Just yesterday, we were speculating about this "accounting error" committed by someone in the Orleans Parish School District. The original T-P report we cited there claimed that staff overshot their sales tax revenue projection by $36 million "because district staffers calculated tax revenue based on a full calendar year, rather than aligning it to the fiscal year, which begins in July." * That might be exactly what happened. But it feels unlikely. At the very least, it's got to be embarrassing for professional accountants to not understand when the fiscal year begins. Let alone, that they would look at a jump in revenue of that size and not suspect something was off.
On the other hand, lay readers of the Times-Picayune might be forgiven for their confusion. Last week, when we read that the board had announced a damage control plan to gradually pay back the deficit out of its (fortunately robust) fund balance, this item suggested that maybe the problem was already solved.
Schools would repay the $15 million over the next few years, hopefully bolstered by increased sales tax revenue from major events in New Orleans like Taylor Swift’s recent concert series, which generated an estimated $500 million for the city, and next year’s Super Bowl, Parker said.
Oh dear, here we go again trying to shoehorn an "economic impact of tourism" promo into a serious news story. Look, by all accounts, Swiftie weekend in New Orleans was a much welcomed success for the city's service industry and tourism facing retail. Anecdotally, we've all heard the crowd was nice. They tipped well. And unlike some of the mega-corporate events, like the Superbowl, they spent money with local small businesses. But mentioning the $500 number in a throwaway line about the school system's budget problems creates a false impression of whatever eventual benefit may occur.
The article doesn't link to it but they're referring to GNO Inc's estimate of how much money was spent overall by visitors during the weekend. The number is likely exaggerated to begin with, because that's what GNO Inc. does. But also it appears to include the money spent on airfare, lodging, and the concert tickets themselves. The schools do realize a portion of the sales tax on hotel rooms, but they split that money with several other entities. But we're already talking there about a fraction of a fraction of that marquee $500 million number which, again, isn't even itself a figure that reflects actual sales tax revenue. It's fun to write "Taylor Swift might help with the budget problem" but it's important to be more specific than this.
Anyway, as of today, none of this is Avis Williams's problem anymore. She is resigning effective December 1. Frankly, who can blame her. The $300,000 salary must have been nice for a couple of years. But, ultimately, who wants to have to deal with this job?
After a national search to replace Superintendent Henderson Lewis Jr., the board hired Williams in April of 2022. This fall, Williams opened the district’s first intentional direct-run school in the modern charter era — The Leah Chase School, a win for traditional-education advocates in the city. But the decision to create the new school within the Lafayette Academy building came amid a chaotic charter renewal process. Lafayette Academy families were first promised their school would remain open, then told it would close, then received a third message, one week later, that the school would remain open, but would be managed by the district.
But critics say that Williams has made little progress in one of the key assignments she was given when she arrived. When she arrived, she was charged with downsizing the all-charter district because local schools, mirroring national trends, face shrinking enrollment. The district asked her to create a “right-sizing” plan.
Other district superintendents, facing similar declines, have closed schools. But in New Orleans, Williams faced a particularly unique challenge, because the city’s charter schools operate on multi-year contracts and revoking them — to close schools — is only done in serious situations. Schools only come under high-stakes scrutiny at the end of their contracts.
One could argue that a cascading budget crisis is one way to cut through all the piecemeal charter renewals and force more closures and consolidations on an accelerated timeline. But whatever the excuse, it's no fun when you are the one swinging the ax.
Meanwhile, there's also an open seat on the School Board that needs to be resolved by a runoff election December 7. One of the candidates there has articulated support for having the district take more schools back from under-performing charters and run them directly. The other was once on a charter board involved in a grade inflation scandal. Those sound like serious issues for voters to consider. Unfortunately it may all be overshadowed by the accounting issue. That is, unless we can get another 10 or 20 Eras Tours to swing through the city by the time the next tax receipts are in.
*Additional note: Today's Lens article about the Williams resignation says the "accounting error" is still unexplained. So the, "whoops we forgot what year it is" bit from the initial reports, seems to have gone away. According to today's article,
Some sources say the city, which is responsible for collecting taxes and remitting them to the district, contributed to the district’s poor forecasting. It’s unclear how often the city communicates tax collection estimates with the district.
So we're moving from shady and/or incompetent accounting at the School District to shady and/or incompetent accounting at City Hall. That's more credible, I guess, given.. (gestures broadly).. but still a mystery.
No comments:
Post a Comment