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School districts licking their chops over four revenue measures – it’s a lose-lose-lose-lose situation for the taxpayers and win-win-win-win for the unions

18 Oct

Today  as I darkened the bubbles on my mail-in ballot, I again realized – there are four school funding measures on this ballot.

  • State proposition 51 promises $9 billion ($17.6 billion with interest) for K-12 and California Community Colleges for “new construction and modernization” of facilities. 
  • State proposition  55 extends for 12 more years the “temporary” personal income tax increases enacted in 2012 with Prop 30 
  • local measure J asks $190 million for Butte-Glenn Community College District for “upgrading aging classrooms/technology, removing asbestos/unsafe gas lines…” They mention programs for veterans.
  • local measure K asks $152 million for Chico Unified School District, citing leaky roofs, rotten plumbing and electrical, and the need to construct and modernize classrooms,  with a mention of disabled students’ access

The first thing I notice is the repeated claims that our schools are crumbling to the ground, and now we see, Chico schools have not achieved compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, passed in 1990. They keep coming back every  four years with the same claims – when, oh when, will they actually fix the schools?   

Just recently I posted this story from cal watchdog:

https://noonmeasurekchico.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/chico-unified-made-calwatchdog-list-of-schools-with-multimillion-dollar-project-requests-from-districts-where-student-enrollment-has-declined/

While Chico Unified does not mention “overcrowding” in the ballot measure, claims of “preventing overcrowding” are made throughout their arguments in favor of measure K, including the flier that went out last week. But cal watchdog looked at the budget reports for the last four or five years and only one year did enrollment go up instead of down, for whatever unexplained reason. As of 2015, Kevin  Bultema was back to telling the  board that declining enrollment was causing a serious revenue drain for the district. 

Four different tax measures making essentially the same claims, asking BILLIONS in new taxes. And here we have Butte-Glenn and Chico Unified asking for their own measures concurrent with state measures from which they will also benefit. 

Pardon me, but your slops are showing folks.

Here, Legislative Chair of the Cal Retired Teachers Association Rick Light tells us how bad it will be for us here in Chico if we don’t pass Proposition 55, without one mention of Measure K.  He  also talks about a decrease in per-student funding without mentioning that Chico Unified is losing students every year. 

From Chico Enterprise Record:

I respectfully disagree with your editorial endorsement to not fund Proposition 55.

I contacted Kevin Bultema, assistant superintendent of business services for Chico Unified School District, to see his estimate of the loss per student (average daily attendance, or ADA) if Proposition 55 did not pass. His calculations means there could be a loss of $1,330 per ADA. They have approximately 13, 817 students. If they have a 90 percent attendance rate that would be on the lean side of 12,000 ADA. That number times the estimated $1,330 loss would total a whopping $15,960,000 loss.

Since at least 90 percent of a school district’s budget is personnel costs ( being a service industry) there will be a tremendous cut in not only teachers but supporting staff as well. That is $15 million the community businesses will not see. That means classroom size will increase to an unhealthy (educationally speaking) number per certificated teacher.

As to the health funds, many less economically fortunate parents cannot purchase all the needed health care their families require. This produces lost school experiences for our children due to preventable illness.

Are we also losing our sense of humanitarian responsibility? I urge you to reconsider and vote yes on Proposition 55.

— Rick Light, Chico

Here’s who is really pushing these funding measures:

http://div32.calrta2.org/about-us/

“Your partners in pension protection.” 

Yes, they must protect the pensions. A year ago, Rick Light reported to his fellow CalRTA members,

Click to access Winter-2015.pdf

“Governor Brown’s budget now includes in the proposal $1.6 billion in State General Fund money for the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). This represents the full state contribution to both the Teachers Retirement Fund and the Supplemental Maintenance Benefit Account.” 

He continues, “Please show our gratitude for his effort by writing a simple note to the governor…” He ends his column in the newsletter with a warning of “legislation introduced to radically change pensions in California.” I’m guessing he was talking about San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed’s pension reform proposal, which has since been struck down by Kamala Harris, pensioneer. 

