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October 11, 2005MMSD Budget Mysteries #2Mystery fans, you're joining this budget baffler in mid-case. I previously sent the following e-mail to Superintendent Rainwater: I received an inquiry about library aids from a district employee, and I can't find the answer. Maybe you and Roger Price [Assistant Superintendent for Business Services] can help. The DPI Web site shows that the MMSD received $675,055 in library aids from the Common School Fund for the school year 2004-05. The DPI site also notes that the funds are paid by May 1 and have to be expended by June 30 of the year they were received. Roger Price responded:
There are no specific accounts in the financial statements that report the expenditures against this receipt. Library expenditures are part of the central library and included in each building as part of the building formula accounts. DPI does a review of total expenditures against the revenue and in most years we have met or exceeded the receipt in total expenditures. In addition we internally monitor the status of the expenditures to assure compliance. To this end we will need to make a budget adjustment as part of our October amendments to reflect the expected revenue and to assure that we have included the corresponding expenditures. The mystery deepens! How does one know how the library aids were spent if "there are no specific accounts . . . that report the expenditures against this receipt." Roger, can you possibly put numbers to the receipts and expenditures to track the money? By that I mean, how did the MMSD spend (in dollars and cents) the $675,000 received from DPI? Does the budget show that the money was transferred from the library aids account into the "central library"? From the "central library" does the budget show that the library aids funds were transfered to each building? To help the employee and school librarian who contacted me, can you provide a list of the library aids that went to each school in the MMSD? This mystery confounds the mind and remains unsolved. Stay tuned for the next installment! Posted by Ed Blume at October 11, 2005 8:25 AMSubscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas |