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What was the rush with Glass’s 5 year extension?

March 10, 2019 / ijsadmin

Why was Mitchell so adamant that the contract be approved at the March meeting?

Even though District Counsel Craig Hess noted that voting on Glass’s contract extension violated the spirit of District policy (at 2:39 of Board Livestream) and 2 Board members noted that doing so could be perceived as lack of transparency, Mitchell was determined to vote on the extension at the meeting.

Mitchell even went so far as to claim that the 2 people who spoke at public comment on the fact that the contract wasn’t even available for review until sometime after early morning Thursday were proof that the public had the opportunity to comment on the extension. (Hey Ron – their comments were aimed at the fact that needed information wasn’t available!)

Multiple Board Members stated that their vote would be the same that month as it would be the following month if they waited.

Yet, Ron Mitchell pushed through a vote, and every Board member dutifully followed along and voted for it.

Just one more blow to transparency in Jeffco!

But why such the rush, there was still well over a year remaining? And, why wasn’t the contract posted to the Board agenda site until the day of the vote? There supposedly weren’t any material changes in it from the original contract, so why couldn’t it have been posted earlier? Certainly, Glass had a copy prior to that time so that he could have it reviewed by his lawyer.

What was Mitchell afraid of? Was he afraid of the public comment he might get because there aren’t any performance based provisions in the contract? Did Jason Glass get another offer and threatened to leave the District if he didn’t get a contract extension that month? Was Mitchell worried about potential comments that might come out regarding some of the deception perpetrated by Glass regarding getting people to vote for 5B?

I guess we’ll never know.

However, we can infer from the actions of Mitchell that he was worried about something. And, he was willing to throw transparency and the spirit of the Board’s own policies to the wind to get the contract extension passed that night.

Shame, shame, shame on Mitchell and the Board!

Board’s continued 5B Deferred Maintenance Deception

March 5, 2019 / ijsadmin

I’ve previously written about Jason Glass’s & Ali Lasell’s public deception regarding their claims of the District’s $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance” and sent a letter to the Board regarding the same.

Not only do the District’s numbers not add up, but the use of the very specific term “Deferred Maintenance” is just wrong and inaccurate. “Deferred Maintenance” has a very specific meaning in the financial, accounting and business world. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board defines “Deferred Maintenance” as maintenance and repairs that were not performed when they should have been or were scheduled to be and which are put off or delayed for a future period.

What Jason Glass and Ali talk about when they talk about “Deferred Maintenance” is not “Deferred Maintenance” at all!

First, Jason Glass, as the CEO of a $1B organization should know better and SHOULD know what that term means. Second, the use of the key word “Deferred” means maintenance that was scheduled previously, but has not yet been performed, as in delayed. We’re talking about the past tense of a word here for the people in the school District who may not have been paying attention when they went to grade school. In this case, the District attempts to claim that $371M in projected maintenance, over the next 6 years, is currently “Deferred”.

The District’s response to my original letter on this topic was comical, to say the least.

The District continues to claim there was $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance”, but even their numbers just don’t add up.

Here’s an extract from their response:

The $1.3 billion was arrived at in the following manner. The capital program is planned over two phases of five to six years per phase. As of February 2018, the value of deficiencies as defined in the annual Summary of Findings is $588 million. The proposed 2018 bond, valued at $567 million, will address about $250 million in deferred maintenance priorities 1-3; an additional $125 million towards educational adequacy, the balance in replacement facilities, growth accommodation through additions and new buildings, safety and security, and technology.

The investment in current deficiencies will be $375 million or 64% of the need. Life cycle renewal is valued at $371.3 million in non-inflation adjusted dollars. This amount continues to grow each year as systems and components reach the end of their life cycle requiring major investment or replacement. In 2023, when the 2018 bond should be near completion, these items will have moved into the deferred maintenance categories. The balance of deferred maintenance items not addressed by the proposed 2018 bond, in non-inflation adjusted dollars, will be $213 million in addition to the $371.3 million of life cycle work that have become deferred maintenance leaving $584.3 million in unaddressed deferred maintenance.

Summarizing, the 2018 proposal is valued at $567 million, a 2024 bond proposal valued in 2018 dollars would be $584 million or nearly $1.2 billion in 2018 dollars. Applying even a modest inflation of 3% over six years, the cost exceeds the $1.3 billion value.

Here are the summarized key points in that response:

As of February 2018, the value of facilities deficiencies is $588M (certainly not $1.3B).
The Bond will address about $375M, or 64%, of that need.
The balance of deferred maintenance items, not addressed by the Bond, will be $213M ($588M – $375M).
The balance of the bond ($567M – $375M or $192M) will go toward “replacement facilities, growth accommodation through additions and new buildings, safety and security, and technology” and Charters.
Projected Life Cycle renewal is valued at $371.3M, which in 2023 will have moved into deferred maintenance categories

For the time being, let’s ignore the FACT that you can’t call maintenance “Deferred” now, if you’re talking about something that won’t even be needed for 4, 5 or even 6 years in the future. Therefore, let’s just add up the numbers they gave me:

$375M in bond funds used for maintenance and educational adequacy needs

$213M in current maintenance needs not addressed by the bond

$371M in upcoming life cycle needs over the next 6 years

It’s time to bring out the calculator, because the total from those three numbers is $959M, NOT $1.3B.

The District’s “Subject Matter Expert” attempted to say that a liberal use of inflation COULD bring that total up to $1.3B in 6 years, but the facts are the following:

You can’t compound that total cost figure over the course of 6 years because even the District isn’t claiming that the total amount is currently deferred.
The “Subject Matter Expert” also incorrectly, and deceptively, claimed that in order to get to $1.3B, the entire $567M bond was deferred maintenance, which we know isn’t true: “Summarizing, the 2018 proposal is valued at $567 million, a 2024 bond proposal valued in 2018 dollars would be $584 million or nearly $1.2 billion in 2018 dollars. Applying even a modest inflation of 3% over six years, the cost exceeds the $1.3 billion value.”
Even still, if you are going to claim that Deferred Maintenance is going to accrue over the next 6 years, shouldn’t you also reduce that by the amount the District plans in Capital Transfers during that period? To present a balanced picture, you should! Hasn’t the District been spending approximately $17M per year in facilities maintenance? And what about claims in the Bond package that amount would actually increase to $138M over the course of the next 6 years — wouldn’t that reduce the $959M by $138M to $821M? It certainly would, and the fact that this offset was left out of the District’s analysis only serves to further highlight either the incompetence or degree to which you, and the District staff, will go in order to misrepresent finances and mislead taxpayers.

To state it plainly, the District does NOT have $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance” needs, since $371M in the costs portrayed are merely currently PROJECTED needs and haven’t been deferred. And, $192M of the claimed “Deferred Maintenance” is not “Maintenance” at all, including $56M that is designated for Charter Schools.

Therefore, Jason Glass’s, Ali’s, and other District employees’ use of the term “Deferred Maintenance”, in an attempt to portray a greater need than there may actually be within the District is inaccurate, misleading and just plain wrong and highlights the depths they will go in order to intentionally deceive taxpayers.

The 5B Bond numbers just don’t add up

October 20, 2018 / ijsadmin

The ability for the District to perform $705M in projects over the course of 6 years with a $567M bond ask seems predicated on a total of $138M in capital transfers over that period.

In an interview with Jeffco Public Education Network posted on June 21 members of the District’s Capital Asset Advisory Committee are quoted as saying that only $17M is allocated annually for facilities maintenance.

That leaves the question of where the additional $36M needed to fund $705M in projects will be coming from?

Are we being told the whole story?

Why is $15M in 5B Bond Expenditures not documented?

October 16, 2018 / ijsadmin

The District has very carefully shown that $705M will be funded for capital improvements, and in very broad categories, shown that $705M will be expended on page 2 of the Flip Book.

The District has also very carefully shown the costs of the new and replacement buildings and the improvements at each school.

However, when looking at the details, $15M in expenditures is missing.

Approximately $415M in detailed school projects (as outlined in the Flip Book), $66M in new construction, $64.5 in replacement schools, $56M to Charters and $86M in Contingency gives a total of approximately $690M.

Where’s the other $15M?? That’s over 2% of the total program and it is not a rounding error.

One could say that it was an innocent mistake. Or, one could also say that $15M in expenditures and projects was purposely left out of the Flip Book to prevent questions being raised about those projects.

In 2016, numerous questions were raised regarding the use of funding for renovating stadiums and transportation centers as significant funding was allocated to projects in these facilities. Obviously, those needs still exist, but they don’t appear in any discussions or literature put out by the District or Glass this year.

Does the District have plans to use the “missing” $15M for projects at other locations and subsequently conveniently “forgotten” to mention those projects or put them in the Flip Book to avoid having to answer questions about them?

