New Bill Payments Report to Debut in May 2014 Board Packet

I received an email from Fox C-6 Assistant Superintendent Dr. Lorenzo Rizzi on Wednesday April 14, 2014 in response to my Public Comments about the Bill Payments and Credit Card Statements I made at the April 2014 school board meeting. I also commented about the Bill Payments and Credit Card Statements at the at the February and March 2014 school board meetings as well.

Dr. Rizzi's email stated:

"I am writing to inform that beginning with the BOE May meeting, the payment of bills will show more detail which includes credit card purchases. These will be included in the board packets and posted on the website each month. I have scanned an example for your viewing."

So, starting in May 2014, you will be able to download school board meeting packets and review the bill payments for the month in the new format. I responded to Dr. Rizzi and thanked him for the change. Hopefully, the district will update ALL of this school year's board packets to the new Bill Payments Report format on the district website. It will be very easy for the district to rerun the reports using the new format and replace the pages in the board packets. The district already updates the board packets on the district website each month a few days after the school board meeting to include the Bill Payments Report that was provided in the "Late Materials" just prior to the school board meeting. It should only take a few hours to replace the Bill Payments reports in the board packets for the entire year.

The updated report will be very similar to the old report that had been in use for years before the district switched to the Tyler Systems software last July. The new report format includes two new columns of data. There will be a TRANSACTION DESCRIPTION column and an ACCOUNT DESCRIPTION column for the the fund account.

View a Sample of the New Bill Payments Report

Each month you can download the public portion of the school board meeting packets from the district's website. The board packets contain the board meeting minutes, letters to the district, bill payments report, staff separation and new hires reports and other documents that are provided to our school board members each month a week prior to the next school board meeting. School board meetings are held on the 3rd Tuesday of the month each month (other than July when there is no meeting). So, you can look for the documents online a week before the next board meeting.

The school board meeting packets contain the Bill Payments Report that our school board members review prior to approving the payments each month. Not all of the Bill Payments are included in the board meeting packets prior to the board meeting. There is usually another Bill Payments Report included in their "Late Materials" which is provided to them just prior to the board meeting. The payments in the Late Materials can be anywhere from $1.5 Million to $4 Million dollars or more. The April 15, 2014 school board meeting Late Materials contained an additional $1,582,835.19 in payments for the board to approve. Having descriptions in the bill payments report will help our board members and the public.

You can download Fox C-6 Board Meeting Packets from the district website using the link below. Currently only the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school year board packets are on the district website.

Fox C-6 Board Meeting Packets on District Website

It's taken a while to convince our school district to put the payment descriptions back onto the Bill Payments report. Last fall I spoke to Assistant Superintendent Mark McCutchen at the Arnold Days parade about the missing descriptions. Since Mr. McCutchen is in charge of finance, I asked him if he could add the payment descriptions back onto the bill payments report because the public has no idea what the purchases were for without a description.

The public is certainly going to ask questions when they see a payment for $24,723 that was paid to The Bridal Shoppe and there's nothing describing what the purchase was for. The majority of people have quite a puzzled reaction when they find out that the district spent $24,723 at The Bridal Shoppe. Had there been a description column on the bill payments report documenting that the payment was for choir robes, then maybe there would have been fewer questions regarding the payment.

It's good to know that our school board is beginning to see the need to be more transparent. It's a very important step towards rebuilding the public's trust of our school board and school district leadership. Prior school board decisions and lack of communication with the public have caused a great deal of distrust in the community. It will take time to restore that trust. Superintendent Critchlow has made it quite clear by her responses that transparency isn't as important to her as it is to the community.

And, attempts to block the public from speaking with the school board without first speaking to a school district administrator regarding school board decisions also undermines the public's trust and it does not follow school board policy.

It's important that our administrators and school board members read and understand our school board Policies and Regulations and that they follow them as well. They clearly document the roles of our school board and our Superintendent. They were written and adopted to be the rules for governing our school district.

Per our school board policies, 

"As a member of the school Board, I shall: Accept my policy-making responsibilities and require the Superintendent to administer the school in accordance with those policies."

You can read more from Fox's school board policies about School Board Member Qualifications, their Role, Oath, Code of Ethics and more in the document below that contains just those sections from the Fox C-6 School District's board policies and regulations.

Fox C-6 School Board Member Qualifications,

Role, Oath, Code of Ethics and More

What About Those Bill Payments and Credit Card Payments?

The April 2014 Fox C-6 School Board meeting will have marked 2 months since I asked the Fox C-6 School Board the following two questions:

How can the school board approve Bill Payments when there are no payment descriptions documenting what each payment is for?

How can the school board approve paying the credit card bills when they aren’t provided the credit card statements to document what was purchased with the credit cards?

It's been nearly two months and these questions still haven't been answered by our school board or the school district despite several emails informing the board and Superintendent Critchlow that they still haven't answered the questions. Superintendent Critchlow stated at the November 5, 2013 school board workshop that every person who has asked questions during Public Comments has gotten answers to their questions. Obviously her statement wasn't true.

I continue to document all of the times that Superintendent Critchlow makes statements that aren't true so the public understands what they have been overpaying her for during her tenure as superintendent.

Will the school board ever answer the questions regarding Bill Payments and Credit Card Payments? 

