In stark contrast to another elected official, rookie school board member Laura Petelle demonstrates the kind of transparency and accessibility the public expects from their representatives in the 21st century. She invites dialog with her constituents, she shares pertinent information in a timely manner, and she explains her votes (proving that she has thought them through and is not making knee-jerk decisions). And she does it on the internet where the info is easily accessible to all.

That’s the way it ought to be. Even if you don’t agree with her vote, at least you understand her argument and appreciate the effort she’s gone through to make a good, conscientious decision she believes is in the best interests of her constituents and the district at large.

In today’s post, she’s talking about the closing of a high school. She’s probably going to vote to close Woodruff. Fellow board member Jim Stowell has indicated his desire to see Peoria High close instead. No doubt it will be a split vote, and who knows which way it will go? Billy Dennis is predicting Woodruff will be closed on a 4-3 vote. We’ll all find out on Monday, September 21.

In the meantime, hop over to Laura’s blog and read her reasoning. It’s a perfectly logical decision, and I applaud her for her transparency. However, I do have a couple of questions. (Don’t I always?)

1. PBC Funds: Petelle states that one of the reasons they must close a high school is that “there are issues relating to the PBC bonds that will provide a further $25 to $30 million in bonding authority for our District.” Basically, if they don’t close a high school, they don’t get that additional funding. However, there’s another requirement in order to utilize those bonds: the supporting document Petelle provides states, “Final planning, however, is dependent upon the need for the District to identify the projects.” Yes, I too would like to know on what they plan to spend that additional funding, if they were to get it. First, I’d like to know why they need to spend it at all. If they need to cut the number of facilities, and if our building capacity exceeds our enrollment, and if the school district is in a structural deficit, I don’t see the justification for taking on more debt. Is it just so they can max out the PBC funding limit and keep our taxes high? If there is no clear project needing funds, then it looks like they’re just spending the money for the sake of spending it, and that doesn’t sound like it’s in the best interests of the taxpayers.
2. Torts: One of Petelle’s commenters (“Jon” — who might be the same “Jon” who comments on the Chronicle) made a shocking observation. He looked at the 2009-2010 Tentative Budget that Petelle put up on her site and asked, “What is the TORT category? …It has an expected deficit of nearly $4.1MM compared to only $900k the prior year. Its expenditures increased from $6.1MM to $8.6MM while at the same time its revenue fell from $5.2MM to $4.5MM.” Laura responded that it is the “tort lawsuit fund.” I just happen to have received recently (courtesy of the Freedom of Information Act) a list of pending lawsuits against District 150. By my count, there are 83 total. I haven’t surveyed other school districts to see how this compares, but at first blush this number sounds very high to me. Given the impact this is having on the district’s bottom line, this issue really should be investigated. What is causing all these lawsuits? Is there a common thread? Can anything be done to reduce their occurrence?