Speed Gibson

There are two fundamental financial documents in the private sector, the Income Statement and the Balance Sheet. Most of my time will be spent on the former, which shows where the money comes in and where it was spent. In fact, my "Consumer" budget really only addresses the expense side.

But I'm clearly going to have to take a look at the Balance Sheet, too, which shows what you own and what you owe. District 281 owns a lot of old buildings. It owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $200 million. To this casual observer, this appears out of balance.;

There are ten K-5 elementary schools, assuming as the 2008-09 budget did that Northport remains open. Forest (Crystal) was rebuilt in 2005. Next newest is Zachary Lane (Plymouth), built in 1969, 38 years old. Noble (Golden Valley) is the oldest, built in 1954, over 50 years old. Granted some additions were done later to most of them, but it doesn't appear very significant or very recent. Lakeview (Robbinsdale) and Pilgrim Lane (Plymouth) are both their original size and both are over 40 years old.

It strikes me that the District has under-invested in facilities. The situation at the secondary level is comparable. I'd feel better if we at least owned these buildings free and clear, but it would appear not. We have $200 million or so to pay off on an aging portfolio of buildings.

I'm getting ahead of myself, but a "vision" for a vibrant District should include replacement of these buildings. For now, let me postulate that the useful life of an Elementary school is 50 years. We have 10, so we should be rebuilding one every 5 years. Instead, we're looking at closing one or more, and making modest repairs to some of the others. Oh, and we still have that $200 million to repay.

12. New Brooklyn Center Mayor Tim Willson gavels babbling Council member Mary O'Connor into submission. It was worth voting DFL to finally see this happen.

11. Capitol Tax Cut rally returns, best ever.

10. John Hines hired on KTLK-FM Morning Show.

9. Prime Minister Pawlenty finds spine on budget, hands over-confident Pogemiller total defeat.

8. Minneapolis Public Schools announce retreat/withdrawal from North Minneapolis

7. St. Anthony (I-35W) bridge collapses.

6. DFL starts making political hay over bridge collapse while bodies still unrecovered.

5. Jason Lewis becomes new favorite Rush fill-in host.

4. Statewide smoking ban takes effect, several restaurants close.

3. Prime Minister Pawlenty becomes Enviro-Loon.

2. John Hines fired on KTLK-FM Morning Show.

1. Vitally needed "Freedom to Poop" cards still not a reality.

It's time to get started decoding the Robbinsdale Area Schools (District 281) budget for 2007-2008. This was developed using the 190 page budget published before the referendum. It assumed the referendum would pass. Since it didn't, this budget will be republished once the budget cuts are finally negotiated and approved by the School Board. When that happens, I will restate these numbers accordingly.

This is Version 1.0, the first attempt. Subsequent editions will subdivide these high level totals.

The published budget is written from the point of view of the producer, i.e., the district. As such, it provides much required detail showing the various revenue ("funding") sources.

The budget I am trying to assemble will be from the consumer point of view. In fact, I now begin calling the official district version the Producer budget, mine the Consumer budget.

To facilitate readability and satisfy my engineering mindset, numbers and amounts will generally be shown as rounded to a realistic number of significant digits. For example, the total expenditures for 2007-08 is $ 200,203,156 in the Producer budget (page 33). I submit that as this level, you can't possibly manage any closer than the nearest $ 100,000 so my Consumer budget will show this as $200,200,000 or in thousands as 200,200 for readability. You often see this in corporate reports as "in thousands" or "(000)" in the headings.

The same applies to enrollment, projected at 12,746 on page 143 of the Producer budget. I rounded this down to 12,700 as you can't possibly predict this number any more precisely given how many families move in an out or choose other options each year.

Another key difference is that I am solely concerned with actual K-12 education, including sports and other activities, and including Special Education. I am excluding unrelated programs like Aduit Education, Community Education, and Early Childhood programs that are not K-12 programs. I am also excluding "welfare" spending like after school child care (Adventure Club) and breakfast service.

So here it is, version 1.0 below. (I'll refine the presentation format in succeeding versions.)

Fund	Producer ($)	Consumer ($000)
General	$ 141,005,950	$ 141,000
Child Nutrition1	$   6,530,722	$   5,800
Community Service2	$   7,753,122	$     200
Building Construction	$  26,993,160	$  27,000
Debt Service	$  17,920,202	$  17,900
TOTALS	$ 200,203,156	$ 191,900

Note 1: Breakfast and summer excluded.

Note 2: Excluded as not K-12 related. Amount remaining is "lease" of building space and some support staff payroll.

For an enrollment of 12,700, that is a Consumer cost of about $ 15,100 per K-12 student.

The Producer budget by law is organized into a number of funds, the largest being the General Fund. Each has a balance and may in fact represent actual cash or equivalents on hand. Revenues vary in response to various formulas and programs as I illustrated earlier this month. Various laws also regulate and qualify how some of these amounts are spent.

My Consumer budget ignores these aspects. I do not care where the money came from, or that some revenue must be dedicated to certain purposes. I do not care (at least at this level) about demographics like free and reduced-price lunch, or Special Education.

The problem I am trying to solve is "how much does it cost to educate a student in grade X at school Y?" More specifically, what are the fixed costs and the variable costs?

At the stated minimum average class size of 22 (middle school), that is over $ 330,000 per classroom. The teacher(s) with whom the students spend the great majority of their school day represents well under $ 100,000 of that amount.

I am in search of the much larger amount remaining.

It's good having some time off. I watched some excellent acting, starting with Disk 2 of the AWA Wrestling DVD set I received for Christmas. This was about a dozen matches with many old denizens from the Sixth Street Menagerie as sportswriter Dick Cullum would refer to it. This was the old Dykeman Hotel, home of the offices of the Minneapolis Boxing and Wrestling Club (i.e., Vern Gagne and Wally Karbo).

Let me tell you something, Jack! There was plenty of footage of Jesse Ventura, getting mauled by Mad Dog Vachon and others, and always annoyed whenever he had to wrestle in Turkey Town.

***

I also took a chance on "Detective Story" from 1951 starring Kirk Douglas and a wonderful cast including Eleanor Parker before she played the Baroness on The Sound of Music (I can still here the audiences hissing). Cathy O'Donnell again plays the penultimate "girl next door" like she did in The Best Years of Our Lives as Wilma. I also spotted Dr. No, no not Phil Krinke, the real one - Joseph Wiseman. Plus for me, there are some familiar voices from old time radio, including William Bendix (The Life of Riley), Luis van Rooten (Nero Wolfe), and Gerald Mohr (Phillip Marlowe).

In fact, there's a brief Kennedy-Nixon debate-like moment where Gerald Mohr confronts Kirk Douglas. On radio, no question Mohr would be judged the tougher, but on screen his baby face looks gave the chiseled Douglas the clear edge.