How are they doing their job as a school board and providing oversight of our taxpayer dollars if they have no idea what the checks that they are approving are paying for if there aren't any descriptions on the Bill Payments?

How does the school board know what the more than $2.1 Million Dollars in credit card payments have paid for if they aren't provided credit card statements in their board packets each month?

Please call, email or ask your school board members some of these questions during Public Comments at a school board meeting and let me know if you get an answer. It appears that they can't or won't answer these questions which means that the school board isn't following the Code of Ethics that they swore to uphold.

Latest Emails Regarding Questions to the Board and Credit Card Statements

Below is the email I sent in response to the school district's Tuesday April 8, 2014 email. The district's Tuesday April 8 email included an attachment that informed me that the school district would need to charge me between $160 - $170 for copies of the credit card statements for the current school year. It would take 5 1/2 hours to search for and redact credit card statements and another 1/2 hour to copy the documents. It would cost $16.00 for the 160 copies the actual copies.

My email below refers to the Missouri Attorney General's website which states that a government body can waive the fees if the documents are not for personal or commercial interest. Since the credit card statements are public record and should be included in the board of education materials packet each month for our school board members to review, these documents should be made available to the public as well.

I emailed the board and superintendent my request for the documents and asked that they waive ALL fees for the credit card statements in the public's interest per the Missouri Attorney General's website. I received a response to my my email on Friday April 11 which included a copy of the 2013-2014 Fox C-6 Administrator Salaries and the 2014-2015 Fox C-6 Administrator Salaries as attachments. However, there was no response or reference to my request for the credit card statements and the waiving of the $160-$170 fee they wished to charge to obtain the credit card statements.

From: Rich Simpson
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2014 7:42 AM
To: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary
Cc: Hermann, Cheryl - Director; Cheryl Hermann; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Dan Kroupa; Smith, Dan - Board Vice President; David Palmer; Laughlin, John; Linda Nash; Steve Holloway
Subject: RE: Questions for the Fox C-6 School Board and Missouri Sunshine Law Documents Request

Thank you for your reply.

No one on the school board has addressed my questions that I presented at the February 2014 Fox C-6 school board meeting and that I included in my March 28 and April 4, 2014 emails regarding Bill Payments and credit card payments. When will these questions be answered by our school board?
The administrator salary schedule that I requested is the one that was included in the board packets in the past. It lists all of the administrator's names and positions along with their salaries for each of the upcoming school years. I have attached a copy of the report from the 2013 school board packets as an example. However, the Administrator Salary report that I attached from the 2013 board packet did not list the salary amounts. The report only had the letter “X” where the salary amounts were to be listed. Please provide the Administrator Salary Report in PDF format similar to the one attached for the 2013-2016 school years with salary amounts included. Also, please include Superintendent Critchlow’s 2014-2015 salary amount as well.

Regarding my question on “chain of command”, I have read the board policies on Public Complaints. My questions to the school board regarding Bill Payments are not complaints. They are simply questions for the board asking them how they can approve bill payments without being provided descriptions for the bill payments or the credit card statements for them to review each month. Nowhere in our board policies does it state that I cannot ask our school board questions at a school board meeting during Public Comments without first contacting district administrators or personnel for board actions.

As our elected school board members, Fox's Code of Ethics states that "As a member of the school Board, I shall:" accept and follow each of the items listed in the Code of Ethics; following our district’s Code of Ethics is not optional.

My request for the credit card statements for this school year was for the public interest and not a request for personal or commercial interest. Therefore, I am requesting that ALL fees for locating and copying the credit card statements for the 2013-2014 school year be waived as documented on the Missouri Attorney General's website so the credit card statements can be provided to the Fox C-6 community so they can review and understand where their tax dollars are being spent.

http://ago.mo.gov/sunshinelaw/requestform.htm  

Thank you,

Rich Simpson

From: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary
Sent: Tuesday, April 08, 2014 11:40 AM
To: Rich Simpson
Cc: Hermann, Cheryl - Director; Cheryl Hermann; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Dan Kroupa; Smith, Dan - Board Vice President; David Palmer; Davis, Debby - CO Secretary; Laughlin, John; Linda Nash ; Steve Holloway
Subject: RE: Questions for the Fox C-6 School Board and Missouri Sunshine Law Documents Request

Mr. Simpson,

Attached is a letter in regard to your Mo Sunshine Law request and the items that you requested that the District does have in a pdf format.  The letter will explain the procedure to follow in receiving the remaining documents you requested.

Thank you,

Debby A. Davis 

Administrative Asst. to the Supt/BOE

Persistence Pays Off! - Fox C-6 Finally Posts their Budget and Audit Report Online

Persistence pays off!

After asking the Fox C-6 district to publish the district budget online for the last several years, they finally did it. Of course, no one from the school board or the District responded to my questions asking for these items to let me know they were posted online. I even asked about this at the February and March school board meetings and in my last several emails. Needless to say, I haven't been impressed with the professionalism of our Superintendent considering the amount of money that she is being paid.

The budget and annual audit report weren't on the district website last month when I downloaded the monthly board meeting packet. I just found them the other day when I went to download the April 15 school board meeting packet.