This is the machine we’re up against. These are the school  yard bullies who demand your lunch money, your kids’ lunch money, your grandkids’ lunch money…

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Claims of overcrowding in Chico schools blown out of the water by calwatchdog report

16 Oct

One of the claims Chico Unified School District is making in seeking approval of $152 million Measure K is that they want to prevent overcrowding. It shocks me they’d make this claim when finance director Kevin Bultema has warned the board again and again the district is losing students.  That’s a bummer for them because each kid represents a little over $11,000/year in funding.  Bultema has been crying about declining enrollment for years now, reporting almost 2,000 students lost over the last 10 years, and predicting another 135 to 185 lost over the next two years. 

But here’s this “Yes on Measure K” mailer staring me in the face, telling me the district needs to prevent overcrowding.  You know, they think they can say anything, and we’ll buy it. They know better than anybody how poorly educated we are, they don’t think we can read a budget report. I wonder how surprised they were when a group of investigative journalists from Sacramento came up with this:

https://noonmeasurekchico.wordpress.com/2016/10/15/chico-unified-made-calwatchdog-list-of-schools-with-multimillion-dollar-project-requests-from-districts-where-student-enrollment-has-declined/

Isn’t that a nice distinction to bring to our little town?

It’s obvious Kevin Bultema, anxious to keep funding rolling in to pay his $130,000-plus salary and $25,000-plus benefits package, will say anything to get the voters to swallow this lump of horse puckey. 

Please, Vote NO on Measure K.

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Why are we allowing Chico Unified employees to feather their own nests while facilities “are sub par”?

12 Oct

A reader responded to an old post about Measure K – read her thoughts and my response here:

https://noonmeasurekchico.wordpress.com/2016/10/12/school-district-claims-facilities-are-sub-par-why/

Why has the district allowed these facilities to deteriorate while district employees pay 10 percent or less of their pension and benefits costs? According to district finance director Kevin Bultema, 

“The employee contribution rates are as follows:

State Teachers Retirement System (STRS)            10.25% – 2% @ 60 years / 9.2% – 2% @ 62 years

Public Employees Retirement System (PERS)      7% for employees hired before 2013 / 6% for employees hired after 2013.”

Furthermore, “Administrators with a teaching credential usually participates in STRS and administrators without a teaching credential usually participates in PERS at the same rates.”

So, CUSD superintendent Kelly Staley pays 10 percent or less out of her $175,000 salary toward 70 percent of her highest year’s salary at age 60 – 62. Her package costs the district $25,000 beyond that $175,000 salary. Her total compensation amounts to five times the average family income for our city, but she stands up there and whines about rotten roofs and peeling paint. 

 I think the administration should be taken to court for embezzling funds to feather their own nests while allowing our kids to sit in this disgusting state of disgrace. 

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Yes, there is opposition to the school bond

7 Oct

I made a new blog!

https://noonmeasurekchico.wordpress.com/

I’m trying to learn how to oppose tax measures, and more about blogging in general.  We’ll see how this goes.

Yeah, I feel like Roy Scheider with a bucket of chum, but we’ll see what we get.

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Randy, you have got to be kidding

4 Oct

I noticed a person had come over to this blog from city councilman Randall Stone’s campaign website. I won’t direct you there – I’d rather direct you to this:

Because at least Robert Preston is entertaining. Stone is just obnoxious.

Saved the Esplanade? Is that the way you remember it? 

I have been studying the candidates, and I’m not looking forward to this year’s election. 

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CARD needs to do a cost allocation study on their programs, find out the real costs of running private businesses under the bus

2 Oct

Off The Wall Soccer owner Mario Sagastume wrote a letter to the paper last week regarding their complaints about Chico Area Recreation District (CARD).

Regarding the recent article by Laura Urseny, understand the owners/management of Off The Wall Soccer (OTWS) are not Anti-Soccer.

To the contrary, all of us have supported, organized, promoted, played, coached and enjoyed the game.  Furthermore, we continue to encourage youth/adults to play the game, indoor and outdoor.

We have not requested CARD to reduce or eliminate their soccer program.  We simply asked them to honor an agreement made with OTWS in 2006.  OTWS opened in 2000 to provide year round soccer.  At the time CARD ONLY offered 11-aside in the Fall.

We were successful for a few years until CARD began offering 7- aside soccer in the Fall/Spring.  This had an immediate impact on sign-ups.  Any small business would struggle to compete with a government organization receiving about 60% ($4,000,000.00) of their annual funding from property taxes.

