijsadmin

The latest version of the November Moss Adams report was inaccurate, delivered no value and provides even more evidence for why full forensic and performance audits are needed on the Capital Improvement Program. This doesn’t even take into account the version of the Moss Adams report that was given to the Board in November that was rife with literally dozens of errors.

For months the expectations were set that the Moss Adams report would give the Board and district an accurate number for the amount of money remaining in the Capital Improvement Program. Ideally, this number would have tied directly back to the monthly CAAC report and even better, it would have provided totals of how much has been spent on each school. The Moss Adams report achieved none of these expectations. Instead, what the Board got was a rambling 73 page document and a meaningless “$74M Remaining to be Committed” number.

That $74M “Remaining to be Committed” number was meaningless for a number of reasons:

It was 7 months old and was not accompanied by a staff reconciliation to bring it up-to-date
It was an aggregate remaining capital funds number and did not separate out CIP funds from regular Capital Reserve Fund funds
It did not factor in CIP committed projects that have not yet been started and entered into the district’s financial systems. For instance, until a formal decision is made otherwise, Jeffco is still committed to building 2 new elementary schools, for which Tim Reed has allocated $59.6M. These are accounted for in the CAAC report, but not the Moss Adams report. In addition, the Moss Adams report did not account for the $10M in upgrades for Bergen Valley for ROTS I or many other unstarted projects.
The report contained errors and its methodology did not align with the manner in which Tim Reed develops the monthly CAAC report. For instance, page 17 of the report lists a Meyers Pool project at more than $500k as a “School-Specific Project”. That is absolutely incorrect and calls into question the accuracy and validity of every other single number in the report.

A reasonable expectation would have been that Jeffco staff would have taken this report and reconciled it with the CAAC report to identify if there were any discrepancies and to arrive at exactly how much money was currently left in the bond program. Shockingly, that didn’t happen. The response I received when I asked for that reconciliation as part of CORA Request PR-2324-177 was the following:

Our subject matter expert provided that the transaction level detail that we’ve already shared with you is drawn directly from the accounting system – which is the same system driving the CAAC reports.

If there was no reconciliation, what was the purpose of the Moss Adams review? What exactly did Jeffco schools get out of the close to $200k that Moss Adams was paid?

Second, there were several discrepancies between the Moss Adams report and the CAAC report. Yes, I realize that the Moss Adams report was conducted from a point in time, but my examples transcend the time issue. Note also that I only looked at approximately 25 projects that were listed as “100%” on the April 2023 CAAC report, the month Moss Adams used as their baseline.

Moss Adams identified $185,156 in actual expenditures for the Sheridan Green ES FF&E project. Yet, from at least March 2023 to November 2023 the CAAC report states that the project only has a cost of $173,067 in costs. Did Moss Adams make up expenditures or is the CAAC report wrong? How many other discrepancies like this are there? A full reconciliation with the CAAC report should have been performed to identify issues such as this.
Moss Adams used Project Commitments, or “Costs approved with executed purchase orders or contracts” to determine the total project cost. There are numerous instances of where the Moss Adams number does not reconcile with numbers reported in the CAAC report. Take as one example the Kendrick Lakes FF&E project that was listed as “100% Complete” in the March 2023 CAAC report with a cost of $612,175. This project is still listed at that same cost in the November 2023 CAAC report. Yet, Moss Adams reported Commitments for that project at $628,563. This would result in the Moss Adams report over-stating project costs and under-stating the remaining available funds. Once again, this discrepancy is not identified unless a full reconciliation to the CAAC report is performed.
There are numerous instances of where costs listed on the CAAC report exceed project Commitments on the Moss Adams report. This is possibly understandable as project costs may have increased, but these discrepancies contribute to the inaccuracy of the Moss Adams number with relation to the CAAC reported number which, once again, are only resolved through a complete reconciliation.

Finally, the report highlighted some very troubling aspects of the bond and capital programs.

1. The report identified more than $34M in “Other Expenditures” from the Capital Fund and then went on to define “Other Expenditures” as:

OTHER EXPENDITURES

Other program charges not project-specific or not yet allocated to projects and debt service costs (i.e. Project ID P91700P98A and P000000001). These costs include, but are not limited to, the following expenditure categories: vacation, software and IT, interest payment, cell phone and telephone, printing and copying, loan payoff, advertising, mileage, and payroll.

“Vacation”, “payroll”? Other than debt service, these expenditures sound very suspicious and have the indications of being an unaccountable slush fund.