I've been asking our school board to publish the school district's budget on the district website during many of my Public Comments over the years. On occasion, I've been given excuses from Superintendent Critchlow as to why these documents couldn't be posted online.

Here are some of the reasons:

• At the February 2014 board meeting, Superintendent Critchlow told me that I was the only one asking for the data. That's not a good reason for not publishing the data on the District's website. 
• She also told me several years ago that the district's financial data is on the Missouri DESE website. Of course, there's only summary data on DESE"s website; there are no details. 
• She also told me that the district doesn't have a full time person to maintain our website like they do in other districts. She said that Fox would rather put its money into the classroom.

If your school district is going to be transparent, then this information needs to be made available to to the general public and not just provided to just those requesting the data.

You can now visit the district's website and download the 2013-2014 District Budget and the 2012-2013 Audit Report produced by Daniel Jones & Associates. The annual audit from the Jones & Associates is nothing like having a state audit where they really dig into the data and look for problems as I've documented in recent Twitter posts. Fox hasn't had a state audit since 2000 or 2001. It's definitely time that Fox has another state audit which must be requested through a petition.

Visit the Fox C-6 Board of Education Documents Page to download the documents:
http://www.fox.k12.mo.us/board_of_education/board_of_education_documents/

Still Waiting for Answers to My Questions from the February 2014 Fox C-6 School Board Meeting Public Comments

The Fox C-6 School Board still hasn't answered my questions from the February 2014 school board meeting. No one from the Board of Eduction has even responded to my follow up emails requesting answers to my questions.

Perhaps our board members aren't familiar with our School Board's Code of Ethics that states, “As a member of the school Board, I shall: Maintain the public trust through full and open communication.”

The Code of Ethics also states, “As a member of the school Board, I shall: Insist that school funds be spent prudently and effectively to provide maximum educational benefits.”

Since I hadn't received a single response from my March 28, 2014 email to the board, I sent the email at the end of this article on Friday April 4, 2014 reminding the board about the Code of Ethics that they swore to uphold when they took their oath of office.

The only response I received yesterday was an email from Superintendent Critchlow telling me that, "I will forward to Ms Davis as a custodial request."

You'll have the opportunity to vote on April 8, 2014 to elect 3 school board members. They will be responsible for approving payments of more than $120 Million dollars per year of your taxpayer dollars. Should board members know what your taxpayer dollars are being spent on? Our school board policies state that they should.

Fox C-6 has a school board policy on Fraud Prevention. It is Policy 3106 in the Financial Management section of our board policies. Policy 3106 defines Fraud and Corruption and states that the District is committed to protecting the public funds with which it has been entrusted. Here is part of Policy 3106 from our most recent draft copy of our school board policies. If the board isn't provided credit card statements in the board packets as a supporting document, how can they ensure the public that our taxpayer dollars are being used for the purpose for which they are intended?

Policy 3106  

Financial Management 

Fraud Prevention 

The District is committed to protecting the public funds with which it has been entrusted. Minimizing the losses to fraud and corruption is an essential part of ensuring that all of the District's resources are used for the purpose for which they are intended. 

The public is entitled to expect the District to conduct its affairs with integrity, honesty and openness, and demand the highest standards of conduct from those working for it and with it.

Definition of Fraud and Corruption 

Although there is no precise legal definition of fraud, the term is used to describe a multitude of offences, including deception, forgery, theft, misappropriation, collusion and false representation of material facts. 

Corruption arises when a person receives any benefit which influences them and causes them to act differently when conducting District business.

Certainly you want school board members that are going to communicate with the public and answer questions. You also want a school board that realizes that it's their responsibility to run the school board meetings as documented in our board policies. The board needs to know that the superintendent works for the board and ultimately Fox C-6 taxpayers. The school board DOES NOT work for the superintendent. Therefore, if our school board is asked to provide documentation to the public, they should convey this request to the superintendent and they shouldn't accept excuses as to why the district can't easily and openly provide such documents to the public.

When your school district superintendent has a salary of $256,131 and your district's administrators have the 2nd highest average salary in the state, there really shouldn't be ANY EXCUSES as to why Fox can't do what so many other school districts across the state routinely do for their patrons.

April 4, 2014 Email to the Fox C-6 School Board

Date: April 4, 2014 7:49:32 AM CDT
To: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent, Dan E. Smith, David Palmer
Cc: Crutchley, Tim - CO Admin., Davis, Debby - CO Secretary, Critchlow, Dr. Dianne, Steve Holloway, John Laughlin, Cheryl Hermann, Linda S. Nash, Dan Kroupa
Subject: Questions for the Fox C-6 School Board and Missouri Sunshine Law Documents Request

Last week on March 28, 2014, I emailed everyone on the Fox C-6 School Board my questions which I posed at the February 2014 school board meeting. I have not received a response to my questions as required by school board policy. 

I didn’t even receive any acknowledgements that anyone in the district or on the school board received my email. I did receive two Auto Replies stating that Superintendent Critchlow and a school board member were out of the office. 

In last week’s email, I renewed my request for answers to my questions from the February 2014 board meeting and the questions posed in my March 18 email to the board. I also made a request for electronic copies (PDF) of the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 Administrator Salary Schedule as well as electronic copies (PDF) of the credit card statements for the 2013-2014 school year that the school board approves payments for each month as listed in the Bill Payments. 

