By Antonio D. French
Filed Thursday, July 13, 2006 at 3:10 PM
Lost in all the talk about the downsizing that left Floyd Irons unemployed (if only temporarily) is the fact that this week the St. Louis School Board got a balanced budget out of a reluctant and increasingly insubordinate superintendent. Labels: Schools, Video_Reports
Last month, Superintendent Creg Williams submitted a 2006-2007 budget to the Board which was unbalanced and dug the district $4 million deeper into financial uncertainty. Against the recommendation of Williams and the votes of board members Bob Archibald, Ron Jackson and Flint Fowler, the four-person majority rejected that budget and instructed Williams to find more cuts.
A month later, at Tuesday's Administrative meeting, Williams came back with a General Operating Budget in which expenses did not exceed projected revenues and, perhaps most importantly, actually pays down nearly $3.5 million in debt.
Board Vice President Bill Purdy commended Williams not just for submitting a balanced budget, but also for supplying board members with much more supporting documentation than he did last month.
But board member Robert Archibald downplayed the significance of the $7.5 million swing from creating more debt to eliminating debt. He said that it represented only a small percentage of the total budget and was only a drop in the bucket compared to the $30-50 million debt projection for November 2007.
4 Comments:
Purdy should be commended for micromanaging Williams in order to resolve deficits Bill helped create.
7/13/2006 4:06 PM
Some advice from the P-D:
"Creg Williams may be the St. Louis Public School’s last, best hope to regain accreditation and avoid state takeover. If that happens, the teachers union, and its proxies on the school board, may come to regret their actions."
7/13/2006 4:17 PM
Excuse me, but didn't Roberti and Co under the Slay board borrow 49.5 million dollars from the deseg fund? Weren't there numerous administrators added to the budget that were not there when Purdy was on the board?
Where were the "reductions" in this budget that were proposed by Supt. Williams to balance the budget? There weren't any! In fact, the superintendent increased the budget for his own office and then stated that an additional $250,000 was insignficant considering the debt that the district was in! Excuse me, while going bottoms up, we continue to spend inappropriately? Further more, whose job is it to balance the district's budget, the $300,000 a year superintendent or the School Board? Why hasn't anyone questioned why Williams did not submit a balanced budget or at least one that addressed the fiscal problems of the district?
Williams came here without ANY experience as a superintendent in any district. Slay's board paid him twice as much as any experienced superintendent employed here before, without any record of success to justify his salary. What are we talking about here? While the district has always had problems, this board didn't create these problems, St. Francis did and his hand picked School Board. Now it has only gotten worse.
I might add that Kent King allowing Roberti to be a superintendent without being an educator or accredited also contributed to this mess. Let's not forget that decisions were being made regarding finances, no consideration was given to the children or the accredation requriements for the State. Don't be fooled people!
7/13/2006 6:31 PM
Anon #3 is right. All we hear now from Slay is how Williams is the Educator with the experience and knowledge to run the district, and the Board should back off and let him do it, but he is responsible for Roberti with no education experience whatsoever running the entire district!
7/13/2006 9:39 PM
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