Anyway, it's a solid, enjoyable adaptation of a good, adult Broadway play, portraying a day at a New York City police station.

For Christmas, I received "The Spectacular Legacy of the American Wrestling Association", a two DVD set. Disk one is a documentary of the AWA. This was Verne Gagne's organization, so it also covered some of Verne's impressive amateur career and ended with his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame.

As it hints more than once, professional wrestling was until recently a family business with some faint similarities to the Mafia. It was territorial, until Vince McMahon Jr took it all, not with bullets, but with satellite TV, cable, and rock & roll. We couldn't have cared less at the time. We wanted to see Da Crusher!

I still fondly remember getting tickets by mail, to attend the free TV matches at what was then the Calhoun Beach Hotel, the original home of WTCN channel 11 before their move to Golden Valley.

We maybe got down to the "real" matches once a year, but most of the show was on TV anyway. We grew to like the doormats like "the very capable" Kenny Jay. He would always get the upper hand briefly in his match, but a quick poke in the eye would stun him long enough for the star to recover and get the pin.

The DVD runs well over 2 hours and fills in so many details of what I was watching then. It was done with love and respect for Vern and I agree with the picture they painted. Gagne was a great athlete and a great showman. In the end, those very qualities kept him too rooted in the past, making him easy prey for the WWWF. To be fair, the WWWF has made the same mistake, though still alive as the WWE. They would do well to re-incorporate some of what Vern did, not merely parade steroid taking wife beaters.

Disk 2 has some old matches, including Jesse Ventura. I'll post on that tomorrow but already, this is one of the best presents ever.

It's time to shuffle my talk radio deck for 2008. Too many shows, too little time.

Rush 24/7 stays, that's a given. He's still the best and sets the pace. But I'm not renewing my subscriptions to Laura Ingraham and Bill O'Reilly.

I added O'Reilly when Dennis Prager lost his battle and his premium web site with Salem. But while it's well done technically, something I always admire, too often it's either a promo for the TV Factor that evening or a recap of the previous show. I recently started recording the TV Factor on the DVR and found that covers most of his perspective.

I do feel somewhat bad about dropping Ingraham, in that it used to be a better program than it is now. The production values have suffered and the show has largely lost its niche. It has given up far too many of the cultural segments I enjoyed to get immigration or the war rehashed. The value add is largely gone.

By the way, I tracked the attendance records, how many live shows out of each host personally performed. Ingraham won at 224 out of 255 days (88%), though maybe I should knock that down a little for being late to work from time to time. Rush was live 218 days, and O'Reilly 212 days (83%).

This will free up considerable time, part of which I'll spend listening to Dennis Prager on Townhall. I hear Dennis on the weekends sometimes, and I still miss it. Maybe I'll have to try to get the podcast feed to work again. I had no luck with or without iTunes last time I tried.

Most of that time, however goes back to Old Time Radio, which I enjoyed much too little in 2007. This year will be different - the Shadow knows!

These days between Christmas and New Years are the days the media and we personally think back on the year soon ending. And so it is here, as I tally the punditry scores from TPT's Almananc Political Panel and KSTP-TV's At Issue Face-Off segments.

I score based on insight (runs), accuracy (hits), and false statements (errors). False statements are either obvious factual errors like Al Gore makes on global warming or assertions not even close to meeting the burden of proof, like "Bush lied."

Almanac

Most Reliable and Insightful: Phil Krinke
Honorable Mention: Fritz Knack

Most Unreliable: Wy Spano
Dishonorable Mention: Mary Jo McGuire

At Issue

Most Reliable and Insightful: David Strom
Honorable Mention: Dave Thompson

Most Unreliable: Ember Reichgott-Junge
Dishonorable Mention: Matt Entenza

We'll be with family the next three days, so this will be my last post until Boxing Day. Actually, I'm "boxing" tonight, wrapping the last of the presents. Yes, I'm done way early this year!

As we celebrate with family and friends, let us also "remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.”

I'm just back from Christmas shopping, having listened to the NARN replay in the car between stops. Once again, though, the machines rose to take over, shoving aside The Opening Act at least twice to play Salem Radio Network news and sports. Finally the humans retook control about 11:09.

It's just a reminder that while we appreciate the NARN hosts who do so much for so little, producers, screeners, interns, and engineers count, too. So, Merry Christmas to them, too!

To date I have toured three Elementary schools in District 281. I met with two of the principals.

I toured Forest Elementary in Crystal to see if it truly was a Taj Mahal as some had speculated. It was not. In fact, I liked what I saw, a very functional design. It's not the largest (76,900 sq.ft.), it doesn't have the largest capacity (576), and it doesn't have the highest enrollment. It doesn't even have the most square feet per student of the ten Elementary schools. Inside, it's not at all opulent, simply full-equipped. As a taxpayer, I'm very pleased.

I toured the other two to see what sort of maintenance was required. Northport Elementary was built in 1956, with a major expansion in 1984. It has 65,300 sq. ft. and a capacity of 744 students. It is showing its age, with noticeable cracks in its interior brick walls from the small but inevitable shifts in the foundation. It also uses an older design with lower ceilings and exposed, oversize I-beams that make adding air ducts a major effort.

Pilgrim Lane Elementary was built in 1966. It has 58,200 sq. ft. and a capacity of 552 students. It is in better shape than Northport, no question, but presents the same sorts of airflow challenges as Northport and many other schools in the District. I also felt its gymnasium was undersized.

I have more homework to do, but much of the upgrades facing these two schools and some others is air quality. Forest was rebuilt for this reason I'm told, that repairs and upgrades while cheaper still left us with a 50 year old building with traditionally higher operating costs.

Again, I have more work to do, but for now I'm wondering why all this focus on air quality. Room ventilators and steam heat aren't state of the art, but the concepts are workable for some time. Perhaps some fans and heat exchangers are needed for the hallways, though.

The original 2008-09 budget calls for $1.4 million in such capital projects for Piligrim Lane. Northport is scheduled for $50,000 worth of evaluation only, but for the reasons given, the actual upgrades will require several million dollars. This is one reason why Northport was the early favorite to close, to avoid a major investment in an older building.

Now that Sonnesyn Elementary in New Hope is also a candidate for closing, I will be touring it shortly after school resumes next year. I will visit all of District 281's facilities in fact, because I think this is an important point going forward. If 281 is to turn itself around, it can't do it with an aging fleet of 35 to 50+ year old buildings.

Expanding on a comment from Bill O'Reilly:

To reduce his carbon footprint, Santa Claus will no longer be leaving coal in the stockings of bad boys and girls. They will now receive Ethanol.

This little project of mine started small, exploring public school financing using my own District 281. It's getting more interesting by the day.