Is that being honest with the taxpayers? Is that being transparent?

If this is indeed true, it is certainly not being transparent.

I would even go as far as classifying it as intentional deception on the part of Glass and the District and I don’t think deception should be rewarded.

Do You Buy Lightbulbs With a 20 Year Bond?

October 7, 2018 / ijsadmin

One of the highly touted 5B District projects is to replace lighting in all schools with LED lights. However, the District has not said what the cost of this project is, merely lumping it into project costs at schools. The District has said that this project will provide annual savings of approximately $10M. Since normal expected payback for lighting projects similar to this is around 3 years, this would mean that the cost of installing this lighting would be in the range of $25-$30M, or 5% of the Bond ask. Is that calculation close?

What we don’t know is the life expectancy of these bulbs. While LED bulbs have a long lifetime, will they last the length of the 20 year payback period of the Bond, or will the District be paying the costs of multiple sets of bulbs toward the end of the payback period?

We don’t know the answers to these questions as Jason Glass and the District won’t answer them and most likely the bulbs will last far less than 20 years. (Unanswered JeffcoGenerations Facebook question)

One would think however, that if the project is financially sound, the District would be quick to highlight how they will be saving money that can be put directly into teacher salaries, books and more teachers. When you don’t hear those things, when there is complete silence on the complete costs and benefits of this project, taxpayers can only wonder whether the project is financially sound over the long term and what the real costs are.

Once again, Jason Glass and the District strike a blow to the “transparency” they so often claim to be one of their core principles.

Glass Deceives & Misrepresents with claims of District’s $1.3B in Deferred Maintenance

September 3, 2018 / ijsadmin

Before I start, I think it is important to say that I agree that there are significant capital needs in Jeffco.

However, I don’t like to be misled, or deceived with regard to the scope of those needs.

Recently, I’ve heard numerous Jeffco Schools related people, including Jason Glass and Ali Lasell say that Jeffco schools has $1.3B in “Deferred Maintenance” (at 4:44 of A Community Guide from Dr. Glass, and at 6:32 of Talking Ed: Jeffco’s Future Funding ).

However, their claims are far from the truth!

There is a very specific definition of “Deferred Maintenance” in the business world. The Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board defines “Deferred Maintenance” as maintenance and repairs that were not performed when they should have been or were scheduled to be and which are put off or delayed for a future period.

The key point is that Deferred Maintenance is maintenance that was delayed. This definition does not discuss, or include, maintenance that may be scheduled to be performed in the future.

I looked at Jeffco’s 2016-2017 Facility Condition Assessment, the latest I could find, to determine how the District came up with $1.3B in Deferred Maintenance. I could not even come close.

First, the document discusses $575M in 2016-17 facilities “needs”. $440M of this comes from facilities and another $135M in Educational Adequacy deficiencies.

Yet, even that $575M total is not “Deferred Maintenance”. $475M of this amount is classified as Priorities 3, 4 and 5. That means that they are costs expected sometime in the future, not maintenance that was deferred.

Since Priority 3 is for 2-3 years in the future and consists of $234M, I will assume that this has all been deferred and can be added it to the Priority 1 and 2 categories of 2016-17. This gives a total of $334M in deficiencies costs in 2018-19.

The other component of facilities costs this document describes are Life Cycle Renewal costs. These costs are related to things such as roofing, heating, plumbing, stairs and elevators. Costs related to this are projected yearly for 5 years out. These costs were projected to be the following:

2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
$51M	$108M	$94M	$73M	$43M

Assuming that all Life Cycle costs for 2017-18 and 2018-19 were deferred, we can add another $159M to the District’s Deferred Maintenance to come up with a generous estimate of $493M in Deferred Maintenance costs.

A generous $500M in Deferred Maintenance is NOT the $1.3B in Deferred Maintenance that Glass and Board members keep repeating. Their claims are outright false!

What Glass, Lasell and others are saying is inaccurate, misleading and deceptive and brings the credibility of Glass and the Board into question.

How can they expect taxpayers to trust them and approve a needed Bond package when the numbers they repeatedly discuss are just plain wrong?

Jeffco – Taken for a ride by Jason Glass

August 22, 2018 / ijsadmin

Recently, Jason Glass did a video interview with Glenn Wallace of Colorado Community Media as they took a trail ride together on mountain bikes.

During that interview, the real Jason Glass was revealed, and it wasn’t pretty.

