Unit 4 Spending Concerns and Data Links

The last few weeks have had a number of stories about Unit 4 spending issues from referendum projects costing more than expected to an spending card program lacking a controlling policy.

Last month the Unit 4 school board approved bid overages on referendum projects. From the News-Gazette last month:

Referendum work at Central to continue despite overages
Major construction work at Central High School won't be halted this summer after the school board voted Tuesday evening to move forward despite bid overages that added $9.213 million to the project's original $87.1 million budget.

Officials had hoped a second round of bid releases for work at Centennial High School would ease the situation and allow for creative financing, but Elizabeth Stegmaier, the district's director of capital projects and planning, said those bids also came in over estimates...

Tuesday's unanimous vote puts the total amount of board-approved budget increases for work on referendum projects at just over $23 million.

Repeated bid overages have been attributed to a large amount of ongoing construction work in the area, among other factors.

More information at the full article here, including an earlier data table breaking down costs of various projects at the time. There was a related article about summer activities at Central and Centennial being affected by referendum work here.

Last week more cost overages were approved and the News-Gazette explained the new costs and issued a new cost data table:

Centennial renovation budget gets $8 million increase
The price tag for improvements at Centennial High School has gone up by more than $8 million.

Following an hourlong discussion during a special meeting Monday night, the Champaign school board voted 7-0 to increase the budget for the Centennial project by $8.193 million.

A referendum approved by district voters in November 2016 set the budget for work at Centennial at $63.3 million. In the wake of Monday's vote, it has been raised to $71.493 million...

For example, the district anticipated spending $991,056 for flooring. The bids came in at more than $1.6 million. Unit 4 thought it would spend $7.7 million for mechanical work; those bids totaled more than $10.3 million. The district anticipated spending $5.58 million for electrical work; those bids came in at more than $8.98 million.

Full article and chart information here. Then this week, there was more news about the referendum project work at McKinley Field coming in over budget as well:

McKinley Field referendum work moving forward despite budget overages
Just like with Central High School a few weeks ago, referendum work on the Champaign school district's McKinley Field project will proceed on schedule despite some overage costs.

A unanimous board vote Monday set the summer's work in motion — and in awarding contracts, added an additional $266,000 to the project's budget.

It's not the first time that's happened with this project: To keep field lighting, board members voted last year on a $400,000 increase to its original $6.2 million budget

More information at the full article here, including an overview of the most recent Unit 4 school board meeting. The referendum project costs were an issue prior to the most recent school board elections as well. More information on this in a previous Cheat Sheet article in March with links to some of the criticism then.

The News-Gazette also highlighted a lack of a spending policy for "P-Cards" last week:

Unit 4: Lack of policy, but no lack of spending
...
A News-Gazette Media examination of 19 months of purchasing card expense data for 81 people obtained under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that Unit 4 staffers have charged scores of catered meals, working lunches and snacks, a $200 retirement print from the Larry Kanfer Gallery, flowers for funerals, and thousands of dollars in gift cards for student and staff "incentives" on purchasing cards issued in their names.

Superintendent Susan Zola, now concluding her second year at the helm of the county's third-largest employer, said no written policy exists to guide or govern the use of the district credit cards (or "P-cards"), which predate her hiring as superintendent by three years.

She said she plans to have a policy for the school board to approve no later than July 1, even though she acknowledged that concerns about P-card abuse were brought to her attention almost a year ago.

The controversial spending practices are the subject of a criminal investigation by the Illinois State Police that will be referred to the Illinois State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office for potential charges.

More information at the original article here. The News-Gazette editorial board complained about this and referendum overages in an editorial a couple days later and there have been a few letters to the editor criticizing and defending the P-Card spending.


In other data related items for Unit 4, Tom's Mailbag had a question about administrative cost information in the district. He had an explanation of what data is or is not available and administrative salaries here. Excerpt:

Finally, the Illinois School Report Cards address administrative costs but in what likely is an unsatisfying way. They only track average administrative salaries — Champaign's is $89,939 compared with the state average of $107,279 — and "general administration" as a percentage of all expenditures.

In Champaign general administration is recorded as 1.9 percent of all expenditures versus the statewide average of 3.1 percent.

In Urbana the average administrator salary was $101,981. General administration was 3 percent of expenditures.

There was also a letter to the editor demanding movement on addressing racial disparities in Unit 4 discipline here. It cites a News-Gazette article from last year flagging local districts for racial disparities. More local data on racial disparities in education discipline on the Cheat Sheet here and related local racial disparity data here. There was also some increased enrollment data a couple weeks ago (available on the eEdition with digital subscription here). Excerpt:

Continuing a five-year trend, enrollment is up in the Champaign school district, with current counts projecting at least 10,240 students enrolled next year.

That number is an increase of 226 students from the 2017-18 school year’s count. The district has hovered around 10,000 students since 2016-17, when it had 10,060.

In preparation for the district’s large number of kindergartners — 882 — Superintendent Susan Zola said Unit 4 has “added an additional two first grades at some campuses to help mitigate that large grade level.”

Full blurb available here in the eEdition.