In 2017-18 the
Educational Research & Design department of Jeffco Schools, led
by Chief Academic Officer Matt Flores had a $23M budget. By 2021-22
that budget increased nearly 40%, $9M, to $32M.
Yet during that same time period both growth and achievement fell dramatically in Jeffco Schools.
It’s obvious that
more money and continuing to keep Matt Flores as CAO are not the
solutions to what is now a very real and urgent problem. Flores is
responsible for these atrocious results and it is evident he doesn’t
have the skills to reverse the slide that has permanently harmed
10,000s of kids.
Dorland needs to
fire Flores immediately. He is providing no useful value to Jeffco.
The fact that after 6 months she hasn’t already done this is a
yellow flag on whether she has the ability to recognize the rot in
Jeffco and the fortitude to do what is necessary.
Dorland and the
Board next need to scrutinize EVERY single penny in the $32M ER&D
budget. Clearly, that money is not being spent on programs that are
improving achievement and growth. It’s time to find programs that
work and spend taxpayers money in a manner that will truly improve
the schools.
It’s time for the
old, status quo, way of doing things to end. It is plainly obvious
that the same people are incapable of effecting positive change. It
is time for drastic and decisive decisions and actions to keep Jeffco
schools from spiraling from its current state of mediocrity into the
terrible category and to keep even more kids from being permanently
harmed.
Taxpayers and
students deserve Board members who will ask tough questions and hold
Dorland accountable for big improvements, people like
Jeff Wilhite
Theresa Shelton
Kathy Miks
More money isn’t
necessarily the answer to the problem. Even District staff admit
that.
Yet, Parker, Varda
and Reed want people to believe that repealing TABOR and eliminating
the BS factor will solve all of the the District’s problems. They
want people to believe that paying the same teachers even more money
will somehow, miraculously, improve education in Jeffco. They want to
“keep Jeffco strong”, when in fact Jeffco isn’t strong and has
been on a downward trend for years. They have their heads buried in
the sand.
Jeffco needs change.
Parker, Varda and Reed are not going to provide that change.
Jeffco's Capital Improvement Program is currently $110M over initial cost estimates
Recently, Colorado Community Media, including Jeffco Transcript and Arvada Free Press printed an article by writer Bob Wooley about Jeffco’s Capital Improvement Program.
For
the most part, Wooley did a good job of attempting to explain a
financially complex program. However, there were some comments and
statements made by Jefferson Public Schools’ officials that were
misleading or downright false.
I’ve
outlined several of those areas below:
1.
The article states:
After
the Bond passed, the project’s estimated costs were increased by
nearly $32 million for a revised total of just under $737 million for
the program.
TRUE
– $32M
in hidden
costs were added to the program
After
the bond passed, $32M in costs were added to the flipbook for
the same list of projects.
The
use of $32M in contingency to
cover these costs was
essentially hidden.
2.
The article states:
District
officials say the increase was a result of changes in scope, market
conditions, incorrect estimates or various other factors like
asbestos removal, which were determined once the District was able to
perform more in-depth evaluations of each individual project.
While I agree that factors such
as scope changes, market conditions and incorrect estimates can
result in changed estimates, that doesn’t fully explain the extent
of the cost estimate changes between the first and second flipbooks.
The project costs for 81 schools, or nearly 60% of the total,
increased by EXACTLY 5%. This is not indicative of changes in
scope or incorrect estimates. That’s indicative of using Excel to
pad costs.
3.
The article states:
“We
told voters we would accumulate six
years of approximately $20 million
at the back-end to fill up the program,” Reed says.
FALSE
– Voters were told $23M
Voters
were told that exactly
$23M
annually in Capital Transfer would be accumulated. In reality only
$20.9M
annually is currently being transferred. That means
there is a
$12.6M shortfall in
stated revenue, again made up with Contingency.
4.
The article states:
“and
over $3.5 million was spent on hazmat expenses (which technically, do
not count as overages).”
FALSE
– Hazmat
costs ARE overages
Why
aren’t $3.5M in hazmat expenses considered overages? Any
decent construction project manager with 50 year old buildings
knows there is asbestos in those
buildings that will have to be mitigated. Mitigation costs should
have been factored into the original estimates.
