Category: School Board (Page 1 of 8)

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.

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.

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.

Jeffco Staff Lied to the BoE and Public Regarding Bond Money Put into Closing Schools

November 19, 2022 / ijsadmin

Jeffco staff lied to the Board of Education and public regarding how much bond money was put into the ROTS closing schools.

Jeffco staff told everyone that $16,395,891 in bond funds was put into the schools.

Staff falsely told Board that only $16M in bond money had been put into closing schools

Yet, in a September 1, 2022 CORA request Jeffco admitted that the information shown to the Board was incorrect and that the real amount was $18,056,873 due to a “last minute change”. The $18M number matches the sum of the amounts shown in the FCB for the closing schools.

But even after admitting this “error” staff never updated the information shown to the public and kept the $16M figure on their web site. That, in and of itself, is disingenuous and deceptive.

To make matters worse, the $18M isn’t the full amount of money put into the schools. It appeared that Jeffco only included costs associated with Efficiency and Future Ready projects at those schools and not costs associated with District wide projects. Therefore, I submitted a series of CORA requests for the breakout of costs of District wide projects that included the closing schools.

For example, I asked for a breakout of the by-school costs of the H DW Flooring project which included Bergen Meadow.

Jeffco’s CORA response was that this project included flooring that cost $289,188 that was installed at Bergen Meadow. Yet, Jeffco told the Board and the public that $0 of bond money was spent at Bergen Meadow.

This is just another flat-out lie.

To compound the issue there were numerous District wide projects that Jeffco could not or would not provide the by-school cost breakdowns. This prevents an accounting of the full amounts of bond money put into the closing schools. However, from what Jeffco did provide, the costs of District wide projects was more than $5M. Extrapolating for the projects in which costs were not provided means that the total was somewhere between $5M and $10M more than what Jeffco told the Board. This makes it likely that more than $25M of bond money, in total, was put into the closing schools. That is significantly more than the $16M told to the Board and community and taxpayers deserve to know that number.

The bottom line is that Jeffco staff repeatedly and knowingly lied to the Board and public. This is an egregious display of arrogance and deception.

Superintendent Dorland frequently says that she wants trust and transparency, yet she knowingly allows this type of deception to happen and does nothing to fix it. Because of this she is part of the problem and can’t be trusted.

Jeffco schools has a massive integrity and trust problem. There is nothing worse than that. Unfortunately, this problem won’t be fixed until the head of the snake is cut off and another round of cabinet members are fired and replaced with people who value integrity, honesty and transparency above all else.

Never Trust Anything Put Out by Jeffco!

The Jeffco Fiber Net project has $0 original budget, meaning it was not in the original scope.

Why is funding for Jeffco’s Fiber Network coming from the Capital Improvement Program?

February 28, 2022 / ijsadmin

In October 2019 Jeffco’s BoE approved a $36M contract, on the consent agenda without discussion, for the construction of a Jeffco Fiber Network. $21.6M of the funding for this would come from Jeffco’s Capital Reserve Fund with the remaining $14.4M from the IT dept’s budget and grants.

Board Docs very specifically stated that $21.6M would come from the Capital Reserve Fund, not the Capital Improvement Program. The bond had been approved by voters nearly a year before and numerous bond related projects up until that time flatly stated that their funding would come from the bond program. This item was different in that it stated funding was coming from Capital Reserve.

Yet, the ‘H DW Network Upgrades’ project subsequently appeared on the monthly bond program CAAC report in December 2019. When project costs first started to appear on the CAAC report in January 2021, this project came with a $7M price tag.

The project next magically appeared in a Reed presentation to the Board as a “possible” use of $14.6M unallocated contingency in October 2021.

But, it didn’t stay there long. By the December 2021 meeting that $14.6M suddenly showed up on the monthly CAAC report with a $0 original budget. That means it wasn’t planned to be in the scope of the Capital Improvement Program, but yet, there it is. Who approved that and why did they approve it?