2. Moss Adams identified close to an additional $55M in “Other Expenditures” just in the CIP projects. This money is not used for interest or debt service, so what was all of this money used for? Isn’t that a question that should be answered? That’s an awful lot of money.

3. There is an additional $12M in district projects where contract costs were less than $50k and were not validated by Moss Adams. These small expenditures and contracts are areas ripe for fraud. Has anyone seriously looked at them?

4. There are multiple questionable projects that show up in the Moss Adams report. Projects such as $212k for the Candelas Regional Trail and $115k for the Meyers Pool parking lot. Why is Jeffco spending one cent more than the $17.5M already committed for the Meyers Pool? Who approved these when Jeffco has to go begging for money to replace Fletcher Miller?

The bottom line is that the Moss Adams report provided absolutely zero insight into the key question of how much unallocated money remained in the CIP. It did however prove, once again, that both a full forensic audit and a performance audit, as recommended by Moss Adams in their first report, need to be performed as there are just far too many troubling aspects surrounding the $160M over budget Capital Improvement Program.

Jeffco is covering up a fraud allegation of the CIP

Jeffco Schools is Covering Up an Allegation of Fraud Related to the Capital Improvement Program

August 30, 2023 / ijsadmin

On April 18, 2023 I sent an allegation of fraud related to the movement of $21M of the JeffcoNet project into the CIP to Jeffco’s CFO for forwarding to members of the Financial Oversight Committee.

Here is the email and the attached file.

Specifically, in October 2019 the Jeffco Board approved a $36M contract for the construction of a district fiber network. The agenda item stated that 60% (or $21.6M) of the funding for the contract would come from the “Building Fund Capital Reserve”. The source of this funding was distinctly different than other agenda items that evening that stated their funding would come from the 2018 Capital Improvement Program. In other words, JeffcoNet would not be funded from the CIP.

However, more than 2 years later a $14.6M Network Upgrade project with an Original Budget of $0 appeared on the monthly CAAC report. And, upon closer examination, the CAAC’s financial report had been showing a similar, but funded, Network Upgrade project with a cost of $7M.

The total cost of these projects, $21.6M, is the exact same amount for JeffcoNet that should have been funded by the Capital Reserve Fund when the Board initially approved it.

To recap, the Board voted on an agenda item which stated the funding for the project would come from the Capital Reserve Fund, yet somehow, without public Board discussion or authorization the complete $21.6M made its way into the Capital Improvement Program.

To make matters worse, the line from the CAAC report shows a note of “BD’ implying to the CAAC that the addition of this project to the program was “Board Directed”. That does not appear to be the cases and is deceptive.

To be clear, I do not disagree that Jeffco has the ability to add and delete projects from the CIP. However, I do believe that it is a violation of trust and fraudulent to move the funding for a project that the Board explicitly directed to come from the Capital Reserve Fund into the CIP without Board approval. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners would call this “Internal Organizational Fraud” or “Occupational Fraud”.

What this does is destroys trust. The Board can no longer trust District leadership to carry out their directions and instructions and the public can no longer trust anything the Board says or directs.

Therefore, in my note to the FOC, I requested that they initiate an independent external investigation of the transfer of the project which clearly violated the Board’s vote.

The FOC discussed my note at their April 25th, 2023 meeting. However, from the Meeting Minutes you would never know that it was an allegation of fraud. Here is what was written in the minutes:

Meeting Wrap-up

District leadership made committee members aware of communication that was sent regarding the JeffcoNet project. The committee discussed the issue raised with district leadership. The Board is aware of the communication and that district leadership is taking next steps to reconcile the Capital Improvement Program per the Board’s direction. District staff will continue to monitor the financial wellbeing of the Capital Improvement Program.

There was apparently no discussion of the potential fraud, no apparent discussion on whether the movement of the project into the CIP was supported by a vote or policy, only that the Board was aware of the communication and, in a complete misdirect, that the district is taking steps to reconcile the CIP.

That is a complete cover-up of the fraud allegation.

To make matters even worse, not one person contacted me, either before the meeting or afterward to let me know that my email had been discussed and its resolution even though they had my email address and I clearly included my telephone number. In addition, I had previously emailed the chair of the FOC, Jessica Keene, 3 times in November 2022, December 2022 and February 2023 about the same issue and she never once had the courtesy to even acknowledge receipt of my emails.

Jeffco’s FOC is a joke. They are providing ZERO oversight. They are now, along with meeting attendees Board member Danielle Varda, Superintendent Dorland and CFO Copland, complicit in an apparent cover-up of a fraud allegation in the district.