In 2005 we approached the CARD Board with our concerns and were directed to coordinate with management.  In 2006 the CARD General Manager agreed to only offer 7-aside in the summer and 11-aside in the Fall/Spring.  This was a fair compromise.

In 2013, after experiencing falling participation, we learned CARD had been offering 7-aside in the Fall/Spring for several years.  When we again met with CARD management they apologized and assured us they would abide by the agreement in the future.

Foolishly, we took them at their word, their commitment lasted less than a year.

Last week we approached the CARD Board and requested they have management honor their commitment.  Other than Tom Lando, THEY DECLINED.

Mario Sagastume

Partner, Off The Wall Soccer

Most members of the CARD board wrote off OTWS complaints as sour apples. They ignored the well-made point that they are using taxpayer money to subsidize their efforts to undercut private businesses all over town.

Here’s my suggestion – have CARD do a cost allocation study on their soccer program. When Chris Constantin did cost allocation for the city, he figured in all the salaries involved, which in this case would include director Ann Willman’s $100,000 plus salary and benefits, and even the air conditioning charges in the room where they discussed the programs. I’m telling you – they don’t price these programs for cost, they price their programs to run private businesses under.

Their costs are enormous. They spend about 90 percent of their more than $6 million budget on salaries and benefits. Only recently were CARD management asked to contribute to their own pensions – yeah, that’s right – none of the previous management, not Steve Visconti nor Ed Seagle nor Jerry Hughes – paid one red cent toward their own pension. Visconti recently retired at a salary of over $120,000/year – he will received 70 percent of that, with cost-of-living-increase, for the rest of his sorry life.

Now Jerry Hughes expects to be elected to the board. Let me tell you a  story I heard Hughes relate to Enterprise Record reporter Laura Urseny at a meeting. He was building his new house in Tahoe – that’s right, Tahoe – when his neighbors informed him that his plans trespassed over the property line onto their property. They were trying to tell them he couldn’t do that, and he was telling Urseny that he had got a lawyer to settle the matter. He was telling her, his trespass was just a silly thing, and he didn’t understand why the neighbors were making such a big deal about it. He had trespassed on them, admittedly, and he was making them get a lawyer to get him off their property.

That’s Jerry Hughes. Let me tell you another story about Jerry. When CARD paid three consultants a month or so ago to give a presentation about how to pass bond measures, Hughes asked them a question Michael Worley had already asked (because he’s either deaf or doesn’t listen).  Worley  wanted to know if the city of Chico could run a bond for them, and the consultant said the city would control the money, which might not work out so well for CARD.  When they repeated the same answer to Hughes, he actually turned his back on the consultant while the man was talking and grumbled his way back to his chair. Hughes is not fit for office.  This is how he treats a consultant who is paid with the taxpayers’ money.

And then we have candidate Dave Donnan.  Read here.

Donnan tries to clear up my accusations that others tried to bully him out of running in 2012, but only adds more mud to the water

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make fun of a man’s problems, but this man is an idiot. I would bet you $5, he hasn’t attended a CARD meeting to date, and he’d admit that, but try to excuse himself with his myriad of personal problems. If he has so many personal problems, I would suggest he keep his dick out of  the public mousetrap.

They’re both horrible. Which leaves us with Lando and Worley.  They’re weasels, but (heavy sigh), they’re weasels we know.   They are professional and businesslike. I wouldn’t expect that out of either Donnan or Hughes.

Three CARD board members will be up in 2018 – Sneed, Mulowney and Ellis. These people need to go. We must come up with at least one viable candidate to run for 2018. I would nominate either Dave Stahl or Mario Sagastume, or both. They’ve been in the recreation business all these years, I’d say it’s time to get some people on the rec board that actually know about recreation.

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Oroville puts sales tax increase on the ballot – is their retail sector ready for this?

20 Sep

 

A few years ago I did a post about how great it is to shop in Oroville.

https://worldofjuanita.com/2013/11/22/shop-in-oroville-nice-clean-streets-plenty-of-parking-friendly-folks-and-great-stuff/

Well, forget that – Oroville city staff is bent on raising their sales tax – a full cent!

 

For what? Bill LaGrone’s $158,000 salary and $73,000 benefits/pension package.  A couple of years ago, Oroville police chief Bill LaGrone talked Oroville Silly Council into making him “Public Safety Director”, giving him both the police and fire departments. They might have thought they were saving money – did any of these people do well in math? They’re paying this guy the equivalent of two salaries anyway.  And holy freaking cow – what kind of benefits does a person get for $73,000/year? Retirement in a palace in Dubai?

