“Have you seen the
little piggies
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Crawling in the dirt
And for all the little piggies
Life is getting worse
Always having dirt to play around in.
Have you seen the
bigger piggies
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.”
In their starched white shirts
You will find the bigger piggies
Stirring up the dirt
Always have clean shirts to play around in.
In their sties with all their backing
They don't care what goes on around
In their eyes there's something lacking
What they need's a damn good whacking.
Everywhere there's lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.”
All lyics in this post from The
Beatles, “White Album”, lyrics by George Harrison
Here’s the latest from Corbett’s
office:
Fort Cherry is in the process of
putting together the budget for next year.
The governor is counting on the individual school boards to focus “on
things that directly benefit students.”
On March 26th, the Fort Cherry School Board
discussed at length the amount of money that should be set aside for
administrators to use for travel to conferences, etc. The board voted to
cap expenditures at $900, inclusive . . . conference fee, lodging, meals . . . $900 for everything. A request to spend anything over $900 would
require prior board approval.
This is a very big step in the right
direction for Fort Cherry, where the spending by the administrators has been
out of control. It appears that they behave as though they have an open
checkbook to party and play rather than work for the taxpayers and our
children.
At the April 16th meeting, Trish Craig
gave an impassioned appeal for board “endorsement” and permission to apply for
two grants that focus on professional development – Race to the Top and Whole
Child Network of schools. According to
Craig, the grants were fully funded with the exception of meals.
However, both grants require
administrative travel: Race to the Top requires two administrators to travel to
Harrisburg; Whole Child requires five team members to travel to Chicago.
The pressure was on for board “endorsement”
to be granted that night. According to
Craig, the deadline to apply for Race to the Top is May 11, and the deadline
for Whole Child Network is due in “two weeks”.
It was apparent by her zealous appeal that Craig wants to get those
applications in!
The board needs to be very careful when
it comes to endorsing any type of travel for the administration, even something
that appears harmless, like meal expenses . . .
Take a look at Craig’s submission for
reimbursement for the EPLC (Education Policy and Leadership Center) meeting in
Harrisburg. This meeting was attended monthly
by Craig, Jacoby, and Dinnen.
Here’s the reimbursement form Craig
submitted to the district:
Note that Craig charged this meeting to
“tuition” (code 240), which would be completely invalid as nothing on
this reimbursement pertains to payment for tuition. The coding was changed to “travel” (code 580),
but there is no way to determine if the
change made back in November 2009, or in August 2011, when the right-to-know
request for administrative reimbursements was submitted.
Take a close look at this receipt for the
administrators’ “dinner” . . . pepperoni, cheese balls, gouda, grapes, chilled
shrimp, cannoli . . . $64.47 . . .
. . . add
a nice bottle of wine and you have a party.
Remember, Dinnen, Craig, and Jacoby were
staying in a hotel in Harrisburg . . . where was this food consumed . . .
. . . in
Craig’s hotel room? . . . Jacoby’s? . . . Dinnen’s?
It looks like Craig has a “savings card”
for the store . . . do the pennies she saved justify the expense?
“Have you seen the
bigger piggies . . .
. . . In their sties with all their backing” . . .
. . . In their sties with all their backing” . . .
Here’s Dinnen’s
reimbursement submittal for the June 2010 EPLC meeting in Harrisburg:
“You can see them out for dinner “
. . .
“With their piggy wives” . . .
With just 33.65 miles remaining on the drive home,
the three stopped in Belle Vernon to eat dinner at The Back Porch. According to their website, The Back Porch
was voted “one most romantic restaurants in Pittsburgh”. (http://www.backporchrestaurant.com/)
Due to this mostly
illegible receipt, you can’t tell exactly what was consumed at this meal, but
it cost the taxpayers $163.69. The total
cost to taxpayers for two days of food - $334.77.
Next, let’s
look at submissions by Sroka and Jacoby for administrative functions. Dinnen justifies these “administrative
meetings/retreats” as a time for the administrators to bond . . . in other
words, party and play.
We will
start with Sroka’s reimbursement form.
It looks like they had an administrative meeting at the Trolley Museum
in Washington, and then went on their way for lunch and dinner.
Seven people
(all administrators?) met in Washington at 10:41 a.m. for the “meeting” at the
Trolley Museum.
Then those
seven had lunch at Mallorca on the Southside.
According to
the Mallorca website, “We offer the finest Spanish Continental Cuisine, an award
winning wine list and world class service.” (http://www.mallorcarestaurant.com/)
Mallorca’s prices reflect that claim.
Keep in mind that 40% of Fort Cherry students are on the free
and reduced lunch program.
“In their sties with all their
backing
They don't care what goes on around“ . . .
They don't care what goes on around“ . . .
Looking at
the credit card receipt, the group left Mallorca at 3:19 p.m. . . .
. . . and
went to “dinner” at the Cheesecake Factory at 3:31, exactly 12 minutes later.
Ten desserts for seven people = $249.66 for lunch.
“Everywhere there's lots of piggies”
Now on to
Jacoby . First, the reimbursement form .
. . another day of party and play for the five people who attended.
The receipts
shown below were charged to expenditure code 580 – “Travel”.
This is the
PDE’s definition for “Travel”:
580
TRAVEL
Expenditures for
transportation, meals, lodging and associated expenses incurred by staff
members or students traveling on behalf of the LEA. Per diem in lieu of
reimbursement of actual expenses is also charged here. Include in this object
travel to and from conference sites. Training fees and associated training
costs should be recorded to object 324.
The
definition doesn’t say “day of party and play”, but then again, if you are
coding your expenditures creatively . . .
Looks like the
five went to Phipps, had drinks and snacks, then off to the Aviary, and
finally stopped at the Double Wide Grill for drinks and appetizers . . .
The last
item on the reimbursement form was a $461.05 receipt from Giant Eagle.
It is
impossible to determine exactly when this considerable amount of food was
purchased because the date and time has been redacted from the receipt. As with the food bought in Harrisburg, where
was this large amount of food consumed? . . .
. . . maybe
a party at Dinnen’s?
Was all this
food for five people . . . for one meal?
Were others
included . . . perhaps spouses . . . fed with taxpayer funds????
“What they need's a damn good whacking”
The $461.05
spent at Giant Eagle was charged to “General Supplies”.
This is how
the PDE defines “General Supplies”:
600
SUPPLIES
Amounts paid for
material items of an expendable nature that are consumed, worn out, or
deteriorate in use; or items that lose their identity through fabrication or
incorporation into different or more complex units or substances. (Charges are
not recorded to this account but to the following sub-accounts.)
610
GENERAL SUPPLIES
Expenditures for all supplies (other
than those listed below) acquired for the operation of the LEA, including
freight and cartage. Consumable teaching
and office items such as paper, pencils, forms, postage, blank diskettes, blank
CD-ROMs, blank videotapes, and other supplies of relatively low unit costs,
necessary for instruction and / or administration should be included in this
category. (A more specific classification is achieved by identifying the
function chargeable.)
Food is
not a consumable teaching or office item.
The board needs to be very careful when
it comes to endorsing any type of travel for the administration, even something
that appears harmless, like meal expenses.
“Everywhere there's
lots of piggies
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.”
Living piggy lives
You can see them out for dinner
With their piggy wives
Clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon.”
It’s time to clean up the pig pen and
focus “on things that directly benefit students”.
“ .
. . local school districts and school boards will be fine if they focus “on
things that directly benefit students.”
. . . Corbett spokesman Tim Eller.
