MINNETONKA SCHOOL BOARD
TREASURER’S REPORT
February 2, 2006
At our December 22, 2005 organizational work session, Mr. Eaton brought up some issues he had regarding financial information and reporting. As I stated at our January 9, 2006 meeting, I began contacting Mr. Eaton to discuss these issues on or about the first of the year. After several attempts at contacting him, we were finally able to schedule a meeting for a week ago, but Mr. Eaton was unable to keep the commitment. He did, however, send me an email listing his “top four financial concerns.” I prepared this report in response to him prior to his resignation, with plans to share it with the Board tonight.
Mr. Eaton’s questions/concerns follow in bold, my answers in italics:
The Board agreed upon the following goal for school year 2005/06:
“Track and support the implementation of all the budget reduction decisions that were made on 2/24/05. Note the impact of changing the offerings at the middle and high schools; increasing fees for co-curriculars, parking, and busing; and eliminating key administrative and support positions.”
We will be receiving the first report on this goal at the February 16, 2006 Study Session, and we can expect information regarding this goal from Dr. Peterson at his mid-year evaluation meeting scheduled for February 7, 2006. While it is important that we track the actual cost savings as Mr. Eaton noted above, the Board is committed to evaluating the overall impact of the budget reduction decisions, not just the cost savings. At the February 16 meeting we will also be receiving a report on the amended budget from Mr. Berge, which includes the new state aid and the figures from our settlement with the Minnetonka Teachers Association.
We have received several documents from both Dr. Peterson and Mr. Eaton regarding this issue. Dr. Peterson has stated his view that all programs of the district are “costed” in the same manner, including the IB program. Mr. Eaton has stated that he believes that the district should utilize another method of “costing” the IB program. While there are various methods used by school districts in budgeting, such as “Program Budgeting” (which would be what Mr. Eaton suggests be used, and has been used by some districts, most notably Hopkins, who has stopped using this method), it is most important that we use a consistent method for all budgeting in the district. It is my recommendation that if the Board wants to consider further discussion of this issue, that it be because we want to explore changing our overall budgeting method. In my opinion, it would be ill advised to look at any one program of the district’s differently than all the others.
I believe if the Board is interested in looking at this, we should set a goal for 2006/07. It will require a long-term, significant investment of resources and time.
I would like to note that while Mr. Eaton requests assessing the change in academic performance, the expenditures were not solely for “academic performance” … some of the expenditures were for infrastructure, for example. Dr. Peterson tells me that the principals are currently assessing what is working well regarding the technology investments in their buildings, and how the new initiatives are affecting learning.
I believe that all of us who were involved in the budget reduction process last year can attest to the attention paid to the District Vision. Each and every item referred back to the Vision, and showed how its implementation would affect the Vision and the Strategic Plan.
I think there is more work for this Board to do on identifying the measures of success* that we want to use in assessing how our allocation of resources affects the Vision and the Strategic Plan. Frankly, in the past year our attention has been diverted by some highly emotional and time-consuming issues that have caused us to lose focus on our goals*.
Lastly, Mr. Eaton states, “In addition to these 4 areas the community finance committee recently identified and prioritized about 12 financial issues that need attention over the coming year. We got an overview of those issues in a recent board meeting.”
I am assuming that he is referring to the MINNETONKA ISD #276
2006 LEGISLATIVE POSITION STATEMENTS, of which there are seven position statements and five “other issues” which the Finance Advisory and Audit Committee did not include on the 2006 Legislative Priorities, but are worthy of “developing a position” for.
The District will be working with our Legislators closely again this year through the work of the Superintendent, the Executive Director of Finance and Operations, CASE, the Finance Advisory and Audit Committee, and of course the School Board. We are scheduling our annual meeting with the Legislators for this month, and will continue our discussion of our Legislative Position Statements throughout the 2006 Legislative Session.
It is my goal as the Board Treasurer to foster honest and transparent communication regarding financial issues and concerns between the Board, the Superintendent, and the community. Please let me know if you would like to request more information about the items above, or if you would like to see any issues at all placed on future meeting agendas, or brought to the citizens Finance Advisory and Audit Committee.
Respectfully submitted,
Peggy Stefan, Treasurer
Minnetonka School Board
*School Board Operation Goal #2: Determine what Minnetonka's Measurements of Success are going to be on an annual basis. Develop a plan and timeline to measure and report on those agreed upon indicators.