Where
is the money coming from to pay for the hazmat expenses? It’s
coming from the District’s program contingency. Therefore,
technically, and for all intents and purposes, hazmat expenses are
program costs that reduce available contingency This is merely an
attempt by Reed to put lipstick on a pig to make $3.5M in overages
not seem like the $3.5M in overages hazmat costs really are.
5.
The
article states:
In
a document Reed says is now posted to the Capital Asset Advisory
Committee (CAAC) website, all budget variances are listed with
specific overage amounts and the reason for the cost variance.
FALSE
– This
document
lists variances against revised cost estimates, not original
estimates
This
document hides $32M in cost increases. That’s deception.
6.
The article states:
Therefore,
the precise amount of contingency that’s been spent on actual
projects thus far is $65,815,424.
FALSE
– The amount of contingency allocated is currently over $110M
$65M
from what Reed wants people to believe is the contingency spent, plus
$3.5M in hazmat, plus $32M in increased estimates plus $9M from
recent fields project = $110M in contingency allocated.
7.
The article states:
“I’m
not a construction guy,” Bell said. “But we have a construction
guy and I was speaking to him this morning and he said “you know, a
year ago the cost of steel was $53 a ton — today it’s $79.” A
year ago did anybody know it was going to go from $53 to $79? No.”
MISLEADING
– Cost of steel is only one small component of cost increases
Both Tim and Steve have told the Board on several occasions that they have been getting good pricing due to the pandemic. And, this report shows that non-residential construction costs have been relatively flat in Denver for the last 2 years, increasing by only 2.1% total over that time. In addition, there are numerous projects that had no steel involved that are significantly over budget. This is a misleading and deceptive statement.
8.
The
article states:
“According
to Tim Reed, Jeffco’s Executive Director Facilities &
Construction, the amount of contingency that had been spent as of
Feb. 22, was just over $81 million, of which nearly $12 million went
to charter schools…”
MISLEADING
to FALSE – $12M to Charters came from Bond Premium
The
agreement with District Charters was that Jeffco would share
approximately 10% of all bond proceeds with Charter schools. The $12M
Tim Reed is referring to is based on Charters’ share of accrued
interest and bond premium. This has nothing to do with District
contingency.
The
bottom line is that the Capital Improvement Program has already
spent
or allocated $24M over its original $86M contingency budget ($110M
total) only
2.5 years into the program. In addition, Jeffco has hidden
a $12M revenue shortfall from
Capital Transfer.
The
amount
of deception and lack of accountability for large cost increases is
truly unbelievable.
Where is the promised annual independent audit of Jeffco's Capital Improvement Program?
To assure voters
that the $705M 2018 bond program would be well managed, Jeffco wrote
into the ballot language that the program would be subject to an
“annual independent audit”. The implication being that the
program would be scrutinized on a yearly basis by a firm without
financial ties to the District. Yet, two and a half years into what
is now an $832M program only a very basic financial audit has been
conducted, by the same firm that has deep and long standing ties to
the District.
The ballot language
implied that voters would get more than that. Now, with multiple
questionable practices and current cost estimates $110M over what
were presented to voters, Jeffco’s staff, Board and CAAC have all
balked at providing the transparency and accountability that we all
thought we would get when we entrusted Jeffco with our money. It is
just incomprehensible to me that there is so much resistance to
providing the transparency that was promised. It seems that if there
was nothing to hide a Performance Audit would give the program a
clean bill of health and end, once and for all, all questions. By
continuing to refuse to conduct a Performance Audit it only
perpetuates the assumption that there really is something to hide.
That is not a good look!
In addition, the
highly touted Citizens’ Capital Asset Advisory Committee is not
doing its job either. CAAC meeting notes reveal that only until
recently they have remained silent and allowed the program to go
tens of millions of dollars over budget without asking any questions
whatsoever. They have provided poor oversight of our money.
After initially observing a high usage rate of program contingency funds and subsequently numerous other instances of extremely questionable observations regarding the transparency, management and fiscal practices of the program I sent an email
to members of the CAAC on November 24, 2020 highlighting 10 very specific instances which raised questions with the management and transparency of the program and urging them to call for a Performance Audit conducted by a truly independent firm. Tim Reed replied on December 10, 2020 and I sent a rebuttal to Tim’s response to members of the CAAC on January 4, 2021.
