Spooky Things

Halloween has just passed but there are still some spooky things going on in our community and they can’t be solved by giving out a little candy. Yes, I believe that we are about to embark on another building program for Building 8. That, in itself, is not scary. What is terrifying is the way that we are running our finances in Jefferson County. If we take our debt and divide it by the people that reside in Jefferson County, we would all owe around $1600 and that is before we take out anymore bonds. Our School Board has been convinced that they cannot instigate a policy that requires that purchases that are “special” or over a certain dollar amount come before the Board for approval. The Tennessee Comptroller’s Office disagrees and, the truth is, that it would not make sense for the School Board to have no power over purchases. Sure the Finance Office puts out the bids and awards the bids, but the School Board can decide if a purchase or expenditure ever even gets to the bid process. Yet, they were told that the Act of ’81 puts all the power with the Finance Director. Humm.

We have a Finance Director that is looking at other options, including the Director of the Chamber of Commerce, which, in my opinion, receives more than its fair share of tax payer funds. We have a Finance Office that has had serious issues. Issues that have required the TBI to become involved. Basically, we are sinking in financial quicksand and should be looking for a strong rope. Instead we keep trying to tread water as we sink lower and lower. How much longer can we keep flailing about until we are totally over our heads?

We take bond advice from people that make money off of our decisions. We have a well paid CFO who relies on answers for financial questions from the Director of Maintenance and Business Affairs for the DOE, rather than being able to produce those answers himself. Our School Board is looking a changing purchasing policy on the advice of people who are obviously misinformed. We have a Chamber of Commerce that receives a great deal of funding from tax payers, with no transparency, and our finance director is looking to jump ship to a vessel that is riddled with legal issues and the object of much public scrutiny-which says a lot about how he feels about his current job. How did we become so dysfunctional? We are the Kardashians of financial dysfunction and if that doesn’t scare you nothing will. Bottom line-we need a real internal audit and we need it yesterday.