And, as is usual in Jeffco schools, it only gets worse. In a presentation posted days before a Feb 2022 Board Meeting, the Fiber project was no longer on the list of potential projects for the CIP’s unallocated contingency.

But, it magically reappeared several days later during the actual presentation (revision 1), but with a price tag of $5.4M, while still appearing on the CAAC report for $14.6M. The only reasonable conclusion for this is that the project is either running significantly over budget, or the IT dept can’t totally fund its $14.4M portion of the project.

Something very strange is happening with the Fiber project. The 10+ schools, including Vivian, Mulholm and Lumberg, who will end the program with FCIs over 20% will continue to suffer in facilities with significant needs because the bond program is spending money on projects that were hidden from voters and not going directly into fixing classrooms.

The Incredible Wastefulness and Mismanagement of Jeffco Schools’ Capital Improvement Program – Food and Nutrition Services Edition

February 24, 2022 / ijsadmin

In February 2020 @JeffcoSchoolsCo BoE was presented with a Food and Nutrition Services Master Plan.

This plan included a recommendation that Jeffco construct a Central Production Kitchen at Quail Street, w/advantages such as providing fresh consistent food quality and alignment with the previous recommendations of the FNS Task Force.

The cost to implement the Central Production Kitchen was $29.4M, including soft costs.

So what did @JeffcoSchoolsCo do?

Absolutely nothing!

Financial genius Brad Rupert noted that Jeffco didn’t have $30M lying around.

Entrepreneurial wizard Jason Glass noted that Jeffco could use the bottomless pit of Capital Reserve funds or ask voters to approve another bond for the funding.

And District COO Steve Bell, who oversees FNS, just sat there like a lump on a log.

The truth of the matter is that Jeffco DID have money for the project and for some reason either incomprehensibly didn’t realize it, or didn’t want to use it.

In December 2018, Jeffco received $50M in premium from the bond’s first issuance, with another $30M expected from the 2nd issuance. If Jeffco set aside $25M of that for a Fletcher Miller replacement school, which was removed from the bond program, that would leave $25M, almost the $29.4M needed.

Yet, the bond program included kitchen renovations for 41 schools and the construction of 5 new schools. It is not hard to imagine $4.4M in cost savings if a Central Production Facility was created, reducing planned construction and renovation costs.

But the Board didn’t take action and leadership, including Glass, Schuh, Dorland and Bell, did nothing to advance the project while estimated costs have now climbed $10.6M to $40M.

How does that even happen over the course of under 2 years? That’s an increase of 37%.

Let’s be perfectly clear. This is now a $15M mistake. Money that could have been used in classrooms.

$25M in overages were spent on fields while a plan for a central kitchen which would supply fresh food to kids was just forgotten and now, based on current program overages, it is doubtful Jeffco will have the money to complete.

More than 3 years after Jeffco received the first $50M in what eventually became $118M in bond premium there has never been a discussion on how to prioritize or utilize that money, and now it is nearly gone, for unexplainable reasons. That is shameful and fiscal malfeasance by everyone involved.

This is just one of the numerous examples of mismanagement and incompetence related to Jeffco’s bond program. Jeffco should never be trusted to be good stewards of bond money ever again.

The Seriousness of the Moss Adams Findings in Jeffco’s Capital Improvement Program

February 17, 2022 / ijsadmin

On November 10, 2020 the consulting firm of Moss Adams presented their findings from a mid-program assessment of Jeffco’s Capital Improvement Program. The report was not good.

Included in the report were areas that should raise serious concerns among the Superintendent, Board Members, District Staff and Jeffco taxpayers.

One of the areas that Moss Adams looked at was Contractor Procurement, essentially how contractors were chosen.

Moss Adams wrote:

… however, bid tabulations or evaluations for the selection and award of the projects were not available. Additionally, documentation was not available to demonstrate the selection process and awarding of professional services from the prequalified list of consultants. We were unable to determine whether or how the selection and award process for District projects included the factors outlined in the District’s policies and procedures.