On each of my letters I clearly include an offer to discuss my concerns and my telephone number. The fact that no one has taken me up on my offer speaks loudly in and of itself.
Finally, on January 4, 2021 I sent a copy of my original letter to the CAAC, Tim Reed’s response and my rebuttal to the Board of Education
The Board of Ed Secretary’s reply was far from confidence building:
Dear Mr. Greenawalt,
Members
of the Board of Education received your January 4, 2021 email
correspondence regarding our Capital Improvement Program. Thank you
for bringing your concerns forward. You are correct that the Board of
Education will be receiving feedback from the Capital Asset Advisory
Committee and your concerns are noted.
Sincerely,
Stephanie
Schooley
Secretary,
Jeffco Public Schools
with no further
communication from the Board.
Over a series of
posts I will outline some of the issues I have seen with regard to
the transparency and fiscal management of the 5B bond program and
take a look at some of the unbelievable and incredulous responses Tim
Reed provided in a weak attempt to address my concerns. Here are some
of the topics that I will cover:
Over budget
($57M as of November 2020)
Projected
$32M Contingency Shortfall
Deceptively
adding $31M to Flipbook costs
Failure to
Share Bond Premium with Charter Schools
Out of Scope
Projects
Deceptively
Hiding the True Cost of Alameda HS Cost Overruns
Recent Large
Underspend on FF&E Projects
Unexplained
Recent Increase to Capital Transfer Revenue
Questionable
Use of $50M in Bond Premium Contingency
Failure of
CAAC Members to Maintain Independence
Failure of
Jeffco to Provide $23M in Capital Transfer as Promised to Taxpayers
Jeffco needs to put
these concerns and questions to rest.
Jeffco needs to
conduct the independent Performance Audit that voters thought they
were going to get.
1. $57M over budget. On its own, a program that is $57M over budget less than 2 years into a 6 year plan should automatically trigger a Performance Audit. Just to recap, voters were told the Capital Improvement Program would cost $705M. At the CAAC’s last meeting in November, it had a $762,179,035 price tag.
2. Projected $32M Contingency Shortfall. At the October 7th Board Study Session, Tim Reed told the Board that $68M in contingency had been used to date.
At the CAAC’s November meeting Tim presented the following numbers for funds Expended and Encumbered, totaling $341M.
Subtracting the $68M of contingency from this value means that $273M of the $595M in total program costs are currently Expended or Encumbered, leaving $322M in remaining projects. If that same rate of contingency usage continues, that would require remaining contingency of over $79M. Yet, there is only $47M in contingency remaining, a $32M shortfall.
Do the math. The numbers don’t lie. This is not a healthy Program.
3. Deceptively adding $31M to Flipbook costs. District project costs were presented to voters as $563M. You can arrive at that number by subtracting the Charters $56M and the Contingency $86M from the Flipbook presentation.
This can be verified by adding the costs of individual projects in
the original Flipbook (Plus approx. $17M in costs for Trailblazer,
North Transportation Hub, OELS and Preschools projects which were
withheld from voters).
However, sometime after the Bond passed, the District changed the
Flipbook. The cost of nearly every project increased. Here are some
examples:
Alameda HS – an increase of $1,430,902 to $19,434,000
Green Mountain HS – an increase of $754,078 to $14,361,000
Jefferson Jr/Sr HS – an increase of $672,810 to $14,129,000
This had the net effect of raising BASE costs by a total of
$31,967,419. Essentially hiding $31M of cost increases.
For example, when the construction budget for Alameda was presented to the Board, contingency usage of $10,047,814 was based on the updated Base cost of $19,433,745, instead of the original cost estimate of $18,033,098. This usage of the revised cost estimate deceptively hid the totality of the increase, and the additional use of Contingency, of $1,430,902.
Therefore, cost estimates for all projects have now increased by
$100M; the $68M in Contingency that Tim Reed freely told the Board
PLUS the $31M in hidden cost estimate increases.
4. Failure to Share Bond Premium with Charter Schools. As recently as of the end of October, the District still had not shared Bond Premium with Charter schools, in violation of the Board’s October 2018 Sharing Resolution. The District spreadsheet widely circulated to Charter Schools show that the District only calculated sharing revenue based on the Bond par of $567M.