Tonight was a School Board work session to review the Public Hearing input and presumably work toward a consensus on trimming $5 million from the 2008-09 budget. They reported receiving a considerable amount of e-Mail and telephone messages, some of it a bit heated, some of it a bit personal. (If that's you, enough. You're not helping.)

"Pairing" where elementary schools would teach either K-2 or 3-5 was taken off the table (Scenario G). It was hugely unpopular. So presumably that left us with Scenario A - close Northport without pairing. Only now, Scenario C (close Pilgrim Lane Elementary) rose from the dead, and two new Scenarios H (close Sonnesyn Elementary) and I (close none, just raise class sizes) were added. Pilgrim Lane had been brought up at the Public Hearing and I toured it this afternoon, in fact. Now I see I'll have to visit Sonnesyn, too. I might as well see them all when school resumes next year.

This meeting was supposed to eliminate options, maybe even reach agreement, not add options. Me, I'm happy on two counts. The best answer (in my opinion) is now on the table and for the right reasons, which a couple on the Board expressed. Raising class sizes is a reversible decision; closing a school is not.

This reinforces my prior post's assertion that such decisions take more time than is legally available to them. To truly do it right means addressing year 2009-10, which will need another $4 million in budget cuts, which takes still more time. Superintendent Mack would argue that's been done, but at least one on the Board disagrees as do I.

The next discussion is a work session on January 14, though we may learn a little more at the next Board meeting January 7. I will submit my own amicus curiae brief to the Board, but there won't otherwise be much happening until next year.

Until then, I'll shift gears to related matters, including the most important of all. Considerable time was spent on the East side - West side matter. Those of us in the East have watched the center of gravity move West over the past 30 years or so. If Northport indeed closes, Brooklyn Center ceases to be anything but territory served. Robbinsdale has bought some time, but unless something changes the trend line, Lakeview will close within 5 years as well. There will be no facilities east of West Broadway.

That's perhaps the biggest problem of all - the trend line. The District is slowly losing enrollment. With the exception of Forest, every building is at least 35 years old.

Can this District be saved?

Let me try another perspective on last night's Public Hearing regarding the $5 million in budget cuts facing the Robbinsdale Area Schools, District 281. Suppose this was my first exposure to this district and this problem.

I had a similar experience tagging along with a friend to an Osseo board also facing cuts. As my friend had earlier surmised, clearly no one was in charge. In fact, in was painfully evident that the Superintendent was not leading nor wanted to lead. He formed committees and task forces, letting them make the hard choices, offering no insight, direction, or priority. He supposedly was great at the big picture but clearly had no interest in day to day operations, let alone tough choices like this.

So now, what to make of District 281, as a man from Mars on his first visit? I heard an executive say that when you're making a decision, you should consider which way would you rather be wrong. Here, the key question was the referendum. You've never lost yet, so you follow the same formula. You stay largely positive, but with a sense of urgency via speculation on what failure would mean.

This time, however, there's organized opposition. They even hired a consultant, one with a pretty good track record. You could lose. What should you do? As I understand it, the District did step up the campaign some and responded some. It pushed hard the last few days, but so did the opposition. It's hard to know why in the last analysis but the referendum failed.

Stunned and/or disappointed, the Board now begins the painful task of enumerating $5 million worth of cuts. A number of scenarios are developed regarding closing one or more schools. A decision is made and the public advised, but then a major change is made shortly before this Public Hearing, possibly in response to political pressure. In fact, another option now reappears, elementary pairing. It (cleverly?) frames the debate as how to best close Northport, not whether to close it or another school. Is this politics, too? I don't know, and it doesn't matter now anyway.

What I do know, pretending to be an outsider seeing this for the first time, is that the Board made a significant error in strategy. The process of determining what to cut should have been developed, discussed, and decided before the election. I say that for two reasons, the first being it would have clarified the situation for the voters, and possibly might have carried the day.

The other reason is the compressed timeline we now find ourselves in trying to make the necessary cuts, further shortened by the Holidays. The Board looks like and is in fact, scrambling, having not done their homework.

The Board should have looked at this and realized that it's much easier to increase a cut budget than what we're doing today. The baseline budget for 2008-09 should have assumed the levy failed, not succeeded. That in fact, is the way Hennepin County does its Truth in Taxation projections for taxpayers every year, assuming that all referendums by all units of government fail.

We should not expect the Board and staff to be adroit at budget cutting, since this would require considerable practice. As such, they need to conduct this when they truly have the time, which also helps the voters. It's too late for this cycle, but a mistake that must not be repeated.

One more part to go: what do I think of the proposed cuts?

I attended the Robbinsdale Area Schools (281) Public Hearing on the proposed $5 million in budget cuts. Nearly the first hour was spent presenting the plan, pretty much as they did yesterday at the regularly scheduled Board meeting. Then, 64 speakers were heard, with a 2 minute limit. The meeting ended about 10:15 pm.

It's a pity that it takes a crisis like this to bring people together. I attended a session like this a few years ago at the Osseo schools (279). There, much anger was vented at the school board but tonight there was very little rancor. All but a few stayed on point, helping the board evaluate its options. I decided not to speak, as I'm looking ahead to the next round. By the way, KSTP-TV's 10 pm news account of it was excellent.

The Board tried to frame it as a done deal, which includes closing one school (Northport Elementary). The only thing left was whether the remaining elementary schools should be paired into K-2/3-5 sets, which would provide slightly smaller class sizes. The public largely disapproved of this, and came up with many good reasons why.

As is typical, the parents and staff of the closed school and curtailed programs were there in force. One, in support of Northport, the school to be closed, made a good point. Originally, Lakeview Elementary and the middle school program housed in the old Robbinsdale High School were also on the chopping block (plan E), both in Robbinsdale. Robbinsdale parents and city officials raised a stink, and suddenly that's off the table. Northport supporters were blindsided by this late change in that with 3 schools being closed, there was little point fighting. When Lakeview came back to life, they now asked, why not Northport instead?

Some others basically cast the Board as not doing a very good job in developing and communicating these hard choices, before and after the vote. I tend to agree.

I'll have more tomorrow, including reports on my tours of the Northport (1956) and Forest (2005) schools.

I attended the Robbinsdale Area Schools (281) board meeting this evening, the last regular session of the year. Besides regular business, an overview of the proposed budget cuts and options was presented.

I took a lot of notes and could make a number of detailed observations, but I'll wait to see what happens tomorrow night at a Public Hearing at the Robbinsdale Area Learning Center, i.e., the old Robbinsdale High School, 7 pm.

The cuts are significant, so much so that I fear their static analysis may not hold up. By significant, I don't mean so much financially as disruptively to the students. Under one scenario, some first grade students that walk to school today will be bused to another school next year, and still another the year after that. When they get to middle school, they'll find most activities either gone or prohibitively expensive. They'll have a few more choices in high school, but fewer than today, and even more expensive than in middle school.