Oroville police department salaries are on par with Chico, even a little higher. Because? You got me – a town of 18,000 residents? Here’s something I forget – the incorporated city of O-ville does not include Thermalito or Palermo, who have no police department, and are under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff.  In fact, a lot of what we think of as “Oroville” is actually county, the city of Oroville is a very tiny little burg.

Small, and too poorly run to justify salaries like this:

http://publicpay.ca.gov/Reports/Cities/City.aspx?entityid=81&fiscalyear=2015

City-Data reports that Oroville employs about 23 police employees – including dispatch, but not including LaGrone – at an average salary of $66,000. That stacks up well against Chico police salaries, for a town about four times as populated.  The average employed Orovillian makes about $30,000, which is about half the state average income. The median family income is reported between $36,000 – $47,000/year, with about 20 percent of the residents living on $20,000/year or less.  Knowing that, you might predict – the crime rate in Oroville is high for California,  alarming for such a small town, with such a well-paid police force – see for yourself here –

http://www.city-data.com/city/Oroville-California.html

more here

http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/california/oroville

Oroville is our county seat, so I read on one website that the population goes up by about 7,000 during the day due to the influx of employees working at the county, city and schools. These people are most likely the folks who take the high salary county and city jobs and drive back to their homes in Chico – drive to Oroville some morning, see the conga line.  See the brand new cars.  Then drive home about 5 pm – see the same conga line, same people, driving their expensive cars back to Chico.  I’m guessing they don’t even slow down in the retail district, or even gas their cars in O-ville.

I’m shocked that the city council could  be stupid enough to put this tax on the ballot. Only one  councilor opposed it, and only because he wanted it pegged specifically  for public safety.  The rest of the council went the general fund route, because it would require only the simple majority – 51 percent of the voters who actually show up at the polls. Sounds like a slam dunk.

And it also seems pretty obvious that they aren’t shaking down their own residents as much as the outer lying folks who drive in to shop there. 

Well, that’s okay. I’ve already become very adept at internet shopping.  Farewell, O-ville, City of Fools. 

 

 

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Oroville seeks to increase sales tax by a full cent – letter writer does the math

13 Sep

Thank you Steve Christensen for writing the following letter to the Enterprise Record. We need more people like Steve.

Oroville’s tax proposal would be far above norm

Chico Enterprise Record 9/13/16

In November, Oroville voters will decide whether or not to approve Measure R, a $ 3.6 million tax increase ( 1 percent added sales tax). Mayor Linda Dahlmeier said Oroville has fallen behind because we’ve not yet raised sales taxes. I’ve researched cities in Butte County and the six adjacent counties that surround us. Only four cities in this neighborhood of seven counties have already imposed an added tax by increasing sales tax ( Red Bluff one- quarter of 1 percent, Paradise, Wheatland and Williams one- half of 1 percent).

None of these four collect the other added tax, the utility tax. Oroville does. Utility companies in Oroville are required to add 5 percent to our utility bills and send it to the city. Annual revenue is $1.6 million, which averages $100 per citizen. The total population of the four cities with the added sales tax is 50,000. The total added sales tax revenue is $2.5 million, which averages $50 per citizen.

We’re already paying twice as much in added tax as our neighboring similar cities. If Measure R passes, Oroville’s added tax revenue ($ 3.6 million in new tax plus $1.6 million in existing tax) will average $ 325 per citizen. That’s 6 1/2 times more than any city in our circle of counties.

Measure R calls for a full 1 percent increase, twice the amount of the other cities. Measure R does not repeal the utility tax, which none of the other cities have. Oroville wants way too much from us.

Vote no on R.

— Steve Christensen, Oroville

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CARD practices predatory pricing – this is a risky ploy in the real world, but not when you have guaranteed taxpayer funding

12 Sep

The story about Off The Wall Soccer and CARD has been bothering me. I sat in a board meeting last month and listened to the owners describe how CARD is putting them out of business, and it just pisses me off.

I remember when they opened that business, in a 20th Street warehouse that had been left empty for some time – what a good thing that was for that entire neighborhood. Sixteen years later, it is shocking to see a government agency go toe to toe with a viable business, pirating revenues to pay their burgeoning pension debt.