Yet, at the November 11th Board Study Session, Steve Bell told the Board that Bond Premium is shared with Charters.
Therefore, at this point, Charters are owed approximately $4.6M, PLUS interest – which will subsequently reduce the Contingency available for District projects by a corresponding amount.
Brian Ballard, Chair of the District’s Financial Oversight
Committee, has said that it is the CAAC that has responsibility for
overseeing 5B Bond funds. If that is the case, why hasn’t the CAAC
ensured that District Charters have been given their complete share
of the funds?
5. Out of Scope Projects. There are multiple projects that can be identified that were not in the scope presented to voters. Several easily identifiable, high-cost projects include: Ralston Valley HS Roof, Lakewood HS Track, West Jefferson MS Track, etc. The following images were taken from the Original Flipbook presented to voters and clearly do not show these projects.
Was there any discussion relating to the addition of scope and
reduction of contingency for these and other added scope projects?
What was involved with this process? Were these prioritized over
replacement schools? Was there a vote?
6. Deceptively Hiding the True Cost of Alameda HS Cost Overruns. Similar to Jefferson Jr/Sr HS, Alameda HS is slated for Track and Field Upgrades. When the Jefferson project was submitted to the Board for approval, the Track and Field upgrades were included in the project costs and subtracted from the remaining budget.
This was not the case when Alameda was presented to the Board. The cost for the Track and Field upgrades were left off of the presented costs, effectively deceiving the Board that total overages are at least $1.5M over what was shown. Was that intentional deception, or merely incompetence?
7. Recent Large Underspend on FF&E Projects. We all like to get good deals. However, the cost savings on several recent FF&E projects go beyond the definition of good deals, suspiciously into the realm of scope reductions. Look at some of the “savings” generated from some of these FF&E projects that were recently presented to the Board, $150k, $300k, $315k and $310k.
These “savings” are 47%, 22%, 60% and 66% less than the original
cost estimates. That’s far more than a reasonable person would
expect from a “good” deal. What happened here? Was scope cut at
these schools?
8. Unexplained Recent Increase to Capital Transfer Revenue. At the October CAAC meeting, members were shown Capital Transfers into the Capital Improvement Program of $41.8M. Yet, in November, they were shown $51.3M. Where did that additional $9.5M come from?
(On a side note, how does Interest Revenue DECREASE by $110,000 from August to September? Can you trust any numbers that are presented?)
Approximately $3M appears to come from the movement of the contingency in prior capital improvement programs such as 18M and 19M. This contingency decrease can be seen in documents presented to the CAAC.
But, the source of the remaining $6.5M is unexplained as the value of
the 18M, 19M, 20M programs remain the same. And this happened mere
days after Steve Bell told the Board that the capital transfers would
be $20M/year over 6 years for a $120M total.
9. Questionable Use of $50M in Bond Premium for Contingency. Recently, Tim Reed and Steve Bell told the Board that during initial 5B discussions the bond ask amount was decreased and 2 replacement schools were removed from the list of projects.
If this was the case, why then, when the District received $50M in bond premium, weren’t replacement schools immediately added to the list of projects? Instead, it appears that the $50M in bond premium has merely been added to the $86M already allocated to program contingency. What was the process in determining that the additional $50M in contingency should be used for contingency instead of being used for replacement schools, particularly when taxpayers voters were told that Jeffco had $1.3B in deferred maintenance needs?
10. Failure
of CAAC Members to Maintain Independence. Tim Reed
recently sent members of the CAAC a document relating to the Purpose
and Membership of the committee. This document clearly states that
members must be:
Independent and free from any relationship that would interfere
with independent judgment
Gordon Callahan, a CAAC member, has a relationship with the District.
His firm has been the recipient of nearly $1M in contracts over the
past year and a half.
This is not the appearance of independent judgment.
For taxpayers to fully trust the Capital Asset Advisory Committee ALL members of the committee must be completely independent and free of District relationships. Unfortunately, that is not currently the case. His continued membership on the committee is ethically questionable and erodes taxpayer trust.
