by David Safier The meetings at Rancho McCain are over, the visiting cowpokes have returned to their own spreads, and it’s time for McCain to hit the trail once again — the campaign trail, that is. I had an unpleasant thought a few minutes ago as I was preparing to wrap up this McCain Ranch … Read more
by David Safier Here’s where the new media has it all over the traditional press. This morning, the NY Times gives us A Glimpse of Weekend at McCain’s, filled with such intimate, first-hand accounts as: “I thought I did pretty good for my first day as a paparazzi,” said Mr. Wadsworth, 43, who showed a … Read more
by David “Dr. Word” Safier A Google news search for “McCain + ranch” yielded about 20 “McCain is heading to his ranch this weekend” stories. But McCain doesn’t have a ranch, any more than George Bush does. I looked up a number of definitions for “ranch.” This one is typical: “A Ranch is an area … Read more
by David Safier (TASL) Arizona’s appeals court handed down an important ruling — that a 2006 state law giving state money to private schools for the education of foster children and children with disabilities is unconstitutional. To me, the concept is very simple. Be generous with public money in support of public schools. Use private … Read more
by David Safier
(TASL) It’s amazing what you can learn when you attend an open meeting of a TUSD committee. Thursday I was the sole observer at the Tucson School Board’s Audit Committee meeting. Here’s what I found out:
• About $2 million in Fixed Assets — items whose value is somewhere between $500-1000 or higher — went missing from various sites — read, schools — around the district last year.
• The number of items missing varied wildly from school to school. One high school reported something like 500 of these high value items were missing. Another high school reported 6.
• For the past 17 years, this issue has not been looked at carefully by the District. The losses have been reported, then basically filed away.
• It’s unclear where the buck stopped, so to speak. The inventory lists came in to Asset Management, but whether A.M. sat on them, or whether they were reported to higher authorities and nothing was done, cannot be known unless the District looks into the matter.
The losses were discussed in the outside District Management Audit which was finished earlier this year and got a lot of press for getting the figures on the savings for school closures completely wrong. The Fixed Asset Management section begins on page 3-59. The missing items were mainly electronics stuff — computers, cameras, camcorders, projectors, etc. — though one Gator Tractor, 4×2, valued at $5,228, was listed.
According to the Audit Committee, the total value of the District’s fixed assets items is about $74 million, which means we’re talking about something in the order of a 2.5% loss. I don’t know how that ranks, whether it is high or low for school districts in general. But I do know if there are huge discrepancies between the number of items lost at different schools, that should immediately send up a red flag, and someone should figure out what’s going on. Maybe there’s a good reason why some schools appear to lose more items than others, but ignoring the problem won’t answer the troubling questions.
The TUSD Board meets today, Friday, to review the outside audit at 3:30pm in the Badger Room, Tucson Magnet High School, 400 S. Second Ave. The Audit Committee said it plans to submit a report about these fixed assets issues to the Board, but I don’t know if the report will be in the Board’s hands or if that item is on the agenda.
(Conflicted Emotions Disclosure below the fold.)