As I listened to the various discussions and presentations, I came away more convinced than ever that what we have here is a failure to communicate. The choice of words, the phrasing, and the underlying assumptions were all designed to communicate among themselves, with jargon, strange sounding program names, and needless abbreviations. When I suggested afterward to some of them that the general public finds this hard to follow, I sensed some genuine surprise.

I also felt some genuine concern and angst, by two of the board members in particular, and I had a good conversation with one of them afterwards. In fact, I felt a little sorry for them, unable to see beyond their once tidy, unquestioned world in the public sector.

The board and staff are as much puzzled as disappointed by the failure of the levy. What's not to get? Don't the voters believe in education? The only answer that makes sense to them is that they were ambushed by the CARE 281 (vote no) effort, and they could only have been successful by lying.

The good news is that they seem to have put that behind them and are moving forward as best they can. Better still, they truly seem interested in another point of view and I shall indeed oblige them.

I can't deny a little schadenfreude watching the Eagles beat the Cowboys, in Dallas no less. But I saw something that further underscored why real Americans don't like soccer. Yes, soccer is the most boring of all professional team sports, and I'm being generous adding those two adjectives.

Once again, I saw something I've never seen before. Philly is up by four with the ball and just over two minutes to go. Dallas is out of time outs. The running back shoots through, has an easy touchdown except that he deliberately slides on the 1 yard line. I was called away so I didn't see the explanation, and I can imagine at least three reasons why.

You don't see this in soccer, where strategy is more like checkers, not chess. You'll see nothing that isn't decades old.

My Uncle Bill passed away this morning, at 86. I realized that my father also died in December shortly before Christmas 25 years ago. There's never a good time for a funeral, and the parlors can't take the month off. But I still remember Rev. Iverson quoting playwright James Barrie: "God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."

You've not met my Uncle Bill, except that you have, many times I hope. He was one of those "salt of the Earth" types, worked hard, married, had four children, helped so many others, always seemed cheerful, and honored his family name. And his problems were never your problems. He more than earned his long retirement in Texas.

Only in America.

Minneapolis School Superintendent Dr. Bill Green and School Board Chair Pam Costain appeared on TPT's Almanac this week, talking of the coming changes. I will say that they are at least saying things that no previous administration would have dared. They both seem very committed to finally closing the various achievement gaps, particularly the racial gap (per Green and Costain). They seem determined not to fail like the previous $500 million effort did 20 years ago or so.

I also must say that they laid it on a little thick, claiming that everyone was on board with the new direction, including the city, the parents, and local business leaders. It's one thing to be optimistic. In fact, a little hyperbole and spin wouldn't be out of line given the dire situation, but they went long a couple of times.

"We are looking at partners who have a proven track record, who employ the same kind of accountability measures that we insist [on] in our own classrooms." --Green

"We have extremely strong teachers in Minneapolis. Sometimes the suburbs steal our teachers, they're that strong." — Costain

We can smirk a little, but let's also be quick to support Minneapolis if it truly breaks ranks to incorporate concepts like accountability and choice.

This just in: District 281 has just shifted from "Scenario E" that would have closed two Elementary schools and a Middle school to "Scenario G" which just closes one Elementary school. Either way, Northport Elementary in Brooklyn Center will be closing. Apparently it needs significant maintenance.

Perhaps the protests from Robbinsdale where the other two schools are located were a factor. It should be noted that this far from guarantees that they won't also be closed in the near future, just not now. Scenario G doesn't save as much money as Scenario E, so future cuts will be necessary barring significant new money.

It seems obvious, perhaps deceptively so, that this could have been avoided by simply not building Forest Elementary, which opened in 2005. It is in Crystal and its territory borders on Northport, Lakeview, plus three other Elementary schools, not counting New Hope Elementary that was closed in 2005.

Maybe I will speak at the Board meeting after all.

I didn't plan it this way, but suddenly "It's a Wonderful Life" began on Channel 11. It said HD so I thought I'd at least watch the start even if I don't have an HD set.

It does look like a great print, but the sound is positively awful. It's muffled in spots, and there's a constant rumble underneath, possibly what's called a compressor trying to overcompensate. Still, it's a wonderful movie and the right time of year, and a nice quiet Friday night.

I am multi-tasking though, if nothing else to fill the time during commercials. I'm reading through the Robbinsdale District 281 budget for 2007-08, prepping for the board meeting Monday night. I don't plan on speaking, but I also want to be prepared in case some nonsense needs refuting.

"Welcome home, Mr. Bailey."

I happened to hear a few minutes of KTLK in the car this morning and it sounds like the next contestant may have been hired for the Morning Show. I think his name is Chris. There's nothing on the KTLK web site yet, so it's either an audition or a soft opening.

He was swinging for the fences, saying no woman should be President. His style had me thinking of the late great Joe Pyne. At least KTLK is finally trying something a little different, but constantus interruptus remains.

The City of New Hope is offering money to those employees that move into the city itself. Currently, only about 10 percent of the work force reside in New Hope. By offering about $1,600, they hope to convince the outsiders to relocate move into the city.

State law prohibits residency requirements, and I would question this on equal pay for equal work grounds. Plus, since no doubt most New Hope residents work in other cities, it could invite retaliation.

Regardless, what's the point of this? It doesn't create jobs in the city. It doesn't make them better workers or materially improve the city. I don't get it.

I see there is talk of a Super Target going in at 42nd and Winnetka in New Hope, specifically the southeast corner where sits the Robbinsdale School headquarters building. I've been there twice recently, and I have to think they won't be sad to leave it, given its design and past construction problems.

But where will they go? Will they build another Taj Mahal, like Osseo did? Or will they recycle on of the closed buildings? Or maybe just rent space or spaces, which is widely available?

Any of these might be the right answer, and hopefully tight money will force the correct business decision.

The bill has come due at Anoka-Hennepin schools, which passed two of its four referendums last month, which will raise millions of dollars in additional property taxes. Education Minnesota wants it all. Now.

Sandra Skaar, president of the union local, referring to the efforts of the "vote yes" committee asks:

"How do we explain that all of their work for the levy yields a substandard settlement for teachers?"

In case you unaware, these committees are largely drawn from the ranks of the district's employees, mostly unionized teachers.

A better question would be:

How do we explain to those who voted yes that virtually all of that money will go to the teachers?

I'm looking at the calendar and the Star Tribune this morning, which features a mild hit piece on Prime Minister Pawlenty. In the spirit of the season, couldn't this wait until after Christmas? The Legislature doesn't return until February. Why now?

Maybe it's because he's riding high in the polls, even the DFL-friendly Minnesota Poll. It's not fair! He gets re-elected on a fluke, he rebuffs the hugely DFL Legislature, a bridge collapses on his watch, and it doesn't matter. Nothing sticks to him!