Jeffco schools failed to share all 5B bond proceeds with District Charter schools
As we saw in Part II, Jeffco’s Board of Education unanimously adopted a Bond Proceed Sharing Resolution that clearly states “the Board of Education will allocate a percentage of the bond proceeds equal to the percentage of full-time district students enrolled in district-authorized charter schools”.
Yet, Jeffco did NOT allocate ANY of the bond premium to District Charters. That was a loss of at least 9.29% of the Bond Premium of $50M or $4,660,360. If the share percentage was calculated correctly with 2019 student count numbers as explained in Part II, that revenue share loss is $4,745,642.
Why didn’t Jeffco schools share the Bond Premium? We weren’t part of the conversations and no discussion took place at the Board table, but we can only surmise that Jeffco is attempting to make a distinction between Bond “proceeds” and Bond “premium”, essentially saying that the bond premium is not part of the bond proceeds in order to keep the $4.7M for District projects.
That is just plain wrong!
While this attempted distinction has worked to silence the meek District Charter schools who are afraid of losing their Charter authorizations, the District knows that the IRS does not make that same distinction.
Sale proceeds means any amounts actually or constructively received from the sale of the issue, including amounts used to pay underwriters’ discount or compensation and accrued interest other than pre-issuance accrued interest. Sale proceeds also include, but are not limited to, amounts derived from the sale of a right that is associated with a bond, and that is described in 1.148-4(4). See also 1.148-4(h)(5) treating amounts received upon the termination of certain hedges as sale proceeds.
Jeffco agrees with this definition as in a May Alameda presentation to the BoE, Tim Reed included the Bond Premium in his calculation used to determine arbitrage requirements.
IRS Target Spend by 12/2021= 85% of Bond Proceeds & Premium $329,610,938
It is obvious that Jeffco knows that the IRS considers Bond Premium to be part of Bond proceeds.
Therefore, Jeffco has violated its own Sharing Resolution and defrauded the District Charters of over $4.6M by not sharing all of the Bond Proceeds, in this case the Bond Premium, with them.
In essence, Jeffco got the Charters to support, and campaign for, 5B, but in the end isn’t holding up its end of the bargain.
Shame on Jeffco schools!
10 Things we learned from Jeffco Schools Board Study Session on 5B Bond
Here are the 10 things we learned from the October 7, 2020 Jeffco Board Study Session on the District’s Capital Improvement Program.
None of these things is good!
1. HS Parity – We were told during the Wednesday meeting that one of the goals of the bond program was to achieve High School building parity. Someone might want to tell the staff, parents and students at Pomona, Wheat Ridge, Arvada and Green Mountain that. Even after the program finishes, these schools will still have Facility Condition Indexes above 15% while schools such as Bear Creek, Golden, Arvada West and Lakewood will have FCIs below 4%. That’s not parity/equity in my mind. Once again, Jeffco talks equity, but never, ever delivers.
2. Capital Transfer – We learned that in 2 years Jeffco has transferred $41.8M from general funds to the Capital Program and that over the next 3 years another $83.6M will be transferred for a total of $125.4M.
But, Steve Bell made that sound worse by stating that only $120M in total would be transferred over 6 years.
Jeffco voters were promised $23M/year would be transferred for a total 6 year transfer of $138M.
This is now an expected shortfall of $12.6M. This shortfall will need to be made up by either allocating contingency or reducing project scope. I don’t even think that the Board is aware of this shortfall at this point. Bell and Reed will use Wednesday’s presentation to say that they informed the Board, but this is a pretty weak argument. In reality, it was the CFO’s job to ensure that 2019-20 and 2020-21 budgets presented to the Board of Education included transfers of this promised money, OR, to inform the Board of Education of this shortfall. The former CFO Kathleen Askelson failed to do either. She failed in her fiduciary responsibilities to both taxpayers and the Board. It’s no wonder she suddenly decided to leave Jeffco. Once this came to light she should have been fired.
3. 19M Projects – During the meeting Reed casually mentioned that $9.5M worth of projects were transferred from the District’s 19M facilities maintenance program to the Bond program because they were ready to go and it would assist in meeting the arbitrage requirements of the bond.
What he failed to say was that these projects were funded straight from the contingency of the Capital Improvement Program and that this was in reality an increase of scope. Complete and utter deception on the part of Reed and Bell.
