The Superintendent Responds

Let's start by giving Dr. William Jefferson Mathis his proper respect.  He is a clever man.  That's why he teaches education finance at the University of Vermont.  Kinda like a robber baron teaching at a business school.

Dr. Mathis  was caught in the minutes of a meeting saying that he was going to pad his budget before Act 82 goes into effect.  His response in a letter to the Rutland Herald addresses "cyberspace rumors" about his budgets.  By that, he's of course referring to Vermont Tiger!  In his letter, Mathis does not deny making the statement about padding his budget.  And he does not refute the point that his $8 million-plus budget does not ever get voted on.

All Mathis does is offer a meaningless "general administration" number from 2005.  Meaningless because it's all a shell game where one can put any number of expenses under different categories.  And nobody is better at the shell game than Dr. Mathis.  That is why he teaches education finance at the University of Vermont.

Comments

[G. Cross]

Wow! Curt has once again demonstrated that he is not particularly interested in facts. His interest is apparently a continued attack on the Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union and its Superintendent, Bill Mathis.

Mathis states in his Rutland Herald letter-to-the-editor:

“One untrue assertion is that Rutland Northeast is a high-spending central office. Actually, Rutland Northeast spent 1.3 percent of our educational dollars on the central office, while the state average is 2.66 percent — more than double the RNESU rate (fiscal year 2005, state Education Department). Where people can get confused is that some state databases do not explain that Rutland Northeast has centralized special education and transportation costs. Most supervisory unions do not. Thus, a casual reader might conclude that RNESU is a high spender rather than a well-below-average spender.”

And, Curt responds: “All Mathis does is offer a meaningless "general administration" number from 2005.”

Purposefully confusing factual data with “meaningless” whatever is a clear indication that one has an agenda other than truth. If Curt wishes to expose what he considers excess expenditures in SU budgets across the state, he needs to collect both financial and programmatic data from all of the SUs and lay out his case.

I might add that such a study would be a service to many who are interested in education costs in Vermont. Given the complexities of the budgets and the services provided by the various SUs, it would be a time consuming task to complete such a study. Nevertheless, it is an important topic for study. So the challenge for you, Curt, is to prove your points with facts, not continued expressions of opinion and innuendo.

[G. Cross]

Each Supervisory Union has to prepare a full and detailed budget; thus, the best way would be to go directly to the SU and request a copy of that detailed budget. However, you may need a bit of explanation as not every SU budgets items in the same way. It is unfortunate that the State Board of Education does not seem to be interested in this problem. They certainly have the power to put into place a much more transparent process for all SUs to follow. They also have the data available to create a comparative spread sheet. Why they don't can only be explained by them.

[Curtis Hier]

Anon, George is right that comparisons are apples and oranges.

That being said, now George,I know transportation and special ed. are in Mathis's budget. And I know that's not the case with most other SUs. For goodness sake, why don't you and Mathis get that I KNOW that?

But HE said he was going to get budgets up in anticiaption of Act 82. He didn't deny it. So that raises red flags about the level of spending he intends.

Secondly, because he funds transportation and special ed. through his office that's MORE money that doesn't get voted on.

Thirdly, you and I both know that his general administration number is meaningless.

The facts that I am not interested in, George, are the meaningless ones.