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Dear
Taxpayers of CUD #23:
We,
the member of Citizens for Education, have
made repeated attempts to retrieve information
and ask questions of our school board to no
avail. The Citizens for Education voted to use
the news media as a way to inform all CUD #23
taxpayers of some of concerns we have that
affects all taxpayers. Our only goal is to
seek the truth. Following are a few of the
topics for which we have expressed concern and
requested information:
1.
Sandy Ellis was terminated from the office of
Superintendent of our district with no
explanation to the taxpayers. The rumor
reports $300,000.00 (three hundred thousand
dollars) to $380,000 (three hundred eighty
thousand dollars) including a buyout of her
contract with the district. All documents
pertaining to this issue were requested by
Citizens for Education and were denied with
the exception of a previously released one
page of board meeting minutes in which her
termination was accepted by the board. We have
been advised that all of these requested
documents cannot be sealed from the public
because they document the expenditure of
taxpayers’ monies. In order to allocate
money from the school budget, board members
must make a motion, there must be a second,
and a full roll call vote is recorded by
individual names. That said, the Ellis
termination/buy-out was voted on by each
school board member serving at that time. As
previously requested, we respectfully request
a full and complete accounting of the Supt.
Sandy Ellis termination as previously
requested.
2.
The budget for the new addition to the high
school building was approved by the school
board for $1,200,000 (one million two hundred
thousand dollars) and is now rumored to be
over $2,400,000 (two million four hundred
thousand dollars). We do not feel the
taxpayers have been properly informed of such
a drastic increase in the cost of this
project. We respectfully request a full and
complete accounting of the costs involved with
the addition instead of continuing with the
"pay as you go" policy this school
board has adopted.
3.
The Citizens for Education requested
enrollment figures from the current
administration three times and each time a
different set of numbers was reported. With
this information, our best guess is the high
school enrollment will fall below two hundred
students in the next two to three years. Our
greatest fear is that the State of Illinois
will mandate our merging into a county high
school because of an insufficient number of
students. At a meeting in February 2006 Supt.
Phil Shelton responded to this concern by
saying, "We are discussing the junior
high school now, not the high school."
The only responses from the school board to
this issue are "you cannot predict the
future" and "you cannot plan, only
react." We have been informed privately
that the population of Mt. Pulaski really
doesn’t care one way or another about what
happens to the schools. We respectfully
request a five year plan as well as a ten year
plan for the future of CUD #23 schools from
Supt. Shelton and the school board.
4.
It has been rumored that too large of a
basement area for the new high school addition
was excavated and the dirt was given away at
no cost. When this error was discovered, it is
our understanding that the school district
paid for moving the location of the new
addition, purchased dirt to fill the hole, and
paid to fill the hole itself to the tune of a
reported $80,000 (eighty thousand dollars) to
$190,000 (one hundred ninety thousand
dollars). We respectfully request an answer to
each of these questions: Why should the
taxpayers foot the bill for this significant
error during construction? Why didn’t the
engineer and/or the contractor cover the
financial aspects of this sizeable error? Are
there other errors made by the engineer and
contractors that we, as taxpayers, have had to
pay for as well?
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5.
In the school financials we have received, the
school board appropriates between $4,000 (four
thousand dollars) and $6,000 (six thousand
dollars) a year so the members can attend the
annual school board convention in Chicago.
Many school districts have opted out of this
convention deeming it as an unnecessary
expense. It has been reported CUD #23 is
facing a $300,000 (three hundred thousand
dollar) deficit in the 2006-2007 budget, but
our school board claims they "have taken
every cost saving measure possible"
including skipping one year of updating
computers in the schools. (They are currently
back on their three year rotation of the
computer lease.) It has been rumored that not
all of the school board members and their
families arrived on the dates they had
reserved a room, so the taxpayers paid for
empty hotel rooms. We respectfully request an
answer to each of the following questions: How
is attendance at the school board convention
more important to the education of the
children of this school district than updating
computers in the schools? What benefit do we,
as taxpayers, gain by the board members
attending this convention? Was any
reimbursement personally made by any school
board members for their failure to attend any
part of this convention after they made
reservations? If the school board members are
so frivolous in spending taxpayers’ monies
in small matters how can they be trusted in
large matters?
6.
The United States and State of Illinois
governments allow taxpayers access to
information discussed during open meetings.
The Open Meetings Act requires access to
information if taxpayers request this
information through the proper channels. The
Citizens for Education group has submitted
numerous requests and a few of these have been
denied. As of June 2006 not one of these
requests has been brought to the open session
of the school board meetings for approval or
denial. (See http://www.ag.state.il.us/
for information regarding the Open Meetings
Act.) One taxpayer of this school district
requested to address the school board and was
denied the request to be on the agenda because
the topic of discussion was "too
broad." We ask the school board if they
feel they are being responsive and respectful
of the taxpayers of CUD #23? If so, we
respectfully disagree.
These
questions are being sent to every school board
member as well as several media outlets. Our
hope is they will be read at the next
scheduled school board meeting, if we are
allowed on the agenda, and the school board
will answer these questions so the truth will
be revealed. We respectfully invite everyone
interested to attend the meeting in the Unit
District #23 office on Monday, July 17, 2006
at 7:00 p.m.
Sincerely,
Citizens
for Education
P.O. Box 285
Elkhart, IL 62634
From
the LDN archives
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