Anyway, the magic word "analysis" is there to excuse the obvious leakage from the Editorial page. They paint Pawlenty as a man of "big ideas but little followup" and list several of his big ideas and how some of them didn't play out. It's a classic example of front page bias.

For example:

Big idea: Proposes health impact "fee" on tobacco to break budget deadlock, insisting it does not break his no-new taxes pledge.

Result: Revenue from fee breaks budget stalemate; fee upheld in court.

That isn't what happened. Pawlenty proposed this fee tax well before the end of the session and Senate Majority Leader Liar Dean Johnson shrugged it off at the time. Weeks later, voter and union displeasure with the ensuing partial shutdown ended the stalemate. (It was in all the papers!) Telling it this way gives Pawlenty credit for raising taxes, always a good idea no matter who does it according to the Star Tribune.

The major sins of this piece are acts of omission, however. There's not a word about embracing light rail, the Twins stadium, and the smoking ban. The Star Tribune finds nothing wrong or controversial here, of course.

I'm no fan of Mr. Pawlenty but even I think he deserves better than this lopsided article, itself a big idea short on follow-through.

I'm not all that familiar with the details, but the Minneapolis School Board unanimously adopted the entire package of strategic reforms aimed at raising test scores and closing achievement gaps. It even speaks of rewarding success and removing poor performers, including teachers, who protested outside.

It appears to be one of the boldest moves to date by any public school system, wandering dangerously close to concepts of accountability. I can't say as I understand how abandoning the North side is strategic, even if the majority of North side parents are abandoning them. I'm curious to see how they'll get the unions to accept what's required to make it work.

But I give them high marks for realizing that anything less won't work.

Those of us in the private sector know what would happen if we let a subordinate rack up $26,000 in unauthorized charges. But it looks like only Minnesota Lt. Governor and Transportation Commissioner Carol Molnau will suffer the equivalent fate. Instead, three middle managers are getting reprimands, one oral, one written, one with a three day pass.

For once, though, I might have to agree with this course of action. Reading the redacted findings, it looks to me like yes, a dishonest employee (Pitt) took advantage of department transitions. It also looks to me like Pitt's days were indeed numbered. They were on to her before the bridge collapse, just much too slowly.

A name not in the paper is Deputy Commissioner Lisa Freese. MnDot uses the Soviet Embassy model, with the political head, Commissioner Molnau having just Deputy Freese and a public relations Assistant as direct reports. Freese actually runs the show day to day, like a Chief Operating Officer in a corporation. She is new to the position (Feb 2007), and therefore had plausible deniability. Two of those reprimanded report to her, the third to one of them. But again, positions and people were shifting during this time, so I think the punishments fit the crimes.

Pitt is gone, and I believe MnDot has learned its lesson. Other agencies no doubt will be more vigilant, too. Next case.

A few education notes:

• The State official I contacted about the Transportation Sparsity Revenue calculation agreed that their handbook is indeed incorrect and will be corrected in the 2008-09 edition.
  
  
• Apparently I fat-fingered the URL's earlier, so if you would like to view the Financing Education in Minnesota 2007-08 handbook and many other documents, visit www.house.mn/fiscal/fahome.htm.
  
  
• The calculations are performed by the Minnesota Department of Education. They do provide a spreadsheet to help the districts estimate their revenue, but the State does the final calculation and pays accordingly.
  

Tonight was the City Council meeting to adopt the 2008 budgets following a Public Hearing for that purpose. There were no takers.

I thought it was vital we call a Special Session to get additional property tax relief. Where's the clamor? We had two people speak at the city Truth in Taxation meeting a week ago. We had three including myself at the Robbinsdale School District 281 Truth in Taxation meeting. None today. Where are the hoards?

If you're still with me, having read parts one, two, three, and four, you now know as I do how complicated our K-12 funding formulas really are. Allow me to illustrate further, revisting the Transportation Sparsity Revenue calculation.

I re-worked the provided example for the mythical "Gopherville" public school district, only the numbers didn't tie out. Here's what the "Financing Education in Minnesota 2007-08" booklet said:

Transportation Sparsity Revenue per Pupil Unit = [(formula allowance x .1469) x (the logarithm of the district's sparsity index and .26) x (the logarithm of the district's density index and .13)] - (forumula allowance x .0485).

= [($5,074 x .1469) x (the log of .2 and .26) x (the log of .09 and .13)] - ($5,074 x .0485).

= [$745 x .658063 x .731226] - $246
= $358 - $246
= $112

Total Transportation Sparsity Revenue = Revenue per Pupil x Pupil Units

= $112 x 1,000
= $112,000

Previously, I simply noted that logarithms of fractions like this are negative, but I should have checked further. The numbers don't compute as shown. Could they have meant natural (base e) logarithms? Did ".2 and .26" not mean their sum, .46? Nothing worked, so I looked up the underlying statue 124C.10, sub-division 18:

Pupil transportation sparsity and safety revenue allowance.

(a) A district's transportation sparsity allowance equals the greater of zero or the result of the following computation:

(i) Multiply the formula allowance according to subdivision 2, by .1469.
(ii) Multiply the result in clause (i) by the district's sparsity index raised to the 26/100 power.
(iii) Multiply the result in clause (ii) by the district's density index raised to the 13/100 power.
(iv) Multiply the formula allowance according to subdivision 2, by .0485.
(v) Subtract the result in clause (iv) from the result in clause (iii).

(b) Transportation sparsity revenue is equal to the transportation sparsity allowance times the adjusted marginal cost pupil units.

Do you see any logarithms here? True, the exact mathematical formulation of .46 to th 26/100 power is exp(.26 x ln (.46)), but on a spreadsheet, it's typically just .46^.26. For once, the law is more clear than the interpretation, one provided by Minnesota House of Representatives' Department of Fiscal Analysis.

Let me say that again. An agency of our Legislature cannot interpret the laws being passed. I dare say that a sizable majority of our 201 Legislators couldn't follow it either. It was the creation of policy wonks with too much time of their hands.

Doing a little more spreadsheet analysis also suggests that the final aid amount calculated is actually fairly linear vs an inferred number of student-miles. I submit that simply paying the districts the IRS standard mileage (48.5 cents per mile in 2007) times the student-miles actually driven is about the same as this wild formula. Actually, it pays the districts a little more, and I'm sure they wouldn't turn it down.

The best news for you the reader may be that this is the final part of this particular series! But as The Drudge Report says, "developing..."