Essentially, Moss Adams is saying that there is no record of how winning bidders were chosen. Think about that for a minute. Of the 6 projects Moss Adams looked at from a Contractor Procurement perspective (Appendix H), only one was awarded to the low bidder and that there is zero documentation on why low bidders for the other 5 projects weren’t chosen. In addition, 5 of the bidders who were selected were subsequently issued change orders, the minimum value of which was over $6.5M.

This is just beyond belief. It is certainly not hard to imagine scenarios where a procedureless system like this can, and maybe has been abused.

Something similar happened with regards to Architect Procurement.

Moss Adams looked at 8 projects with respect to Architect Procurement (Appendix I). None of the 8 provided a proposal, with Moss Adams stating that these contracts appeared to be “sole source procurement”. How can anyone think that there is not the opportunity for fraud, favoritism or over pricing with so many sole source contracts? And, not to be outdone by the Contractor Procurement, all of these architecture firms were issued substantial change orders too.

Architect Procurement in Jeffco Schools CIP. Sole Source awards with no proposals and change orders.

This is not the way to run a capital program. The optics are that there is way too much opportunity for fraud and corruption.

These examples are only the tip of the iceberg if you take the time to critically read the full Moss Adams report, not just the cherry picked and sanitized sound bites District staff presented to the Board.

The program is out of control, not just from a cost perspective, but also from management and fraud mitigating perspectives.

Jeffco taxpayers and voters deserve nothing less than full Financial and Performance audits. Taxpayers were promised that Jeffco would be good stewards of their money. That isn’t happening.

Jeffco’s Damning Moss Adams Bond Review

November 15, 2021 / ijsadmin

Last week Jeffco citizens heard the Moss Adams presentation relating to their review of the Capital Improvement Program.

If you looked at Jeffco’s Next Steps slide, you would think that only a few simple communications tweaks were needed.

This was reinforced by Superintendent Dorland telling the Board that “Most projects are at or near budget”.

However, if you read the full report, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

First, it is completely false that most district projects are at or near budget.

The Moss Adams report shows that 59% of In-progress projects are over budget, with 19% of all projects expected to exceed their budget by over $500,000.

It is worse for Completed projects where 67.8% are over budget, with 18.8% exceeding their budget by more than $500,000.

Dorland was wrong. If someone gave her that faulty information they should be fired. If she said that without doing the proper research, then she should be reprimanded. She should always give the Board accurate information.

Regarding the report, the findings and recommendations were much more serious than Jeffco staff wants people to believe.

Here are the highlights:

The current program cost estimate is now $136M more that what was initially shown to voters in 2018.
Bid tabulations or evaluations for the selection and award of projects were not available.
The District does not have policies and procedures specific to the change order process (i.e., review process, thresholds, approval process, approval levels, etc.).

These are egregious. Jeffco is talking about nearly 25% cost overruns (above the included 10% project contingency), with Reed telling the Board to expect another $43M in overages before the program is over.

Not having project selection evaluations means that the program is not transparent and is ripe for favoritism and or kick backs.

The same can be said regarding the change order process. This leaves the program ripe for vendor overcharging or kick backs.

None of these are good, but all were glossed over in the report review session.

To make matters worse, instead of acknowledging and addressing the Moss Adams findings and recommendations, all Director Rupert did was fault the consultants, make excuses and praise staff for the program.

It was appalling.

In addition, Rupert made a point that the program was not based on the 2016 Facilities Master Plan, when former CFO Kathleen Askelson, in her January 2021 bond review report stated that it was.

Rupert was wrong and Dorland was wrong.

The report was more damning than anyone wants to admit.

We can only hope that Dorland can clean the mess up, but her statements and actions to date don’t give me much hope.