Please consider this email a Missouri Sunshine Law request for electronic versions of the documents requested above as well as the requests for information that I emailed to the board on March 18, 2014. 

I also requested from Mr. Arbeitman a copy of the board policy that states that persons wishing to speak to the school board must follow a “chain of command” for questions that are board actions. My review of our board policies was documented in my March 18 email. Please provide the policies as requested that states a “chain of command” requirement for board actions.

I also renew my request to the school board to post the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 school district budgets on the school district’s website like they do in many other school districts such as Northwest, Parkway, Rockwood, Camdenton and many more. It takes less than 30 seconds of time to publish the documents on the district website. Hearing Superintendent Critchlow state that there is no state law or mandate that requires our school district to even have a website is not a good excuse for not publishing the data. As a school board, you should be requesting that this data be made available to the public on the district website.
As Fox C-6 school board members, you were elected by the community to represent us. You took an oath and are required to follow the Code of Ethics as documented in our school board policies. You are required by the Code of Ethics to “maintain the public trust through full and open communication” and “Insist that school funds be spent prudently and effectively to provide maximum educational benefits.”

Can you please explain how failing to respond to emails from parents or patrons or failing to respond to Public Comments follows our school district’s Code of Ethics which state, “As a member of the school Board, I shall maintain the public trust through full and open communication.”? 

Thank you, 

Rich Simpson

  

Date: March 28, 2014 7:34:53 AM CDT
To: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent, Dan E. Smith, David Palmer
Cc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary, Critchlow, Dr. Dianne, Steve Holloway, John Laughlin, Cheryl Hermann, Linda S. Nash, Dan Kroupa
Subject: RE: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

Thank you for delaying the decision to approve the school board policies at the March 2014 school board meeting and for posting a link to them on the front page of Fox’s website.

Since the March 2014 school board meeting, I discovered that the entire section of Employee Evaluations was left out of the board policies Forms section even though they are listed in the Form’s Table of Contents. I was able to locate the Employee Evaluation Forms in the 2012 draft version of the board policies on the district website and review them. These should be added back into the Forms section of the document.

Contrary to Superintendent Critchlow’s statement at the November 5, 2013 board workshop, all questions from Public Comments are not answered. Many questions have gone unanswered.

At the February 2014 Fox C-6 school board meeting I asked the following questions that are still unanswered despite renewing my requests in my previous email:

How can the school board approve Bill Payments when there are no payment descriptions documenting what each payment is for? 

How can the school board approve paying the credit card bills when they aren’t provided with the credit card statements to document what was purchased with the credit cards? 

I also asked where I could find a copy of the Administrator Salary Schedule? Could it be found on the website? The copy from last year’s board packets for the 2013-2014 school year only had “X”’s for the Administrator Salary amounts. 

I haven’t received answers to these questions. I was simply told by Mr. Arbeitman in his email that if I wished to have him look into the matter that I should give him a call.

Fox has now paid more than $2 Million in credit card bills for the 2013-2014 school year and the board packets did not include credit card statements. There needs to be accountability for this spending. Fox’s board policies states that Bill Payments need to be supported by Invoices, Purchase Orders and Vouchers. Those aren’t provided in the board packets. If a board member wants to know what a payment is for, they must make a request for the documentation. If there aren’t any descriptions on the payments, it’s difficult for them to know what to ask for.

Please email me electronic copies in PDF format of the Credit Card statements for the American Express, Visa and Discover card for the 2013-2014 school year.
Also, please email me a PDF copy of the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 Fox C-6 Administrator Salary schedules that include salary amounts. 

The Fox C-6 school board needs to request that the district post the school district budget on the district website like they do in other school districts. If Northwest, Camdenton, Rockwood and Parkway can afford to take the 30 seconds that it takes to copy the documents to their district website, Fox should be able to do the same as well.

I haven’t received a response from Mr. Arbeitman documenting the policy that he alluded to about following the “chain of command”.  Mr. Arbeitman spoke about this at the November 5, 2013 school board workshop.  At that workshop, when Mr. Arbeitman suggested that the district put a policy in place, Superintendent Critchlow stated that the district already had rules in place. Board member Cheryl Herman said that “It’s not a must.” that the community has to contact district administrators prior to speaking to the school board.

Please review our school board policies and provide me with the section that states that questions concerning board actions or decisions requires patrons to first speak with district employees prior to speaking to the board.

I look forward to your response.

Thank you,

Rich Simpson 

==============================================================
From: Rich Simpson
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 7:24 AM
To: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Cc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Dan E. Smith; David Palmer; Steve Holloway; John Laughlin; Cheryl Hermann; Linda S. Nash; Dan Kroupa
Subject: RE: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

==============================================================
From: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 1:09 PM
To: Rich SimpsonCc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Subject: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

Mr. Simpson, 

Thank you again for your time and public comments at our board meeting last night.  With regard to your requests to; 

-include more information in our board packets online
Yes, my request to the Fox C6 School Board on 2/18/14 included that all the credit card statements (full originals less account numbers) be included in board packets. 

-more detailed credit card bills
Actually, this statement is not completely accurate.  My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board make available to the public the actual original credit card invoices/statements.  I asked the Board to provide the original statements from the credit card company to the public by including them, in their entirety, in the board packets that are then made available to the public on the District's website. By copying this correspondence to Dan Smith, I renew my request to the Board and ask that a member of the Board respond to my request.  

