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Lovejoy ISD WILL NOT disclose
financial information!
Since February 2002, Lovejoy ISD
has refused to disclose how they are spending taxpayers dollars.
Archived posts below:
Lovejoy
residents petition Legislative Budget Board
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(Jan 2005)
Petition to require Lovejoy to give public secondary operations
budget.
More than 100 people have spoken –
they want to know how Lovejoy plans to finance secondary operations.
It's a reasonable question that deserves an answer. |
Carol Ray, Lovejoy superintendent resigns immediately after these
Letter to the Editor are published. Carol Ray lead the district
in building secondary without any financial proof of promises made.
Superintendent retires (Feb
2005)
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(May 2005) Ted Moore from
McKinney ISD announced as new Lovejoy superintendent. Welcome
Mr. Moore! |
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(Jan 2005) Shortly after
these letters were published Carol Ray, the Lovejoy superintendent
who led the community to build secondary schools retired.
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February 2005
After three years of multiple requests for a secondary
operations budget, multiple Open Records Acts, and
one hundred+ citizens petitioning
the Texas Legislative Budget Board, Lovejoy ISD has finally
released some financial information about secondary
operations. While the information did not comply with
the petition request, it is a beginning....
Financial
information Lovejoy provided after budget petition
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Only after the Legislative
Budget Board was petitioned to require Lovejoy to provide
a secondary operations budget did Lovejoy shared this
financial information. Lovejoy's current financial asst.
superintendent's cover letter clearly distances her financial
calculations from those used by the school board in their
decision to expand Lovejoy from an elementary-only district
to a K-12 district. This information is not the pro forma
budget requested by the petition and does not detail costs
of operating a secondary school.
Feb
2005 Presentation on Growth, Bonds, and Operating Budget
Lovejoy ISD tax rate will start at $1.96
the first year the high school opens and reach $1.99
year 2008-2009. |
Lovejoy ISD continues
to thumb nose at taxpayers
December 2004
Twenty five months after Lovejoy ISD
told residents that a secondary operating budget was available,
Lovejoy residents are still waiting for it. One hundred taxpayers
have petitioned the Legislative
Budget Board to require Lovejoy to provide the public with secondary
financial planning.
Lovejoy ISD has a building budget which covers the cost
of constructing buildings not operation costs.
The Lovejoy ISD secondary school operating budget covers
teacher, janitor, counselor, principal, cafeteria worker, and
libertarian salaries in addition to a multitude of other costs
to operate a school. It is important because it will show
how many academic and extracurricular activities can be offered
to secondary students when the Lovejoy high school opens Fall
2006. It will also show the impact the secondary
schools will have on the elementary.
Return on investment
The 2002-2003 Lovejoy board voted unanimously
to build secondary schools Nov 2002 without completing a pro
forma budget for Lovejoy secondary schools.
Numerous citizens asked the Lovejoy board to complete a pro forma
budget before voting to build secondary schools.
The
financial studies available to the 2002-2003 Lovejoy board
were inadequate to determine what could be offered to secondary
students.
There is a loophole in the Texas
Education Code that allows school boards to decide to build
secondary systems without ANY financial substantiation for
its operations viability.
2002-2003 Lovejoy board that
led the community to build secondary schools without a secondary
operations budget.
Rich Hickman - reelected 2005
John Walsh - Allegedly made almost $400,000
selling office supplies to the Lovejoy district
Sue Hoffman - Voted to build
the high school, which is located right next to her 5 acre home
site that she is allegedly under contract to sell as Outstanding
Potential Commercial Property.
Vacated seat at term end -
Scott Drablos 2003,
Gary Rodenbaugh 2003, while
serving on Collin County Tax Appraisal Board
John Helm 2004, served as
Chairman of Lucas P&Z simultaneously
Bettye Petree - moved out of district 2004
Official financial information from
Lovejoy Independent School District
Jan 13 & 14, 2003 Meetings
(transcribed notes from video)
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Revenues will not cover operating
expenses the first 3 years.
Lovejoy stated that the board's financial projections
were based on today's "best" information but were
not a certainty and any predictions which failed to come
true would severely impact the financial picture. Lovejoy
said the school budget was "doable" but that finances
would be "extremely tight especially during the transition
phase and would remain tight". Lovejoy projected from
their figures the school would run in the "red"
for the first 3 years at least and use up $3.5 million (half)
of the district's reserve funds. Lovejoy stated in a
bad economy, additional reserve funds may be needed.
LovejoyISD school financial success is tied
to meeting property assessed value growth goals.
This means that either property values increase to meet
these goals or new construction must meet the goals.
In the event of either
"flat" or "declining" property values
or growth, the district estimated
it might possibly survive 3 years.
Informational
Meetings January 13th & 14th, 2003
(video tape of meeting available upon request)
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Lovejoy ISD tax rate
2004-2005
Lovejoy tax rate has increased 14% in two years from $1.60 to
$1.8234.
Lovejoy has yet to provide a secondary operations budget to explain
the tax increase.
Lovejoy's Maintenance & Operations Tax Rate
(M&O) is currently capped at $1.50.
All future tax increases will be for the Interest
& Sinking (I&S) Fund which covers the cost of bond payments.
2003-2004
The tax rate was increased from $1.60 to $1.703000 in
the Lovejoy ISD Board of Trustees Meeting,
August 26, 2003.
Just a few short months before this tax increase, prior to the
successful bond election, letters from the Lovejoy school district
promised voters that if the bond passed there would be no tax
increase this year. No secondary budget was provided to explain
the need for the 8% increase.
Official Lovejoy ISD
letters and unofficial letters to the Lovejoy community concerning
the tax rate.
Tax rate 2003-2004
The proposed tax rate 2004-2005 was increased to $1.8234
after the Lovejoy board.
Lovejoy ISD Bond information
$61 Million Bond passed.
This will enable Lovejoy ISD to build a $30 million high school.
An initial $10 million bond has been sold at historically low
bond rates.
The bond issuance
for the $20 million middle school and $11 million elementary school
will be contingent on assessed property value growth.
Additional bonds can only be issued as long as they stay under
the 50-cent property value cap.
Bond
Presentation from official Lovejoy ISD web site.
Bond Sale of 23,190,000 on Sept.
21, 2004
True Interest Cost (TIC) of 4.4596%
Bond
Documents on file for Lovejoy
Bond
Preliminary Official Statement
Bond
Final Official Statement
"TAX RATE LIMITATION.
. . For debt service of unlimited tax debt: there is no limitation
on the tax rate (Sections 45.001, 45.003(b)(1) and 45.003(e),
Texas Education Code), provided, however, with respect to "new
debt", the District must demonstrate to the Attorney General
of Texas that it has the ability to pay all "new debt"
with a debt service tax not to exceed $0.50 per $100 assessed
valuation.
Once the prospective
ability to pay such tax has been shown and the bonds are issued,
a district may levy an unlimited tax to pay debt service, if required.
In addition, taxes levied to pay debt service on bonds approved
by district voters at an election held on or before April 1, 1991
and issued before September 1, 1992 (or debt issued to refund
such bonds) are not subject to the foregoing threshold tax rate
test. The Bonds are "new debt" and are subject to the
$0.50 threshold tax rate test."
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