4. Missing $41M – $41M is missing from Bell and Reed’s presentation. Where is that money? Jeffco voters were told that the program came with $86M in contingency built into it (see image above). $50M was added through bond premium and another $12M added through interest.
That’s a total of $148M above and beyond the $563M in project cost estimates presented to voters. Reed and Bell told the Board that they are carrying $107M in program contingency.
In that case, where did $41M go?
$ 86M in
contingency presented in original Flipbook
+$ 50M in bond
premium
+$ 12M in interest
=$148M total available above cost estimates
– $107M in stated
contingency
=$ 41M missing
5. % of contingency usage – Bell told the Board that $68M in contingency has been spent (video above). That contingency was spent during the completion of $264M ($332 expended and encumbered from Board docs – $68M in contingency used) in project work. Since there is (now) $594M in total work that needs to be completed for the program that means 44% of the total program work has been done against 64% of the total contingency ($68M of $107M in total contingency). At the current rate, available contingency will be used before all projects are completed and scope will have to be reduced. Calculated a different way, continuing to use contingency at the current rate would mean that Jeffco needs $153M in total contingency, $46M more than what is currently allocated. This is not a good position to be in.
6. Construction increases – We learned that there are several Board member apologists who want to blame inflation and the length of the program (6 years) for cost overruns. I don’t agree with that. A timeline for project work was clearly laid out in the Flipbook. District staff knew when projects would be worked on and SHOULD have incorporated inflation based increases into their cost estimates. If they didn’t do that, then they are incompetent and should be fired, not given a free pass as Rupert and Mitchell want to do. Besides, Jeffco is only 2 years into the program. Inflation based cost increases shouldn’t be responsible for over $68M in cost increases at this point.
7. Contingency use between May and September – In May Reed told the Board that there was $57M in remaining contingency.
May Contingency
Since that time the Board has approved approx. $11M in contingency usage, mostly at Alameda. Now, Reed is now telling the Board that there is only $37M in contingency remaining. What did that additional $9M in contingency get used for in such a short period of time? Where did it go in only a few short months without Board knowledge?
8. Questions about use of $50M bond premium – The bond premium was a bonus. In my mind, it should be used to provide real value to the taxpayers. During the meeting Reed told the Board that to get the total bond package down to something reasonable for taxpayers for the 2018 vote they had to remove two replacement schools.
Now, when Jeffco received bond premium, why did $50M just get consumed to pay for added contingency? Why weren’t 2 replacement schools added into the program? This is pure mismanagement and an atrocious use of taxpayer money. People should be fired for using $50M this way!
9. Where was the Citizens Capital Asset Advisory Committee? Members of the CAAC were supposed to be at the meeting to answer questions regarding their oversight and monitoring of the program. They are definitely aware (here and here) of the depth and degree of the $100M in cost overruns to date. It is suspicious that at the last moment they decided not to show up.
10. Board President Harmon and Directors Rupert and Mitchell will go to great lengths to cover-up waste and mismanagement and protect the District from criticism or scrutiny. When Director Miller brought up questionable practices regarding the use of the $50M bond premium, instead of addressing that issue first, Harmon attacked Director Miller and then Rupert and Mitchell went into a full on defense of the District. It’s not their money, so why should they care?
This Wednesday’s
study session was enlightening, to say the least. It raised, and
never answered, numerous questions regarding the management of a $3/4
Billion Capital Improvement Program. The degree of deception on the
parts of Reed and Bell is just unbelievable.
The Program is a
disaster – way over budget and heading further in that direction.
That is not how you get taxpayers to approve your next bond request.
It is clearly evident that, as promised to taxpayers, a full and complete performance audit on the program must be conducted immediately!
Jeffco manipulated student count numbers to short-change Charters
The Board of Education’s Bond Revenue Sharing Resolution clearly states that “the Board of Education will allocate a percentage of the bond proceeds equal to the percentage of full-time district students enrolled in district-authorized charter schools”.