I'm just a recreational blogger running a sole proprietorship, not a juggernaut like True North or Anti-Strib. But there I was, on holy ground, at the Eberly mansion for his annual holiday party. Some observations:

1. Tracy throws a great party.
   
2. Both the mansion and Mrs. Eberly lived up to their press.
   
3. Cigars were everywhere, and I enjoyed every one of them vicariously.
   

New this year is the Biggest Anti-Strib Loser competition and I don't mean Nick Colemnan. Fifteen of us weighed in and plunked down $20. That's $300 to whoever loses the greatest percent of weight in 12 weeks.

Win or lose, I have to try one of those $5 cigars in March.

My thanks and best holiday wishes to Mr. & Mrs. Eberly and the many notables that made for a wonderful evening.

I was going to give you another round of the tedious calculations used to calculate Minnesota's State aid to K-12 public school districts, but it's hard to top logarithmic school bus aid. Instead, let me give you another perspective, the entire list of available money:

1. Basic Revenue ($5,000,427)
   
2. Extended Time Revenue ($46,010)
   
3. Gifted & Talented Revenue ($12,000)
   
4. Basic Skills Revenue
   
   • Compensatory ($182,167)
   • Limited English Proficiency ($57,630)
5. Elementary Sparsity Revenue ($84,584)
   
6. Secondary Sparsity Revenue ($379,282)
   
7. Transportation Sparsity Revenue ($112,000)
   
8. Operating Capital Revenue ($160,974)
   
9. Equity Revenue ($105,223)
   
10. Training & Experience Revenue ($66,000)
    
11. Alternative Compensation Revenue ($260,000)
    
12. Transition Revenue ($56,794)
    
13. Special Education
    
    • Base Revenue ($132,450)
    • Extra Cost Aid ($95,966)
    • Home Based Travel Aid
    • Special Pupil Aid
14. Capital Expenditures
    • Health & Safety Revenue ($23,893)
    • Alternative Facilities
    • Debt Service Revenue ($172,500)
15. Telecommunications Access Revenue ($20,000)
    
16. Abatement Revenue
    
17. Access to Minnesota's Transition Program for Children with Disabilities
    
18. Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Programs
    
19. Consolidation Transition Revenue
    
20. First Grade Preparedness Grants
    
21. Integration Revenue
    

The amounts shown are from the worked examples in the "Financing Education in Minnesota 2007-08" publication I've been studying in parts 1, 2, and 3. These are for the mythical Gopherville school district, a 90 square mile rural district of about 1,000 students. The grand total is $6,968,080, about $7,000 per student. (I so want to call it Gopher Prairie!)

There is also Federal aid and of course, local property tax levies. There are also a number of programs for Adult Education, Community Education, and pre-Kindergarten students, plus non-public, Magnet, and Charter schools.

Finally, there are tangential programs listed for nearby public libraries and welfare (Head Start, school breakfast subsidies, for example).

A commenter asked a good question: who does this math? The District? The State? Software? I'll find out. There are many other questions, too, like how does one get from a rural Gopherville $7,000 State aid per student to the $15,000 total spending per student that some urban Districts spend? I'll work on that, too.

Meanwhile, I have to go back to a couple of those formulas, and I think you'll see why, in Part 5.

This is episode 3 of how State aid to K-12 public schools is calculated. In Part 1, I calculated "Pupil Units" and in Part 2, I calculated Basic Revenue, Extended Time Revenue, Gifted & Talented Revenue, and Basic Skills Revenue. As you saw, it takes more than basic skills to get this far.

Now let's calculate the sparsity amounts that help smaller and rural districts, starting with Elementary Sparsity Revenue. To qualify, "an elementary school must have an average of 20 or fewer pupils per grade level [including Kindergarten] and be located 19 miles or more from the nearest [other] elementary school."

1. First, count the grades, up to 7 for a full K-6 school, and multiply by 20.
   
2. Now, sum the enrollment (ADM) for these grades, which should be less than or equal to result 1 above.
   
3. Subtract result 2 from result 1.
   
4. Add result 2 and result 1.
   
5. Divide result 3 by result 4, giving a ratio between 0 and 1.
   
6. Multiply by result 2, the number of students (ADM).
   
7. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance used to calculate Basic Revenue ($5,074).
   

Get out your calculator for the Secondary Sparsity Revenue, for first we need to calculate an Isolation Index (II).

1. Determine the school's area served in square miles.
   
2. Multiply by 0.55, then take the square root.
   
3. Add the number of miles to the nearest other secondary school. This is the Isolation Index. If not over 23, stop here; you get $0.
   
4. If the enrollment is not under 400, stop here; you get $0.
   
5. Subtract 23 from the Isolation Index above (result 3).
   
6. Divide by 10, and do not allow the quotient to exceed 1.5.
   
7. Subtract the enrollment (ADM) from 400.
   
8. Add 400 to the enrollment (ADM).
   
9. Divide Result 7 by Result 8, giving a ratio between 0 and 1.
   
10. Multiply by the Result 6 quotient.
    
11. Multiply by the enrollment (ADM).
    
12. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance used to calculate Basic Revenue ($5,074).
    

Finally, there is Transportation Sparsity Revenue available, assuming you can calculate it:

1. Divide the district's square miles by the adjusted enrollment (AMCPU, see part 1).
   
2. Take the higher of 0.2 and Result 1 as the District Sparsity Index (DSI).
   
3. Take Result 1 as the District Density Index(DDI), but make sure it's at least 0.005 and no more than 0.2.
   
4. Add 0.26 to Result 2 (DSI) and compute its common (base 10) logarithm.
   
5. Add 0.13 to Result 3 (DDI) and compute its common (base 10) logarithm.
   
6. Multiply results 4 and 5.
   
7. Multiply by 0.1469.
   
8. Subtract 0.0485.
   
9. Multiply by the General Education Formula Allowance ($5,074).
   

That's right, you need to know logarithms to help finance your school buses. Incidentally, the author overlooked that logarithms of numbers between 0 and 1 are negative. If it matters further, they still produce a positive number when multiplied together in step 6.

I'm not going to cover every calculation, but part 4 will detail another complex formula. I think you see already that considerable time is being spent - and wasted - developing and complying with these formulas.

Brad Brown, Lynne Osterman and Robin Smothers were the chairs of this year's "Vote Yes - Be a Hero" District 281 referendum committee. They wrote a rather acrimonious guest column in the December 6 Sun Post. They are too quick to blame others for the defeat and I conclude a bit too unwilling to examine their own performance.

We know that many people who support public education were deceived by the blitzkrieg of disinformation sent out by referendum opponents in the last two days before the election. Even though it is too late to change the outcome of the election, those false claims are damaging to the students, staff, and parents of the district, and must be corrected.

Blitzkrieg? Like it would have passed otherwise? First of all, I received nothing from the "vote no" forces, not even a phone call. Given their limited finances, it was hardly unexpected that they would spend most of it in the last few days. Were they the difference? We have no good way of knowing. Were their claims false? Let's see. I'm accepting their characterization of the "false claims" at face value.

