GILROY
– The school district is making its bond oversight more public
by posting committee meeting information online and providing an
activity report specifically for the community.
GILROY – The school district is making its bond oversight more public by posting committee meeting information online and providing an activity report specifically for the community.
The district is required by law to make information about the Citizens’ Oversight Committee, established to monitor spending related to the district’s $69 million facilities bond, accessible to the public. Until recently, much of the information that should be posted on the Web wasn’t, and questions about bond spending were raised at a recent school board meeting.
“The information for the Citizens’ Oversight Committee should be accorded the same status as the board of trustees,” said Steve Brinkman, assistant superintendent of administrative services, who joined the district in late October, replacing Lee White. Since coming on board, Brinkman has been playing catch-up with being in compliance with oversight committee transparency.
That means providing agendas, minutes, meeting dates and times to the public. One member of the community has approached Brinkman with concerns about the unavailability of information about the committee.
One item the committee has yet to review is the district’s bond audit report. When the school board approved the audit during a January meeting, Trustee Bob Kraemer said the oversight committee should have seen it before the board, rather than after. At issue are Measure I funds paid to teachers who moved back into their classrooms after bond-funded construction. The district is checking with its bond counsel to see whether the funds were appropriately spent. Brinkman said other districts have used funds that way.
The committee will review the audits, which were finished after it’s last meeting, in March.
California Education Code, in requiring that the oversight committee make regular public reports, also states that documents and reports issued to the committee be “a matter of public record and be made available on the Internet Web site maintained by the governing board.”
Last month, the district began to post committee data on its Web site. The Gilroy Unified School District home page now includes a roster of committee members and minutes from the two most recent meetings.
Brinkman said the district will add more information, including past meeting minutes.
“We really should be, on a regular basis, posting meeting times and agenda items,” he said. “We’ve committed to that. We do everything right to the best of our knowledge.”
Brinkman said he trusts that the district’s bond counsel is making sure the committee is transparent, as required by law.
Members of the committee, who have been meeting at least quarterly since last February, provided a report to the school board in October but will also issue a more in-depth report for the community at large. Committee members are drafting the report, and it will be posted on the GUSD Web site within the next few weeks, Brinkman said.
Under Proposition 39, which allows bonds to pass with 55 percent voter approval rather than the previous 66 percent, the school district must establish a citizens’ oversight committee. The district appoints a variety of community members to monitor how bond money is spent and “alert the public to any waste or improper expenditure.”
“They can make recommendations (to the district); they can report back to the public,” Brinkman said.
The committee can even appeal to a judge to stop expenditures and construction projects if it believes funds are being improperly spent.
The Measure I Citizens’ Oversight Committee has expanded its role beyond monitoring the $69 million bond approved in November 2002. To date, only about $200,000 of Measure I money, earmarked for major repairs and upgrades, has been spent.
“We’re actually getting reports on all the funds that relate to capital expenditures,” Committee Chair Jane Howard said.
The status of Measure J, GUSD’s other facilities bond, developer fees, land sales, state funding and grants are included in a monthly financial report prepared by district staff prepare for trustees and the committee.
“We’re treating it very much like a business,” Howard said.
The committee must have at least seven members representing business, senior citizens, a taxpayers’ organization, parents and the community at large. Nearly all of the 11 GUSD committee members currently have or previously had a child in a Gilroy school.
“The really good news about the representation is the quality and experience of the people who represent those groups,” Howard said. “We have a really good cross-section of individuals.”
Vice Chair Gary Sanchez, a former GUSD trustee, is “very sharp on the budget,” she said. Committee member Mike Smurthwaite has experience in facilities and maintenance.
Howard herself has inside knowledge of the school district’s Facilities Master Plan. The former GUSD trustee was a member of the facilities work group that designed the 25-year, $150 million plan.
“It’s a pretty wide range of people on that committee, politically and other ways,” said John Baker, committee member and Gavilan College’s vice president of student services. “They’re all people that have a real investment in making sure that K-12 does nothing less than sparkle for our children.”
Baker attended each meeting as an observer and recently replaced a parent on the member roster.
“It just seemed to me a good place to get involved and give back to the community,” he said. Besides himself, the committee rarely has an audience, he said.
“It’s the grueling nuts and bolts to make sure the projects are done,” he said, “and watching the staff and working with the staff and making sure the bond funds are taken care of.”
Committee members also volunteered to act as the district’s Surplus Land Committee, since they fit that requirement with the addition of a teacher member.
Establishing a Surplus Land Committee is the required first step to selling or leasing district-owned land. That committee declared identified six areas of excess land.
In their report to the school board, committee members said they visited each of the school sites to familiarize themselves with the campuses and future projects included in the Facilities Master Plan.
They also approved the hiring of two full-time, temporary construction managers to oversee bond-funded projects.
Although bond funds cannot be used for paying existing district staff, the managers were approved because they will deal only with bond-related projects.
When the district decided last March to hire temporary, full-time construction managers, it said the cost over the next five years would be $750,000. The cost to contract management would have been $3 million.
To view information about the committee, visit www.gusd.k12.ca.us. The Citizens’ Oversight Committee and Surplus Land Committee will meet March 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the district office, 7810 Arroyo Circle.