A reasonable person would have read this resolution at face value and come to the conclusion that the percentage would have been calculated based on the count of full-time enrolled Charter students divided by the count of total full-time enrolled District students. In fact, a spreadsheet presented to Charter schools (attached) to show how the distributions were calculated clearly displayed the following text referring to FTE (Full time Equivalent) in 2 locations:
1. Official Oct 1
2018 FTE
2. Note: October 1,
2018 Official FTE count (audited)
Yet, the District did not use FTE numbers. In its calculations, the District actually used the state calculated Funded Student Count numbers for total District student count number, which is higher. This effectively increases the denominator for the percentage calculation and reduces the Charters’ shares. State Funded student count numbers are higher because, in an environment of decreasing student enrollment, the state reduces impact of revenue decreases by computing a 5 year average of student enrollment. For the school year 2018-2019 this increased the total District funded student count number by 1,397 and resulted in a loss of nearly $1M to Charter schools.
Not only did the
District perpetrate this loss of agreed upon revenue to District
Charters, but they
Charter parents
campaigned very hard for a Bond that barely passed. How short-sighted
is it of Jeffco to not see this? I doubt Charter parents will be as
willing to expend as much effort and energy the next time Jeffco
wants to pass a bond when Charters will know that Jeffco will be out
to take advantage of them.
Jason Glass and
Jeffco Schools promised transparency when they put a $567M Bond to
the vote of taxpayers in 2018.
To great fanfare, Glass rolled out what was called a Flipbook that explained sources of revenue for the District’s 6 year Capital Improvement Program and exactly how much would be spent at each school.
There was one big problem though. The Flipbook did NOT show where nearly $17M in bond proceeds would be used. I even wrote about it in October 2018 – http://improvejeffcoschools.org/index.php/2018/10/ A year and a half later, through CORA requests, I’ve been able to piece together the uses of that $17M, now blossomed to over $19M, in spending:
Project
Est. Cost
North Transportation-Joyce Renovation
$349,400
Trailblazer Stadium
$4,415,250.00
581 Conference Place Reopen
$518,877.00
Mount Evans OELS Efficiency
$3,210,190
Windy Peaks OELS Efficiency
$3,340,982
Anderson Preschool Efficiency
$117,794
Irwin Preschool Efficiency
$48,935
Free Horizon Montessori
$174,682
Litz Preschool Efficiency
$77,479
North Transportation-Site Acquisition
$7,000,600
Total
$19,254,189
In looking at this
list, one can only guess at why these projects were not shown to
taxpayers – most are not directly related to schools. Trailblazer
stadium, North Transportation Site, 581 Conference Place – these
are not projects that would have encouraged me to vote Yes on the
Bond.
Even when asked a
question on his much touted Jeffco Generations Facebook page, Glass
failed to answer a question regarding the missing projects.
And, the most egregious thing was that shortly after the Bond was approved by taxpayers the Flipbook was quietly updated. Cost estimates increased from $563M to $594M, an increase of $31M in cost estimates.
Here are several examples of how project costs changed (you can see the complete list here):
School
Original Flipbook
Revised Flipbook
Difference
Alameda HS
$18,003,098
$19,434,000
$1,430,902
Patterson International ES
$463,102
$2,232,000
$1,768,898
West Jefferson Middle School
$2,323,535
$3,700,000
$1,376,465
Powderhorn Elementary
$5,756,358
$6,100,000
$343,642
Not only is there not a corresponding increase in revenue to fund these increases, but the impact of the changes turns out to be extremely important in the on-going deception of hiding the degree of cost overruns, which I will discuss in a future post.
The deception to
taxpayers regarding 5B funding and projects started early and appears
to be well thought out – not something that should be done if
Jeffco wants to get another Bond approved in the future.
When 2018-19
assessment results for Jeffco Schools became available last year
there was a great deal of consternation. Achievement was down pretty
much across the board and more importantly growth for the District
was below the state average. A scramble was made to provide teachers
with more planning time. Even though this was the second year of
declining results under Glass, Deputy Superintendent Kris Schuh told
the Board that this dip was anticipated due to moving to a focus on
transforming the task and Deeper Learning.
We can compare the
yearly Winter MAP results to get an excellent idea of the direction
the District’s students were headed in 2019-20 before Covid and
whether the additional teacher planning time and the emphasis on
transforming the task and Deeper Learning were having positive
impacts.