When I blogged this previously I heard from owner Dave Stahl and asked him for more information. He showed me the stream of written communication, as well as minutes from a 2006 board meeting which included a record of the conversation. At that time, staff acknowledged having made a spoken agreement with the owners of Off the Wall Soccer, and the board directed them to honor the agreement.

In my conversation with Stahl, he reported they reneged on their own agreement so many times, I can’t recount it.  All I know is, you better get it in writing if you are dealing with CARD. In a letter dated  August 10, 2016, CARD Director of Parks and Rec, Terry Zeller said, “I understand your description of past events in regard to your business and what you feel has and has not transpired as a result of conversations and meetings with CARD and its Board. As I mentioned before, without a policy or agreement created from these past discussions, I can only work from the present and your current concerns.”

What I hear Zeller saying is, OTWS made their deal with ex-staffers Steve Visconti and Jake Preston, and they’re gone now, so the deal is dead. Furthermore, says Zeller, “we cannot eliminate programs based on perceived competition. Local competition is present in almost all of the programs we offer.” He goes on to list programs from daycare to art lessons, programs that are also “offered by many private businesses, churches and non-profits.”

Zeller just ignores his own predatory pricing scam. Defined as “the pricing of goods or services at such a low level that other suppliers cannot compete and are forced to leave the market,” this method of eliminating your competition is risky for a private business. But CARD gets almost $4 million a year in tax money, getting less than half their revenues from program fees. In private business, if a service or product can’t pay for itself, you dump it. But CARD is subsidized by the taxpayer – they don’t have to support themselves.  They can undercut, undercut, undercut – until their competitors in the real world fail. And then they have a monopoly, and they can charge what they want.

They don’t have to play by the rules, either, because people rarely call them on their bullshit. Thanks to Dave Stahl and his partners at Off The Wall  Soccer, for calling this out in the open.  Their business is in dire straits, most of their clients having been lured away by CARD’s half price scheme. As teams defected, others were fairly well forced to go along – you can’t have team sports without a few teams, after all.  While CARD board member Jan Sneed admitted to having made the agreement with OTWS, the staff has gone ahead and scheduled exactly the programs they promised not to schedule.

This is exactly the treatment I got from CARD board and staff when I tried to find out more about their efforts to build a new aquatic center.  I had attended an early, publicly announced meeting – they said they were looking for people to sign up for a committee. I signed  up. I never got any notice of any meeting, although time and time again I’d see reports from the committee scheduled on board agendas. Former CARD general manager Steve Visconti played me like a pro – at first he apologized, my name must have gotten lost… it just went on like that.

It is imperative this agency increases funding, because their salary and benefit costs are going up all the time. While they are budgeting less than $500,000 this year for capital improvements, they continue to spend almost their entire budget on salaries and benefits – this year $5.5 million, last year $5.1, the previous year, about $4.9. This year they budgeted over $420,000 for pension premiums, and that amount increases by about $10,000/year.

They say they can’t maintain their facilities without more money. Please! Of their $482,000 capital improvements budget, $250,000 goes to fix rot at Park Pavilion. What were they thinking when they bought that thing? They wanted to rent it out – compete with local businesses.   Rotten from top to bottom, but they paid over $1 million, before interest.  Meanwhile, they deferred a $500,000 fix-it for Shapiro Pool in 2006 – that was 10 years ago. Today they say Shapiro is beyond repair.

After I talked to Dave Stahl I attended a special “informative meeting” with CARD board, staff, and three consultants who detailed CARD’s options for more funding. I’ll get back to that another time.

 

 

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Time to write letters

8 Sep

I know some people think I’m just a broken record, that I hate taxes and have no use for any tax.  That couldn’t be farther from the truth. I know our community depends for many services on  a steady revenue of taxes from “users” like me.

But, our entire country is on a dangerous path to insolvency because of the pensions of public  workers. I didn’t make that up – google it, and you’ll find intellectuals across the country voicing the same concern.

I don’t consider myself an intellectual, I consider myself a person with common dog sense. There is nothing sensible about the public pension system. The CalPERS system is consistently underfunded, and we just found out why – the guy who was in charge of investing for the fund was nailed for accepting bribes to buy bad stocks. That’s apparently why CalPERS has lost money for years and depended on one bail-out from the state legislature after another. They’ve also been making demands of their participating agencies – pay up on your pension liabilities now, or face high interest on your debt.

