From: bill hellmann
Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 12:54 PM
To: bill hellmann
Cc: GLORIA HEATER
hi folks:
for the past two months i have been extensively studying the operations and finances of bristol boro school district. these two districts are similar in size and close in proximity. the differences between that school district and our school district on both the revenue side AND the expense side are staggering and substantial. they have us beat every which way i can think about.
i am putting together a six part plan that will make our school district much more efficient and more in line with the bristol borough school district and without materially affecting the educational quality of our school district. due to their efficiency they can afford to build a brand new school, we can not.
we have major business and apartment complex owners constantly trying to reduce their property tax assessments and they have been successful. perhaps, if these major taxpayers see us getting our operational, political and financial house in order, they will stop.
last year i wrote in the paper i would not invest one more nickle or one nickle of client money in this town unless and until this school district wakes up. that still holds today.
last year in the board conference room i told everybody that if we do not restructure, sell your house and get out of this town. that still holds today.
anybody get it yet?
bill
2 comments:
Putting aside the almost-not-describable-by-words arrogance and condescension of his email, the "devil is in the details". If you only look at the bottom line, you're missing all of the other lines. I'm not saying there are, but there may be perfectly reasonable explanations for why Bristol's revenues and expenses differ from Morrisville's.
One thing I seem to recall is that Bristol gets something like $3 million/yr more in federal funding than Morrisville. That's a pretty big chunk of our roughly $20 million/yr budgets. It's ~50 Morrisville tax mils. Why do they get so much more? Is Bristol that much more destitute than Morrisville? That's a funding formula that really needs more scrutiny.
I asked Bill for details regarding that study. We'll see if I get anything. He likes to speak in sweeping generalities, comparing nothing but numbers.
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