At 1:55 of the interview, while taking a break from riding, Wallace steered the conversation to a Twitter parody account called @NotJeffcoJason, an account that compares Glass to “Edward Longshanks (a nickname for King Edward I of England), reincarnated in Jeffco.” In a humorous, casual vein, he asked Glass what he thought of it, using a series of silly questions designed to elicit chuckles.

Glass replied that it is his policy to ignore, rather than listen to, accounts with differing opinions than his. He took a pretty strong swipe at those accounts when he said that @NotJeffcoJason was like “a lot of fake Twitter, fake social media, fake news accounts that are around in Jeffco”

First, Glass doesn’t understand the difference between a parody and fake news. If someone does a parody it’s not fake news, it’s a parody. Once Glass starts labeling parodies as “fake news” he starts seeming a lot like Trump.

Glass’s admission that he ignores people in the District who have different perspectives than he does is particularly appalling, especially when he starts accusing them of lying and exaggerating – “they can lie, they can exaggerate, they can say things and then they hide behind this false persona.”

There are just so many disturbing things about this admission. First, he basically said that he doesn’t care about anyone’s opinion except those people who agree with him. He also essentially said that their opinions were all fake news and therefore, essentially meaningless and worthless. But at the same time his supporters such as Support Jeffco Kids spew more fake news than anyone (here, here and here).

In addition, Glass doesn’t just ignore people, he actively blocked people whose opinions he didn’t want to hear on Twitter. He did this until he was informed that a Federal Judge ruled that Trump was violating people’s First Amendment rights when Trump did the same thing, and that ruling applied to public servants, including him.

And this attitude is really counterproductive. Throughout my career as a leader and top executive for a number of organizations, I’ve found that listening to and incorporating differing opinions only makes an organization better. Maybe Glass hasn’t recognized that fact yet. Finally, I think that accusing people of lying is inappropriate and uncalled for, especially by someone in his position.

Glass also took offense to people using fake personas online, instead of using their real names. But there are plenty of Glass supporters who do the same thing, such as “Support Jeffco Kids” and “Jeffco School Board Watch”. Why does Glass apply a double standard?

Personally, I don’t hide behind a fake persona (Glass knows who writes this blog). Yet Glass hid behind some BS interpretation of a District policy to prevent me from expressing opinions he didn’t like at public Board meetings. That’s not just “ignoring”, that’s actively “preventing” the expression of differing opinions. I actually consider his actions in that regard to be another violation of my First Amendment rights, but Glass looks at marginalizing and shutting people down as “things getting better in Jeffco.”

Glass came to this District claiming to be someone that would talk with and listen to everyone. Through his first year on the job he has done the exact opposite. He ignores, marginalizes and blocks anyone who has a differing opinion with his many Trump-like actions.

The only people he listens to are his own disciples and the only people taken for a ride with Glass are the people in Jeffco who unquestioningly believe everything he says.

District says recent 1st Amendment ruling does not provide precedent in Colorado

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

With a recent ruling by a Federal Court judge in support of 1^st Amendment rights relating to President Trump’s pernicious and unconstitutional practice of blocking critics on Twitter, I sent an email to the Board of Education relating to Jason Glass’s similar, Trump-like, behavior.

While Jason Glass coincidentally unblocked my account, the response from Amanda Stevens of the Board was a bit puzzling.

Amanda’s response was:

“Dr. Glass and district leadership enthusiastically support the 1^st Amendment to the United States Constitution. In fact, even though this Southern District Federal Court decision does not provide precedent for Colorado, I have confirmed with Craig Hess, district legal counsel, that our practices are in compliance with Justice Naomi Reice Buchwald’s decision.”

And, what exactly does that mean, Amanda?

Are you saying that this Federal ruling has no applicability in Jeffco schools and Colorado? Why then did the plaintiffs’ attorney in this case say the ruling “should guide all of the public officials who are communicating with their constituents through social media.”

And Amanda, in light of this ruling and if Jason Glass is blocking constituents on Twitter, how can you say that the District’s “practices are in compliance with Justice Naomi Reice Buchwald’s decision”?

You can only say that if Jason Glass unblocked people whose viewpoints he didn’t want to hear before you sent a reply.

The fact of the matter is that Jason Glass was violating the constitutional rights of taxpayers in this District. However, in the interest of protecting him, you can’t admit it and go on to provide some meaningless mumbo-jumbo from world renowned constitutional law expert (just joking), Jeffco Schools legal counsel Craig Hess.