Those agencies – from small agencies like Butte County Vectors to huge agencies like City of Chico always turn to the taxpayer to pick up the slack. This time it’s Chico Unified School District, with Measure K. They say they want money to fix their facilities – they said that with Measure A, and they said  it with the refunding bond, E. And here they are again, hand out for $152 million they predict will be $270 million in pay-off.

It’s been in the newspaper.  The district notices their meetings quite loudly.  But I don’t go – the district is a machine. They have so much money – they’re like blue jays. Blue jays take over your back yard feeder,  because they’re loud and obnoxious. As soon as they get the leg up, they eat all the food, way more than they need. They grow very big, and then they take over your entire back yard. Next thing you know, all you got is blue jays.

That’s why I don’t feed wild animals, and for the same reason  I am suspicious of new taxes. Lately all the public workers seem to be  hands out for us to fund their crazy pensions – for most public workers, it’s 70 – 90 (“public safety workers”) percent of their highest year’s salary, available at age 50 – 55. Teachers must wait til 60 – 62 years.  A paycheck  for life, with cost of living increases, health benefits, even life insurance paid in full. For this teachers pay 9 – 10 percent of their pension contribution.

Non-certified employees pay only 7% for employees hired before 2013 / 6% for employees hired after 2013. What? It went down?

According to assistant superintendent Kevin Bultema, “Administrators with a teaching credential usually participates in STRS and administrators without a teaching credential usually participates in PERS at the same rates.”

The district retirement is handled by both California Teachers Retirement System and CalPERS – obviously the teachers pay into CalSTRS.  CalSTRS did not have a guy accepting bribes to make bad  investments, so they are doing okay. But of course, both are demanding more money all the time. And, the taxpayers still pick up more than twice the employee “share.” 

Am I wasting my time fighting this bond? No, but I know what I’m up against, and I need other people to wade in here. Please write letters to the papers, let other voters know what’s going on. Don’t take my word for it – go to the district website and look for the budget – it’s not there. I had to ask Kevin Bultema for it – that’s kbultema@chicousd.org

Read the  budget, see for yourself, the administrators are lavishly salaried, and pay the same percentage for their pension as the teachers. Hey, teachers don’t do too bad. Full time teachers are making in excess of $65,000/year, some of them tipping in close to $100,000/year, plus benefits. And, if you look  at the publicpay.gov website, you’ll see, they list their overtime pay (which  I have been told includes subbing for another teacher or even playground supervision) separately, anonymously, so you don’t really know how much these teachers are yanking in. 

For their average salary, they figure in everybody – including part time workers making less than  $1,000/ year off the district. Blue jays cheat and play dirty, you can  expect them to bend the facts any way they want. Read it for yourself. 

And then write a letter to the editor of the daily or the weekly, or both if you want. If we fight this thing, inform the other voters, we have a rat’s ass of a chance of beating this bond. 

Do you want to pay $60 for every $100,000 assessed against your house? For what? 

Here’s my first volley:

In 1995, Chico Unified School District placed Measure N on the ballot, a $32 million bond specified “to acquire land and to construct new high school facilities and to construct new and renovate existing facilities on the Pleasant Valley High School Campus.”  The measure failed.  

In 1998,  Measure A specified $48.7 million would be used to “acquire land and to construct new high school facilities.”  This measure barely received two thirds approval.  But, the district reneged on the new high school, instead using  Measure A money for many uses not specified in the original measure. The Grand Jury investigated, but declared the school board was allowed to spend the money however it saw fit. 

In 2012,  complaining about aging facilities in disrepair, Measure E asked another $78 million, promising “local Chico  school  facility improvement.” This bond passed because the threshold had been lowered to 55 percent. 

Four years later,  the district still has the same complaints – schools over 50 years old, failing roofs, sub-par playground equipment, etc. Measure K asks for $152 million, $270 million with interest. 

While they say they will fix facilities, yearly budgets show a pattern of increasing employee costs and decreasing maintenance expenditures. The  district practices “deferred maintenance,” spending less than 8 percent of their total budget on maintenance while spending roughly 90 percent on salaries and benefits. 

If they really care about the students, they would have been maintaining the facilities instead of padding their pensions.

Juanita Sumner, Chico

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