-the district budget online
My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board publish the district’s budget(s) on the District’s website. The district recently provided the Board with the 2014-2015 district budget. Please publish the 2014-2015 budget on the district website like they do in other districts such as Rockwood. 

-more descriptions of payments
Again, this is not completely accurate.  My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board include a description for each line item payment/disbursement.  Currently there is no description at all, so it’s not accurate to state that I am requesting "more descriptions" when none currently exist. The only information that the Board currently makes available to the public is the name of the Payee to whom payment is made.  No information regarding what the payment is for is included and, therefore, the information is not useful to the average citizen.  My request to the Board on 2/18/14 was that the Board provide information about the intended purpose for each payment.  The example I provided was the recent payment of $24,000 to "The Bridal Shop" which may seem unusual to the average resident but would be immediately clarified if accompanied with a simple description statement indicating that this payment was for  "choir robes". This was practice in our District previously and it currently is the standard in other area school districts. Since the Board that approves spending based on this information, my request is directed to the Board. Board policy 3150 states that list of bills for approval, “will be supported by invoices, approved purchase orders, properly submitted vouchers, or in accordance with salaries and salary schedules approved by the Board.” Therefore I renew my request to the Board.  

-the statement according to your calculations the district has approximately $2,000,000 in credit card bills to date 

The district actually has $1,993,799 in credit card bills to date and a lot of schools utilize credit cards/purchasing cards to pay bills for added cash back rebates.  This allows for more value of the school district dollar.  Most of the credit card bills during the current year are electric bills district-wide, monthly copier costs, and as much of our office/teacher types of supplies when the credit card was still allowed for those types of charges. We have received approximately $35,000 in rebates to date. 

Thank you for this information; however, to clarify, my concern was and is not that the District utilizes a credit card(s).  My concern is that the Board provides no descriptive information about credit card purchases to the public and does not include credit card statements like they do in other districts in their board packets.

In order to better meet your needs, thoughts, and questions, we would like to be more proactive with your monthly public comments rather than reactive.  That said, I am requesting that if you know what your questions, opinions, thoughts, or desires are prior to our board meetings, that you to please call me in advance so that we can better serve you and your comments.  This will in no way stop you or prevent you from making monthly public comments, but rather it will allow more validity and affirmation for our board of education that you are following the proper chain of command as per board policy.  If you choose not to contact me in advance, all further responses from your public comments will be a “thank you” response and that we look forward to responding to you in the future when you are willing to communicate with district employees first.  At this time, your request for more detailed credit card bill descriptions, the district budget posted online, and more detailed descriptions of monthly payments are being requested from only one individual and we can make those available to you upon request.  The board appreciates your comments and they will continue to be taken under consideration. 

This is where we disagree, and where I seek your further very specific clarification. Please provide me with a copy of the Fox C6 school board policy to which you refer above.

Perhaps you may be referring to school board Policy 1480 regarding “School/Community Relations - Public Complaints”. It states: 

“Although no member of the community shall be denied the right to petition the Board of Education for redress of a grievance, the complaints will be referred through the proper administrative channels for solution before investigation or action by the Board. Exceptions are complaints that concern Board actions or Board operations only.” 

Obviously, Policy 1480 is not applicable here since my concerns meet the stated exception, i.e. the concerns I addressed at the 2/18/14 school board meeting are about “Board actions” and “Board operations” and I am therefore not subject to any “chain of command”.  My concerns/questions were not about student or personnel issues, instruction, discipline, or learning materials.  But perhaps there is another policy that applies of which I am unaware? 

Furthermore, I find it shocking that you have made a threat to me on behalf of the school Board-- “If you choose not to contact me in advance, all further responses from your public comments will be a “thank you” response and that we look forward to responding to you in the future when you are willing to communicate with district employees first.” 

Therefore, at your earliest convenience, please provide me with any school Board policy, documentation, or correspondence that supports your claims that:

• the School Board may refuse to respond to a public question/concern about Board actions unless the resident “first” submits their concern to you

• you, Andy Arbeitman, an employee of the school district, hold the authority to prescreen questions and concerns from members of the public to determine if, in your assessment, the concern is “valid” or not “valid” for consideration by the Board

• the Board has made the decision to abdicate its responsibility and has expressly delegated its authority to you to determine if questions/concerns from the public are “valid” or not “valid” and deserving of a reply from them  

Finally, you added a comment about administrative salaries that was not on your public comment request sheet.  I will be happy to look into this for you upon receiving a return phone call.  My number is listed below.  I look forward to your call. 

Your request seems silly since my only availability for phone calls is outside of regular business hours when you would not normally be in your office.  My question, as asked to the School Board on 2/18/14 is that the School Board of Education include the administrative salary schedule on the district website. It should also be included in the board packets with actual salaries and not just “X”’s for the salary amounts. It doesn’t provide the public with any information to only place an “X” for a salary amount. Generally, I can be reached by phone at home between the hours of 6 and 7 a.m. or between 8 and 10 p.m.  Or, if it's more convenient, please simply include this information, along with your responses to my other questions contained in this email, in your response 

I also request that the Board of Education delay approving the Board’s updated Policies, Regulations and Forms until the April 2014 Board meeting. The District and the Board should have properly notified the public that they were available for review and recommendations. No announcements or notifications were posted on the district website or in the local paper notifying the public that the updated Policies and Regulations had been posted for the public to review. 