False claim: Robbinsdale students are not learning and perform worse than students in other districts.

The facts: Robbinsdale Area School's students score higher than state and national averages on the ACT college entrance exam. Seventy more students took the ACT this school year than the previous. Districtwide, students met No Child Left Behind targets in 429 of 463 separate demographic categories for a 93 percent success rate.

The claim is admittedly a broad brush, but the facts cited are far too specific to address how 281 compares to other districts overall. I'm sure that the other districts could make similar specific claims.

False claim: Robbinsdale wastes taxpayer dollars.

The facts: The district spends 96 cents of every dollar it receives on instruction, student-support services and facilities and just 4 cents of each dollar on administration. In the last two years, administration expenses have been cut by $260,000. The district has cut $7.3 million in programs and services over the past seven years, closed an elementary school, and sold three surplus buildings, reinvesting the capital dollars in building renovations. The district cannot, by state law, use the proceeds from the sale of school buildings for operating expenses.

Everyone unit of government wastes taxpayer dollars so the claim is certainly not false. But is the waste significant? This answer provides no clue one way or another, and falsely implies that administration is waste. Maybe 281 needs more administration, not less, to solve its problems.

False claim: Robbinsdale recruits students from outside the district at district taxpayer expense.

The facts: The district does not actively recruit open-enrollment students. However, last year, Robbinsdale Area Schools 1,304 students from other districts chose to open-enroll into our district. The result was a net financial gain of $1.3 million. Transportation for students that open-enroll in our district is not paid for by the district.

If Open Enrollment brings net money into the District as they say, why wouldn't 281 recruit such students given its currently under-utilized facilities? District 286 (Brooklyn Center) actively recruits for the same reason and makes no secret of it. The word "actively" in the response is curious. Does 281 "passively" recruit? With an Open Enrollment of 10%, it would seem so. If anything, the claim would appear to be true to some extent.

To voters who voted "Yes," we thank you for your support of our students and teachers; and to those who voted "No," we want you to know that we will work diligently to show you that our students and teachers truly are worthy of your support in the future. Contrary to the message of the anti-public school organization, education is never a waste.

You don't me to fisk this Parthian shot. It does illustrate part of the attitude problem that is making it difficult to get this referendum passed.

In Part 1, I began the process of calculating State aid for public school (K-12) districts. I calculated 3 different "Pupil Units" indexes, ADM (attendance), WADM (weighted ADM), and AMCPU (adjusted WADM). Basic Revenue is WADM times $5,074 for 2007-08. We've only just begun.

Next is Extended Time Revenue, which "allows students to count up to an additional 0.2 [...] ADM , which is then used to generate an [incremental] AMCPU based on the student's grade level." This AMCPU times $4,601 is the Extended Time Revenue for 2007-08.

Gifted and Talented Revenue is another $12 per AMCPU, made a separate calculation because it must be spent for this purpose. This is the last easy calculation.

Now let's calculate the Basic Skills Revenue, which has two components: Compensatory and Limited English Proficiency (LEP), the latter concerning students "whose primary language is not English, whose English language skills do not allow full classroom participation, whose prior year score on an emerging academic English test is below the cutoff score, and who is enrolled in an LEP education program but has not been enrolled in Minnesota public schools for five or more years." It shouldn't take more than 3-4 weeks to identify and count them.

Compensatory revenue uses free and reduced price lunch demographics to allocate additional money "to meet the educational needs of pupils whose educational progress related to state or local content or performance standards is below the level that is appropriate for pupils at that age level." Here's the calculation:

1. Add 0.5 times the number of reduced price lunch students to the number of free lunch students.
   
2. Divide by the total number of students.
   
3. Multiply by 1.25, but limit the result to maximum of 1.
   
4. Now calculate 0.6 times the number of free lunch students plus 0.5 times the number of reduced price lunch students.
   
5. Multiply this by the factor from step 3 above, giving Compensation Pupil Units, not to be confused with a similar LEP calculation below.
   
6. Multiply these units by $4,659, which is the General Education Formula Allowance used to calculate Basic Revenue ($5,074) less $415.
   

I might add that my algorithm is much easier to understand that the method presented in the official document (see part 1). Moving on, Limited English Proficiency revenue is further divided into two components, LEP Regular and LEP Concentration. These only apply if the district has at least one LEP student.

The LEP Regular revenue is $700 times the number of LEP students or $14,000, whichever is greater. LEP Concentration revenue is more complex:

1. Divide the number of LEP students by the total number of students (ADM).
   
2. Divide this by 0.115, but do not allow the quotient to exceed 1.
   
3. Multiply by the number of LEP students.
   
4. Multiply by $250.
   

Adding the Compensatory, LEP Regular, and LEP Concentration amounts gives the total Basic Skills Revenue.

There's much more, as I'll continue to post. I'm only up to page 15 of 57. But already, do you see what the local districts are up against?

At the Robbinsdale (ISD 281)Truth in Taxation hearing, perhaps in response to my comments, they handed out a "Financing Education In Minnesota 2007-08" booklet. This is the work of the Department of Fiscal Analysis at the Minnesota House of Representatives. It says it's available on the House web site, but I haven't found it yet.

It explains how the State aid to K-12 education is calculated for each district. I had no idea it was this complicated. The booklet runs 57 pages.

Before you can even calculate the Basic Revenue, the district must first compute several variations of its enrollment, what it calls Pupil Units.

The Average Daily Membership (ADM) is the total headcount of students in a school district. Each student may not count for more than 1.0 ADM.

A Weighted ADM (WADM) is calculated as follows:

• One Kindergarten Pupil = 0.612 pupil units.
  
• One Elementary Pupil (grades 1-3) = 1.115 pupil unit
  
• One Elementary Pupil (grades 4-6) = 1.06 pupil unit
  
• One Secondary Pupil (grades 7-12) = 1.3 pupil unit
  
• "A Preschool Pupil with disabilities is counted as 1.25 pupil units "for the ratio of hours of service to 825 with a minimum of .28 ADM and a maximum of 1.25 pupil units."
  
  The Adjusted Marginal Cost Pupil Units (AMCPU) is the greater of the total of this year's WADM times 0.77 plus last year's WADM time 0.23, and the current WADM.
  
  The term "pupil units" in the aid formulas generally refers to AMCPU.
  

Got that? Now you can calculate "Basic Revenue" by multiplying AMCPU times $5,074. That wasn't too hard, only a couple dozen more calculations to go.

I'll continue this in Part 2, but already I'm feeling some sympathy for the school district.

Greetings from the planet Linux.

I've got my $84 Linux machine running, and this is my first post using it. The only problem I"m having is with the on/off switch, have to trip it with a pencil for now.

