In an online article (see link below) from Montgomery Blair's student newspaper Silver Chips we learn that Superintendent Jerry Weast bills students for school security.
The article details that MCPS had been holding on to "bills" for 3 years for security personnel on duty during Blair's theatrical productions. The "bills" have now appeared and are being charged to this year's students.
Blair must do a lot of productions because the hourly rate for MCPS security is $30. An $8,000 bill equals 267 hours of security personnel.
Apparently, Superintendent Weast has forgotten that student accounts are to be reconciled each year. That is, student fees are to go into the Independent Activity Funds at each school and be used for the students in the school that year. That is Superintendent Weast's own regulation enacted in 2008.
At Blair, Superintendent Weast is attempting to charge current students for past years debts.
This incident also shows how some schools are penalized. Do all MCPS high schools require 267 hours of security for theater productions? In 4 years as the parent of a thespian at Churchill High School I never saw school security at a production.
Do some schools require more security personnel on hand for after school activities than other schools? Is it fair to bill the students for this staffing cost?
Clearly, making students pay for school security puts some schools in a worse financial position than others when putting on after school theatrical productions. The schools that need more security have to do the productions that cost less to put on and have lower or zero script and music fees.
At schools like Whitman High School some school security costs are picked up by the PTSA. Clearly an advantage to having a well endowed PTSA.
Will any MCPS administrator stand up for this year's Blair theater students and protest this outrageous bill that is taking away from this year's production budget?
Of course not.
Meanwhile, MCPS administrators are ordering lunch and dinner and charging their meals to taxpayers via MCPS American Express "procurement" cards.
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Silver Chips Online:
Drama department faces deep debt
The [Montgomery Blair High School] drama department is currently $8,000 in debt to Montgomery County Public School (MCPS) for play security personnel invoices that have not been paid in three years, according to Blair Financial Specialist Donna Franklin. Drama department head Kelly O'Connor was notified of the debt in the fall...
...In June 2009, MCPS began sending bills to the drama department dating back to 2006...
...Without knowledge of the security invoices, O'Connor gradually overspent on materials for stage productions...
Several unanswered questions come to mind after reading this article. Who in MCPS dropped the ball and failed to send the invoices to Blair back in 2006, 2007, and 2008? Has that person been reprimanded? What other accounting errors did they make? Is this just the tip of the iceberg? Why wasn't this problem caught by an auditor?
ReplyDeleteHow many other schools also didn't get invoices for security personnel charges? If someone at MCPS "forgot" to send Blair invoices for security personnel, then it stands to reason that the same person "forgot" to send invoices to other schools, too.
Are other schools going to get a similar surprise bill from MCPS?
$30/hr.? For a security guard?
ReplyDeleteTo make sure a knife fight doesn't break out between the parents and arts patrons attending "Guys n' Dolls"?
Are they hiring? Nice gig.
$30 an hour is their overtime rate. If you care for that "gig" then spend your adult life in police work, then work a full day in a high school, then come back in the evening to provide security at the play.
ReplyDelete$30 is not an overtime rate. It is the standard rate paid out by ICB - the Interagency Coordinating Board that runs the rental of school space. There is no basic rate, only one rate and it went up in the fall to $31.50 per hour.
ReplyDelete