Prior to approving the updated Polices, Regulations and Forms, please remove Vickie Hanson as a point of contact. She retired from the district in 2008.

Thank you, 

Rich Simpson

Getting Answers to Questions from the Fox C-6 School Board Is Extremely Difficult!

Should the Fox C-6 school board answer questions from Public Comments per school board policy?

Asking questions during Public Comment or emailing the Fox C-6 school is like speaking to or emailing a brick wall. I emailed the board on Friday March 28 the questions that I asked at the February 2014 school board meeting that still haven't been answered. It's been almost a week since I sent that email and I haven't received a single response or acknowledgement from the board or the administrators that they even received my email. I did get two Auto Replies. One was from Superintendent Critchlow stating that she was out of the office and another from a school board member stating that he was out of the office.

As taxpayers who elect school board members to represent the community, I believe that we are being poorly represented by our school board. The board president should respond for the board. However, Assistant Superintendent Andy Arbeitman told me that our school board has asked him to respond for them.

So, if there is no response, who should the public blame? The school board should request that Mr. Arbeitman respond to the questions through the superintendent or acting superintendent.

In my March 28 email, I made another request for a copy of the administrative salary schedule for this year and next year. Mr. Arbeitman informed me in a previous email that I would have to make another request for the administrative salary schedule because it wasn't on my list of topics that I submitted for Public Comment at the February 2014 school board meeting when I asked the question verbally during my Public Comment.

So far there haven't been any answers to my questions despite what Superintendent Dianne Critchlow stated at the November 5, 2013 board workshop. You can listen to her comments below from that workshop. Her statement about responding to questions at Public Comments was simply political showboating and false. Cheryl Hermann asked the district to notify the board when the district responds to questions. That still doesn't happen either.

The school board or the district simply doesn't respond to questions that they don't want to answer. There have been numerous questions that have gone unanswered for years such as, why won't the district audio or video record board meetings? Or, why won't the district post the budget on the school's website? Superintendent Critchlow did state that Fox doesn't have a full time person to maintain our website as an excuse as to why the district can't post our budget online at the November 2013 board workshop. She also stated at that workshop that there's NO state law or mandate for the district to even have a website as another reason why the district's budget isn't online. You can read more about the November 5 workshop in my previous posts here.

Listen to Superintendent Critchlow's Comments
on Public Comment

"I can go on record saying that every single person that's made a comment has received feedback. It may not always be the feedback they want to hear. ... But, never is there a public comment, unless they're really just not asking anything and just stating a comment. But, if they ever want answers, they get them! We have a policy that says we'll get back to them within a week. The only thing that we probably fail to do all the time is to tell you."

At the end of this post is a copy of the email that I sent to our school board and administrators on Friday March 28. In that email I also included the email that I sent to the school board and administration on Tuesday March 18, 2014 since I never received a response to that email. The email sent on March 18 had my comments in red in response to Mr. Arbeitman's February 19, 2014 email.

Perhaps no one on the board or in the district noticed my requests for documents and requests for answers to my questions in my March 18, 2014 email. Therefore, I tried to make my questions and requests stand out more clearly in my March 28, 2014 email. Maybe I should have highlighted my questions in yellow and used red text to make them stand out even more.

According to school board policies, questions during Public Comment are supposed to be responded to within a week. As professional educators, I expect to at least receive an acknowledgement response from our school district or central office. Since, my email was copied to a several members of the school board, it is Public Record and can be obtained via a Missouri Sunshine Law request to the district.

Perhaps the school board secretary didn't respond to my request for documents within 3 business days as required by law because I didn't mention Missouri Sunshine Law in my request. It appears that I'll have to resubmit this email again and more clearly state my request for documents via Sunshine Law in order to obtain copies of the credit card statements for the 2013-2014 school year and administrator salary schedules.

Wouldn't you like to know what the Fox C-6 School District spent more than $2 Million dollars on so far this year with district credit cards?

The school board approved the payments but aren't supplied the credit card statements in the board packets.

So, how did they approve the payments?

Wouldn't you also like to know how the board approves check payments when there aren't any descriptions on the bill payments as to what the payments are for?

March 28, 2014 Email to the Fox C-6 School Board

Date: March 28, 2014 7:34:53 AM CDT
To: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent, Dan E. Smith, David Palmer
Cc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary, Critchlow, Dr. Dianne, Steve Holloway, John Laughlin, Cheryl Hermann, Linda S. Nash, Dan Kroupa
Subject: RE: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

Thank you for delaying the decision to approve the school board policies at the March 2014 school board meeting and for posting a link to them on the front page of Fox’s website.

Since the March 2014 school board meeting, I discovered that the entire section of Employee Evaluations was left out of the board policies Forms section even though they are listed in the Form’s Table of Contents. I was able to locate the Employee Evaluation Forms in the 2012 draft version of the board policies on the district website and review them. These should be added back into the Forms section of the document.