I braved the elements to attend the Robbinsdale Schools (District 281) Truth in Taxation meeting. By law, the levy is such that they don't have to hold this public hearing, but took the time to hold it anyway, and I sincerely appreciate it.

Once they had a quorum of the board, they started at 6:55 pm, 5 minutes early. I thought this was bad form, but since I again got to watch the 10 minute Colleen Needles "14 reasons why your property tax fluctuates" video, so no real harm done.

They also didn't have the 17 page summary on their web site as I posted, just last year's. They passed out this year's at the meeting. I did find the full budget earlier today, however, and printed out a few pages to take with me.

After the Needles video, a finance official went through the 17 pages, maybe another 10 minutes. Unfortunately, he spoke in his native tongue of UFARS, not English. No wonder the referendum failed, I thought.

Nobody wanted to complain about their assessment, so we moved on to the failed referendum. I spoke second, basically saying their numbers were too confusing, at times seemingly contradictory, that's why it failed. We had an interesting, if too short dialog, and the board seemed genuinely interested in my point of view.

The senior citizen (and I'm not far from that status myself) that spoke after me raised another good point, about charter schools, one reason for the slightly declining enrollment for ISD 281 the past few years. Are they resigned to that fate, a slowly shrinking district, not the juggernaut of old that could compete with Edina?

I came away with a couple of fresh perspectives for future posts, plus the pleasure of finally meeting Lassie of the Freedom Dogs and SD45.

It looks like we're in for round two of another food fight, this one over sodium, i.e. table salt. It's bad for you they say. This is not true for the general population, as John Stossel and others have reported. Of those who are salt-sensitive, it is seldom a serious problem in that the marketplace has many options, from specialized restaurants, foods, and Mrs. Dash.

But even if you think we'd all be better off if we forced commercially prepared food to reduce sodium, passing a law is the wrong answer. Today, this generally means using a potassium salt instead of a sodium salt like table salt, kosher salt, sea salt, and MSG. But this can be problematic for those with hypertension as well, as my doctor has advised me.

But the real problem is a cooking paradox. Use too little salt when cooking, a common problem in restaurants, and people reach for the salt shaker. Unfortunately, they add much more salt than you should have when cooking. So unless salt shakers are outlawed, you increase the health risk for many, not decrease it.

You know what's coming if the anti-salters get their way - a new assault on potassium.

My city's annual "Truth in Taxation" meeting was tonight, which I attended. Having provided some input as a volunteer member of our Financial Commission, I was curious to see the reaction. Actually, by law the proposed 2008 levy is below the threshold that requires this public hearing, but the city did the right thing anyway.

Only two civilians attended, who both spoke. They both who saw a large increase in their assessed value and therefore property tax. Both were very civil, though, especially when they found out they really want to be at the spring meeting when you can challenge your assessed value. There may be more when the budget is adopted at the regular Council meeting, but I conclude that people are either happy, unaware, or resigned with inevitability.

Tomorrow night, I will be at the Robbinsdale School District 281 Truth in Taxation meeting, as may be another MOBster or two. Just to set the stage, the entire Brooklyn Center budget is published on its web site, nearly 200 pages. The Robbinsdale School District also publishes its budget on the Web, but only 17 pages to explain how they spend over ten times as much money. Oh, and this is the 2006-7 budget, not this year's.

I'm looking forward to this.

***

We saw a 10 minute presentation on how property taxes work in Minnesota, featuring Colleen Needles. She details the many reasons why your property taxes may go up or down, a big one being that Minnesota possibly has the most complicated property taxes in the country with over 20 classifications.

Needles said if you live in a growing community, your taxes might go down because the tax base is expanding. But, she continuted, those new homes require streets and sewers, and most importantly, public schools. Education Minnesota never misses a trick.

I have long believed that property taxes should be more like fees, to cover the direct costs of owning land. Education is by far the biggest exception to this. I am therefore sympathetic to the idea of 100% state funding of K-12 education drawn from non-property taxes.

But once the money is raised, I am equally of the opinion that the locals should spend it. Choice one would be for the parents to spend it - true choice. Choice two would be the school board, progress if it eliminates the influence of the State and Federal educational departments. (And the Minnesota School Board Association and the Association of Metropolitan School Districts and the Minnesota Association of School Business Officials and ...)

This isn't going to happen, either. In fact, the most likely outcome is still higher federal spending, higher state spending, and higher local spending, with tax increases to match. Is there any way to win?

When P.S. Minnesota presents its grand plan for one or two more billion dollars in state aid, is there some way we can present our one condition: transparency? To get the additional money, a school district must publish, accurately and promptly:

1. All non-payroll expenses paid and related contracts signed.
2. All employment contracts, from Superintendents on down, including union agreements.
3. Coherent, professional financial statements, including hours worked and student attendance.

For extra credit, I'd also want to see standardized test results, and grading distributions as a check on grade inflation. But to finally be able to follow the money might well be worth the price.

I ask again, what happened to the party of Humphrey, McCarthy, and Wellstone? Every year we seem to have yet another honesty-challenged DFL'er, this year's being Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. Maybe two.

Defending Ritchie on Almanac was DFL Chair Brian Melendez, who made these statements:

1. "Mark Ritchie did not try to cover up any mistakes."
   
2. "He misspoke."
   
3. "He took responsibility for it right away."
   
4. "He's co-operating fully with the investigation that's now underway with the Legislative Auditor's Office."
   
5. "Throwing mud on somebody, and then saying they have to step out of the job because they got mud on them, that's what the Republicans are doing here."
   
6. "Mark Ritchie is a man of integrity."
   

Every one of these statements is false, by Mark Ritchie's own testimony. What does that make Melendez?

I'm not a fan of GOP chair Ron Carey. But he was in top form here, easily, calmly, factually winning the debate.

Updated with November's scores.

Pundit            Weeks Runs Hits Errors
========================================

David Strom         7   14    26      1

Dave Thompson       5    9    15      0

Phil Krinke         2    2     6      0

Blois Olson         4    3     8      4

Ember R.-J.         8    4    15     22

Updated with November's scores.

Pundit               Weeks Runs Hits Errors
===========================================

Phil Krinke             4    17   27    0   

David Strom             3    11   19    0

Fritz Knack             6    13   27    2

Sarah Janacek           4     7   17    3

Dan Dorman              1     1    4    0

Andy Brehm              2     1    4    1

David Hann              1     3    7    0

Dee Long                1     0    1    2

Jane Ranum              4     3    9   10

Ember R.-J.             4     4   10   10

Taryl Clark             1     0    0    3

Wes Skoglund            1     0    1    4

Javier Morillo-Alicea   1     0    1    4

Andy Dawkins            3     0    5   11

Grace Schwab            1     1    5    2

Mindy Greiling          1     1    3    5

Mary Jo McGuire         3     0    6   10

Wy Spano                3     1    3   11