Jeffco is falsely telling taxpayers that school projects are under budget

Jeffco Schools is lying about school bond projects being under budget

October 25, 2021 / ijsadmin

Jeffco’s Flipbook (and here if Jeffco deletes or changes it) is declaring multiple schools are under their bond program budget when they clearly aren’t.

I will document two of the schools here, Fremont ES and Belmar, but there are many more, including Arvada K-8, Columbine Hills, West Jeff MS, Welchester, Eiber and Semper.

Why is this happening? There are only two answers, either complete incompetence on the part of staff or a desire to mislead the public into believing the management of the program is not as bad as it really is.

Belmar – tagged with a green arrow in the Flipbook

The Flipbook states that Belmar has a budget of $1,068,000.

The current CAAC report shows Belmar costs as:

Efficiency & Future + Paving	$848,999
Hazmat Costs	$85,281
FF&E	$382,202
Total	$1,316,482

This is nearly $250,000 over budget and does not include additional costs such as security glass, site lighting, IT cameras and network upgrades.

Fremont ES

The Flipbook states that Fremont has a budget of $1,289,000.

The current CAAC report shows Fremont costs as:

Efficiency & Future Ready	$1,087,700
FF&E Costs	$334,083
Hazmat Costs	$102,186
Total	$1,523,969

or more than $230,000 over budget, not including additional costs such as security glass, site lighting, IT cameras and network upgrades.

Jeffco is lying to the public to present a picture that they are good managers and stewards of our money, when the exact opposite is true. This is not a good look.

Jeffco should fix this immediately. In addition, Jeffco should show the total costs for each school project so that voters and taxpayers can see the truth.

How Much Pay Do Teachers Deserve?

October 17, 2021 / ijsadmin

Varda, Reed and Parker are running on a platform of “Paying Teachers What They Deserve”.

Obviously, they want people to believe that teachers are underpaid for what they are doing. But, what does that really mean in an era of declining results in Jeffco Schools?

In any private company I’ve ever been at a salary increase would be looked at very closely when organization objectives weren’t met. In many instances, annual increases would be limited to COLA increases or less, and it would stay that way until objectives were met.

For instance, taking last year’s DUIP, how can anyone justify salary increases when Jeffco wasn’t even close to achieving their goals, that were set during the pandemic?

Yet, Varda, Parker and Reed think that teachers “deserve’ more pay. Their definition of “deserve” is far different than mine. A salary increase above COLA would be hard to justify in my mind.

In fact, over the past 4 years teachers’ salaries have increased significantly, far outpacing the 11% Denver inflation rate.

For example, a teacher w/BA @ Step 2 and a teacher w/MA @ Step 4 would have each seen salary increases of approx. 30% including the 4 steps awarded by Jeffco. These teachers now make $51k and $61k respectively, before benefits.

Approximately 40% of Jeffco teachers have salaries over $70k and 20% make over $80k.

That’s not bad for:

185 working days
Job Security
Ability to retire w/75% salary @55 & 30 years

In addition, Jeffco currently pays teachers based on their level of education along with years of service. Yet, study after study show that, with only limited exceptions (e.g. math and science), advanced degrees do not correlate to increased teacher effectiveness. (https://www.mhec.org/sites/default/files/resources/teacherprep1_20170301_2.pdf) Therefore, why is Jeffco paying more to teachers with those degrees? Do those teachers really “deserve” higher salaries? Not in my mind.

With year after year of declining education results, just how much do Varda, Parker and Reed think these teachers deserve in salary? They’re not saying, but you can be darn sure a salary increase wouldn’t be the topic of discussion on any corporate Board.

Jeffco schools is not an organization that is showing that it “deserves” salary increases for teachers and admin. It’s time to take a realistic look at total teacher compensation, not just salaries. It’s time to push back on the same old union rhetoric that teachers are underpaid because they aren’t for the results they are delivering.

And it is absolutely wrong for teacher pay to be one of Varda, Reed and Parker’s top priorities when Jeffco’s education results are so atrocious.

They aren’t a good fit for what Jeffco’s kids need now.