My Turn with George Barnett
My Turn with George Barnett
Eight years after its formation, the Grossmont Citizens Bond Oversight Committee is beginning to ask, ”Has the Grossmont Board and Administration been making prudent and appropriately legal decisions with respect to the texts of the bonds approved by tax-payers?”
Let’s take deferred maintenance first. The Prop H bond text states in part, “The Governing Board shall adopt an ongoing maintenance plan to ensure that maintenance of both new and renovated facilities does not become deferred once the existing backlog of deferred maintenance has been eliminated!” Eight years later CBOC is chiding the Governing Board at its lack of progress in this matter.
How big a problem is this? The “Maintenance Observations” attachment to the Prop U Bond Advisory Commission’s fiscal report of 7 years ago found that excluding land value Grossmont is a billion dollar enterprise, and that those massive assets needed managed accordingly. An initial maintenance reserve of $30 million ought to have been set-up. Further, over the next 25 years since the 7-year old report was issued, the District could face a preventive maintenance obligation of over $400 million in dollars of 7 years ago..
The BAC found that the process of deferred maintenance is destructive; the District was not transparent in dealing with the matter; and that accessible information was not sufficient to understand or manage it. Indeed, the decrepit state of Grossmont schools was part of the reason Prop H was proposed way back then. That seems to still be the situation today; lack of transparency, insufficient information, an unknown level of corrective action, no known progress over the intervening 7 years.
The BAC recommended that, “there should be a movement to set-up a blue-ribbon commission to look at the long term financial capital needs of the District…”
What about decisions made on new and renovated facilities? Were those decisions clearly linked to a pre-bond election long range master plan? Were they linked to the detailed list of facilities written in the bond texts of Props H & U? Was there a rigorous follow-up process put in place to track work planned and authorized and completed versus work actually voter-approved? The BAC report admonished the District 7 years ago of, “apparent lack of transparency and lack of full information flow to the tax-payers/voters and perhaps to the Board of Trustees!”
Further in its primary conclusions and recommendations, the BAC report stated, “… to demonstrate the highest level of transparency to all stakeholders (including to the voters), the CBOC in particular should resurrect “a” detailed level of prioritization as it picks-up the “Road Map” idea (sic-a template of management outlined and begun by the BAC) and uses it to drive Bond text compliance going forward to project completion.”
The CBOC has only now begun to worry that decisions by the Board and the Administration were not necessarily appropriately and rigorously tested against bond text before being authorized. Are facilities being built under Props H & U that are “nice to have” rather than critically needed and identified as “must do” in the Bond texts?
The BAC report made specific recommendations as to deferred maintenance, and the role of the CBOC in the matters of transparency and compliance to voter-approved direction. These are immensely important issues.
1. The BAC report found that the District had a history of obfuscation and non-transparency. It seems it still does. The District continues to build massively on projects that one could argue fall in the category of “nice to have” but not “must do” projects – “must do” was the intent of the voter-approved Props H & U. The District is spending millions on campuses where it is known that enrollment is in decline. But the District is not spending on a 12th high school for Blossom Valley and Alpine where the County’s land use planning is preparing for 6,000 new homes – a 50% growth.
2. The District seems to still be making capital spending decisions possibly contrary to the strict intent of the Bond texts and against the spirit of Props H & U.
3. The District has made no progress on the Prop H Bond text promise seven years ago to ‘’fix’’ deferred maintenance. How big an issue is that? Maybe a $500 million in current dollars. Who will pay for it? The tax-payers residing within the Grossmont District boundaries will pay for it.
How is the Grossmont District doing on governance and transparency? How well is the Grossmont CBOC protecting tax-payers’ interests?