Contrary to Superintendent Critchlow’s statement at the November 5, 2013 board workshop, all questions from Public Comments are not answered. Many questions have gone unanswered.

At the February 2014 Fox C-6 school board meeting I asked the following questions that are still unanswered despite renewing my requests in my previous email:

How can the school board approve Bill Payments when there are no payment descriptions documenting what each payment is for? 

How can the school board approve paying the credit card bills when they aren’t provided with the credit card statements to document what was purchased with the credit cards? 

I also asked where I could find a copy of the Administrator Salary Schedule? Could it be found on the website? The copy from last year’s board packets for the 2013-2014 school year only had “X”’s for the Administrator Salary amounts. 

I haven’t received answers to these questions. I was simply told by Mr. Arbeitman in his email that if I wished to have him look into the matter that I should give him a call.

Fox has now paid more than $2 Million in credit card bills for the 2013-2014 school year and the board packets did not include credit card statements. There needs to be accountability for this spending. Fox’s board policies states that Bill Payments need to be supported by Invoices, Purchase Orders and Vouchers. Those aren’t provided in the board packets. If a board member wants to know what a payment is for, they must make a request for the documentation. If there aren’t any descriptions on the payments, it’s difficult for them to know what to ask for.

Please email me electronic copies in PDF format of the Credit Card statements for the American Express, Visa and Discover card for the 2013-2014 school year.
Also, please email me a PDF copy of the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 Fox C-6 Administrator Salary schedules that include salary amounts. 

The Fox C-6 school board needs to request that the district post the school district budget on the district website like they do in other school districts. If Northwest, Camdenton, Rockwood and Parkway can afford to take the 30 seconds that it takes to copy the documents to their district website, Fox should be able to do the same as well.

I haven’t received a response from Mr. Arbeitman documenting the policy that he alluded to about following the “chain of command”.  Mr. Arbeitman spoke about this at the November 5, 2013 school board workshop.  At that workshop, when Mr. Arbeitman suggested that the district put a policy in place, Superintendent Critchlow stated that the district already had rules in place. Board member Cheryl Herman said that “It’s not a must.” that the community has to contact district administrators prior to speaking to the school board.

Please review our school board policies and provide me with the section that states that questions concerning board actions or decisions requires patrons to first speak with district employees prior to speaking to the board.

I look forward to your response.

Thank you,

Rich Simpson 

==============================================================
From: Rich Simpson
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 7:24 AM
To: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Cc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Dan E. Smith; David Palmer; Steve Holloway; John Laughlin; Cheryl Hermann; Linda S. Nash; Dan Kroupa
Subject: RE: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

==============================================================
From: Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Sent: Wednesday, February 19, 2014 1:09 PM
To: Rich SimpsonCc: Davis, Debby - CO Secretary; Critchlow, Dr. Dianne; Arbeitman, Andy - Assistant Superintendent
Subject: Response to public comment at the February 18, 2014 board of education meeting 

Mr. Simpson, 

Thank you again for your time and public comments at our board meeting last night.  With regard to your requests to; 

-include more information in our board packets online
Yes, my request to the Fox C6 School Board on 2/18/14 included that all the credit card statements (full originals less account numbers) be included in board packets. 

-more detailed credit card bills
Actually, this statement is not completely accurate.  My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board make available to the public the actual original credit card invoices/statements.  I asked the Board to provide the original statements from the credit card company to the public by including them, in their entirety, in the board packets that are then made available to the public on the District's website. By copying this correspondence to Dan Smith, I renew my request to the Board and ask that a member of the Board respond to my request.  

-the district budget online
My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board publish the district’s budget(s) on the District’s website. The district recently provided the Board with the 2014-2015 district budget. Please publish the 2014-2015 budget on the district website like they do in other districts such as Rockwood. 

-more descriptions of payments
Again, this is not completely accurate.  My request to the Board of Education on 2/18/14 was that the Board include a description for each line item payment/disbursement.  Currently there is no description at all, so it’s not accurate to state that I am requesting "more descriptions" when none currently exist. The only information that the Board currently makes available to the public is the name of the Payee to whom payment is made.  No information regarding what the payment is for is included and, therefore, the information is not useful to the average citizen.  My request to the Board on 2/18/14 was that the Board provide information about the intended purpose for each payment.  The example I provided was the recent payment of $24,000 to "The Bridal Shop" which may seem unusual to the average resident but would be immediately clarified if accompanied with a simple description statement indicating that this payment was for  "choir robes". This was practice in our District previously and it currently is the standard in other area school districts. Since the Board that approves spending based on this information, my request is directed to the Board. Board policy 3150 states that list of bills for approval, “will be supported by invoices, approved purchase orders, properly submitted vouchers, or in accordance with salaries and salary schedules approved by the Board.” Therefore I renew my request to the Board.  

-the statement according to your calculations the district has approximately $2,000,000 in credit card bills to date 

The district actually has $1,993,799 in credit card bills to date and a lot of schools utilize credit cards/purchasing cards to pay bills for added cash back rebates.  This allows for more value of the school district dollar.  Most of the credit card bills during the current year are electric bills district-wide, monthly copier costs, and as much of our office/teacher types of supplies when the credit card was still allowed for those types of charges. We have received approximately $35,000 in rebates to date. 