Guess what – the law applies to Jason Glass too!

Is Jason Glass illegally violating constituents’ 1st Amendment Rights?

June 4, 2018 / ijsadmin

On May 28th I sent the following email to the Board of Education as Jason Glass, the great “listener,” has blocked me on Twitter since late October or early November 2017:

Please direct your employee, Jason Glass, to stop violating constituents’ 1^st Amendment Rights and unblock the Twitter accounts he has blocked. A federal judge has just ruled that his blocking of accounts is unlawful.

I would assume that you fully support the 1^st Amendment, as I do, as the amendment was written to ensure free and open speech. Sometimes we may not like what that speech is, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that someone doesn’t have the constitutional right to say it.

According to cnn.com, a federal judge, Naomi Reice Buchwald, in New York ruled Wednesday, May 23rd, that President Trump is in violation of the Constitution when he blocks users on Twitter, because Twitter is considered a “public forum” when used by public officials to communicate.

“We hold that portions of the @realDonaldTrump account — the ‘interactive space’ where Twitter users may directly engage with the content of the President’s tweets — are properly analyzed under the “‘public forum’ doctrines set forth by the Supreme Court, that such space is a designated public forum, and that the blocking of the plaintiffs based on their political speech constitutes viewpoint discrimination that violates the First Amendment,” Buchwald wrote.

“We’re pleased with the court’s decision, which reflects a careful application of core First Amendment principles to government censorship on a new communications platform,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight Institute. “The President’s practice of blocking critics on Twitter is pernicious and unconstitutional, and we hope this ruling will bring it to an end.”

Katie Fallow, a staff attorney at Knight who represented the plaintiffs, said the ruling “should guide all of the public officials who are communicating with their constituents through social media.“

Jason Glass has enthusiastically supported the 1^st Amendment rights of students to rally against gun violence and he has enthusiastically supported the 1^st Amendment rights of teachers to rally in support of additional funding for public education. Fortunately in the United States, Jason Glass, a public official, cannot be selective in whose 1^st Amendment rights he supports.

Please immediately direct your employee, Jason Glass, to fully support the 1^st Amendment and a Federal Judge’s ruling that directly relates to the Twitter accounts of public officials and remove the illegal block he has placed on my @bobgcolorado twitter account and any others he has blocked.

Thank you.

Taxpayers deserve an open and fact-filled discussion on teacher pay

May 2, 2018 / ijsadmin

Over the past few weeks we’ve heard many things regarding school funding and teacher salaries.

We’ve heard that:

Colorado teacher salaries are 46^th in the nation.
Colorado teachers have an average annual salary of $46,506.
Teachers leave the teaching profession because of low pay.
Teacher pay has not kept up with inflation since the Great Recession.

And while all of these statements may be true in some context, in Colorado teacher pay is set at the school district level.

That effectively means that what is happening at the national, or state levels, may or may not be true in Jeffco.

Therefore, Jeffco taxpayers deserve to hear specific data in relation to their teachers so that they can make informed, and local, decisions regarding school funding and teacher pay.

For example:

What is the change in Jeffco per pupil funding since the Great Recession?
What is the average teacher salary in Jeffco? Can total compensation be quantified?
How many teachers in Jeffco have salaries which have not kept up with inflation since the Great Recession?
Why, with 2 JCEA negotiated contracts, increased state funding, budget cuts and a school closing, are there still teachers with salaries that have not kept up with inflation?
How many teachers in Jeffco have salaries that have increased by more than 125% of the rate of inflation since the Great Recession?
What would be the total cost of salary increases, or one-time payments, to ensure all teachers have salaries, or compensation, ensuring cost-of-inflation equivalency since the Great Recession?
How would these numbers change if the 2010 mandated 3.5% increase in SAED is factored in, since SAED is to be funded by moneys otherwise available for employee wage increases?
What is the exact number of teachers who leave teaching in Jeffco because of low pay?

It’s easy to throw around numbers that may, or may not be in context.

However, in the interest of full transparency I believe that it is important for both Jeffco schools and the JCEA to have an open and fact-filled discussion with Jeffco specific numbers so that taxpayers can fully and completely understand the issues as they pertain to our teachers. This includes an opportunity for taxpayers to ask pertinent and relevant questions.

What do you think John Ford and Jason Glass?

Can you provide full transparency and make this happen?

Improve Jeffco Schools