Fiscal Intelligence

Fiscal analysis that enables educators, small business owners, and community organizers to make informed decisions.

Where is Our Government? Part II

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Leadership Academy__Audit

“Our $559,667 sample also included four coaching-related payment requests, totaling $12,530, for training and meeting expenses. We found that three of the four sampled coaching-related payments, totaling $4,135, were not adequately supported. None of these three payment requests contained copies of the bills for which NYCLA requested reimbursement, such as an invoice from the venue in which a meeting was held.”

NYC DOE’s Overssight of Computer Hardware Purchased

“The DOE contracts with three Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) vendors to purchase computer hardware for use by students, teachers, and administrative staff.  DOE entered into contracts totaling $209.9 million with Apple Inc. ($105 million), Lenovo Inc. ($81.9 million), and CDW Government LLC, for Google Chromebooks ($23 million).”

 

How NYC’S Pension Costs Threaten Its Future

“From 2014 through fiscal 2017, for the first time on record, New York City’s pension contributions exceeded actual and projected (mostly bond-financed) capital expenditures. In other words, the city has been spending more to meet its pension obligations than to build and renovate bridges, parks, schools, and other public assets. In fiscal 2018, roughly 57% of contributions will be needed simply to continue paying down what the city still owes its pension systems, in order to continue paying benefits promised to retirees. The rest will cover the “normal” cost of added benefits earned by city employees. In other words, if the pension systems had been fully funded in the past, the city would have saved more than $5 billion.”

American Competitiveness

“By nearly every relevant metric, the U.S. leads the world in science and technology. With only about five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. employs nearly one-third of all scientists and engineers and accounts for approximately one third of global R&D spending (U.S. R&D spending of over $300 billion is as much as the rest of the G-8 nations combined).”

NYC Pension Contributions

“The report goes on by saying that pension costs are now almost $2.9 billion a year, – an increase of $2.3 billion, or 370 percent since 2002.”

https://fiscalintelligence.org/2013/05/18/the-pension-pain/

The Latino Effect on Economic Growth

“As consumers, Latinos wield more than $1.3 trillion in buying power, and the number of affluent Hispanic households is growing much faster than for the overall population: In 2015, there were approximately 370,000 US Latino households with incomes over $200,000, an increase of 187 percent since 2005.”

AUDIT REPORT OF SUCCESS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS

” The Success Academy Board of Trustees failed to adequately monitor aspects of the finance affairs of SA and did not consistently follow the procedures for operation required by its bylaws”

SchoolFinance_Traditional vs. Charter Schools

“You would be surprised that in some schools, the restriction appears to be implicitly understood, since they neither have a line for temporarily restricted funds on their balance sheet nor the statement below in their respective financial statement notes”.

The Educational Impact of Broadband Sudsidies for Schools Under ERate

“The “universal service fund” pays for E-Rate with a 17.9 percent tax on long distance telecommunications. The term may sound odd; “long distance” is an artifact of the past for most Americans. However, international calls over the plain old telephone network are still made, mostly by Latin American migrants living in the U.S. The telecommunications levy hits them particularly hard. More affluent households, on the other hand, use Facetime, Skype and other apps that avoid the tax.”

http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/08/stop-spending-money-connecting-schools-to-the-internet-000191