Thank you for this information; however, to clarify, my concern was and is not that the District utilizes a credit card(s).  My concern is that the Board provides no descriptive information about credit card purchases to the public and does not include credit card statements like they do in other districts in their board packets.

In order to better meet your needs, thoughts, and questions, we would like to be more proactive with your monthly public comments rather than reactive.  That said, I am requesting that if you know what your questions, opinions, thoughts, or desires are prior to our board meetings, that you to please call me in advance so that we can better serve you and your comments.  This will in no way stop you or prevent you from making monthly public comments, but rather it will allow more validity and affirmation for our board of education that you are following the proper chain of command as per board policy.  If you choose not to contact me in advance, all further responses from your public comments will be a “thank you” response and that we look forward to responding to you in the future when you are willing to communicate with district employees first.  At this time, your request for more detailed credit card bill descriptions, the district budget posted online, and more detailed descriptions of monthly payments are being requested from only one individual and we can make those available to you upon request.  The board appreciates your comments and they will continue to be taken under consideration. 

This is where we disagree, and where I seek your further very specific clarification. Please provide me with a copy of the Fox C6 school board policy to which you refer above.

Perhaps you may be referring to school board Policy 1480 regarding “School/Community Relations - Public Complaints”. It states: 

“Although no member of the community shall be denied the right to petition the Board of Education for redress of a grievance, the complaints will be referred through the proper administrative channels for solution before investigation or action by the Board. Exceptions are complaints that concern Board actions or Board operations only.” 

Obviously, Policy 1480 is not applicable here since my concerns meet the stated exception, i.e. the concerns I addressed at the 2/18/14 school board meeting are about “Board actions” and “Board operations” and I am therefore not subject to any “chain of command”.  My concerns/questions were not about student or personnel issues, instruction, discipline, or learning materials.  But perhaps there is another policy that applies of which I am unaware? 

Furthermore, I find it shocking that you have made a threat to me on behalf of the school Board-- “If you choose not to contact me in advance, all further responses from your public comments will be a “thank you” response and that we look forward to responding to you in the future when you are willing to communicate with district employees first.” 

Therefore, at your earliest convenience, please provide me with any school Board policy, documentation, or correspondence that supports your claims that:

• the School Board may refuse to respond to a public question/concern about Board actions unless the resident “first” submits their concern to you

• you, Andy Arbeitman, an employee of the school district, hold the authority to prescreen questions and concerns from members of the public to determine if, in your assessment, the concern is “valid” or not “valid” for consideration by the Board

• the Board has made the decision to abdicate its responsibility and has expressly delegated its authority to you to determine if questions/concerns from the public are “valid” or not “valid” and deserving of a reply from them  

Finally, you added a comment about administrative salaries that was not on your public comment request sheet.  I will be happy to look into this for you upon receiving a return phone call.  My number is listed below.  I look forward to your call. 

Your request seems silly since my only availability for phone calls is outside of regular business hours when you would not normally be in your office.  My question, as asked to the School Board on 2/18/14 is that the School Board of Education include the administrative salary schedule on the district website. It should also be included in the board packets with actual salaries and not just “X”’s for the salary amounts. It doesn’t provide the public with any information to only place an “X” for a salary amount. Generally, I can be reached by phone at home between the hours of 6 and 7 a.m. or between 8 and 10 p.m.  Or, if it's more convenient, please simply include this information, along with your responses to my other questions contained in this email, in your response 

I also request that the Board of Education delay approving the Board’s updated Policies, Regulations and Forms until the April 2014 Board meeting. The District and the Board should have properly notified the public that they were available for review and recommendations. No announcements or notifications were posted on the district website or in the local paper notifying the public that the updated Policies and Regulations had been posted for the public to review. 

Prior to approving the updated Polices, Regulations and Forms, please remove Vickie Hanson as a point of contact. She retired from the district in 2008.

Thank you, 

Rich Simpson 

How Much Does Fox C-6 Spend on Legal Fees?

Fox C-6 uses the Mickes Goldman O'Toole law firm for most of its legal services. On occasion the district will use other law firms such as Thomeczek & Brink to act as a Due Process Hearing Officer for the district. The district also has to pay a service to record and transcribe Due Process Hearing testimony.

Here are some past articles that explain why Fox spends quite a bit of your tax dollars on legal fees:

Documentation Contradicts Superintendent Critchlow's

Statements at June 2013 Board Meeting

June 2013 Fox C-6 Board Meeting Public Comments

You can find the payments to the law firms in the monthly school board packets in the Bill Payments section.

Below are the totals from all of the Bill Payments that have been provided in the school board packets dating back to April 2010. They are broken down by school year which runs from July 1 through June 30.

At the November 2013 board workshop, school board president Dan Smith wanted to make sure that things get passed through the district's legal counsel when responding to questions from the public unless they are just simple questions.

Fox C-6 Legal Fees

2009-2010 - $11,185.11 (Only April - June 2010 Data) 
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $11,185.11
Thomeczek & Brink - $570.00

2010-2011 - $100,342.74
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $82,974.52
Thomeczek & Brink - $17,368.22

2011-2012 - $81,029.43
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $81,029.43

2012-2013 - $148,903.30
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $148,903.30

2013-2014 - $80,579.43 (Through March 2014)
Mickes Goldman O'Toole - $80,579.43