Comparing the percentage of Jeffco students who Met or Exceeded Exceeded Standards from Winter 2018-19 to Winter 2019-20 we can see that the highly touted teacher planning time and continued emphasis on transforming the task were not working.
Essentially, Glass was failing in his most important responsibility – improving education in Jeffco.
And, unfortunately,
this was the 3rd straight year that Jeffco Winter MAP
results went in a downward direction, for both Reading and Math under
Glass.
Is it any wonder
that Glass beat feet out of Jeffco? Winter 2019-20 results should
have been available in January and he would have known these before
applying to be Kentucky Ed Commissioner. It also makes me suspicious
why, unlike every year in the past, Winter MAP results were not
presented to the Board of Education in January or February. Was this
an act of intentional deception that no one wanted to be accountable
for?
It is clear from
these charts that Jason Glass did a massive amount of damage to
Jeffco’s kids. Even without the additional impacts from Covid, it
will take years to stop this slide and get Jeffco headed in the right
direction.
Complicit in this
damage is Jeffco’s Board of Education. Current members Susan
Harmon, Brad Rupert and Ron Mitchell were members of the Board when
they hired Glass, without any record of improving education.
I hope these Board
members realize how many kids’ they permanently harmed with the
Glass hire and that they learned from this mistake when hiring the
next Superintendent.
Jeffco is fortunate
that Glass left when he did as there is no end in sight to Jeffco’s
continuing downward spiral.
Glass was a complete failure in Jeffco.
The damage he did was real and will be extremely difficult to correct.
With Denver Public
Schools just announcing a start to the school year in full Remote
Learning, we can believe that Glass will follow and announce the same
within the next few days for Jeffco. This will be mere days after
Glass’s disastorous FB Live event in which no actual questions
regarding the District’s restart plan were answered.
In fact, in the 40 minutes of the FB Live event, Remote Learning and academics were not mentioned once. The restart plan itself merely contains several pages of vague eduspeak and is actually tellingly shorter than the Communications plan.
It’s just a plain dereliction of responsibility and an avoidance of accountability that the Plan is so vague and includes no specifics.
Remote Learning, in
some form, was always going to happen this Fall. A failure to provide
specifics in the Plan is a truly appalling lack of leadership.
Going forward, Glass should be required to immediately and definitively answer the following questions:
By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence access to their own electronic device? The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class.
By what date will EVERY Jeffco student have at-residence internet connectivity. The only acceptable answer would be within the first week of class. Did the IT Department work on alternatives during the summer such as bus or school building roof hot spots as many other districts have done?
Will teachers be required to deliver Remote Learning from their classrooms for accountability purposes? If not, why not?
Given that school will start a week late, should we continue to expect 5 days of instruction weekly? If not, why not and what impact on students will reduced class time have on students?
When will beginning of year assessments be administered to ascertain how much learning was lost during the spring’s failed experiment in Remote Learning?
Will student attendance be measured in a different manner than in the spring? If not, why not?
How will teachers be held accountable for their instruction?
How, specifically, will best practices be shared? Will best practice sharing be limited to tool usage or will sharing/instruction on proven Remote Learning techniques be mandatory?
What guidelines will teachers be given relating to Remote Learning? Will there be Synchronous teaching requirements? If not, why not?
How will students be held accountable for Remote Learning?
What are the specific plans to make up for the spring learning loss?
Will anything be done to improve the Grab-and-Go meal distribution to ensure more students and families receive meals?
How long will non-working Classified staff be paid full wages if Remote Learning extends beyond just a few weeks?
If the school year starts with Remote Learning for all, why didn’t the District fall back on the K-5 in school option previously presented?
It’s well past
time for the eduspeak and vague ‘plans’ for how things will work
this fall. Remote Learning was always going to be given. At this
point, Glass and staff should be able to provide details and
extremely specific plans. If he can’t do that the Board should
execute their responsibility of ensuring quality education and get
rid of him immediately. They should put someone in charge who will
actually get something done while there is still time to make an
impact.
Unfortunately, we
know that isn’t going to happen because the Board is
extraordinarily weak and unwilling to ask the hard questions. In the
end, thousands and thousands of students will be permanently harmed
because of the incompetence of Jason Glass and the Board’s
failures.
