A Conflict of Interest—over Your Taxes? | Guest column

From the 10/16/2024 Pikes Peak Courier:

Why would parents and community members caring deeply about our schools ask the city council to return the sales tax question to voters?

Having served on the Board of Education (BOE) in 2016 when this tax was requested of citizens, I was curious. For those I talked with, desperation played a central role. They described a sense of powerlessness with an unresponsive, fiscally irresponsible BOE and superintendent, who favor the district’s charter school, Merit Academy (MA), over the four traditional schools.

Since Mr. Witt’s hiring, not all changes have been negative. Yet peculiar financial happenings warrant taxpayers’ attention.

The board amended its contract with MA to include student transportation. While parents pay the same fee as other schools, MA itself does not share the larger cost of just under $1,000,000—a cost instead paid by funding for the other four schools.

This year, MA was given the middle school building—with a functional capacity of 900 students. Roughly 500 students currently use it. Yet down the street, Columbine sixth graders remain in portable buildings due to space shortage. And a small corner of the high school building confines WPMS.

Witt, of note, is simultaneously employed full-time as the Executive Director of ERBOCES—an alternative-education business and charter school advocate. ERBOCES actually lists MA among its own “Brick and Mortar Schools,” and funded a loan to MA in 2021, expected to be paid off in 2028. (Also of interest, Witt personally donated $1200 to Merit last year—though not the other WPSD schools).

Consider that administrative costs paid by MA to WPSD was $136,190 in 2023—an amount based on tracked hours worked. After Mr. Witt’s arrival this dropped to $31,295 in 2024. Even with increased number of students at MA.

Sadly, since Witt’s WPSD hiring, an all-time high of 554 students chose education options outside WPSD last year—a financial hit, too, at $10,276/pupil. ERBOCES gained 96 of those students (four years ago, it was 17). Early estimates are an additional decline of 172 WPSD students for 2024-2025.

As we observe this man who lives an hour from us—could this be a conflict of interest? Is he truly working for our community’s interests? For all our children? All of our schools?

Further, Mr. Witt’s staff provided our BOE with an unbalanced budget…twice. Passed twice (with egregious errors). His assertion that transportation is fully state-reimbursed failed to account $979,768 of district costs. Yet the BOE rated him 4/4 as excels in “leadership in the fiscal management of the District.”

What will the upcoming audit show? Will the Superintendent allow the auditors to present their findings to the public? What’s the status of the fund balance (i.e. savings) this BOE and superintendent spend at alarming, unsustainable rates?

This district is not listening to all parents in this community. Whether you vote no—to retain the tax— or yes to remove the tax, stay involved. Hold the board accountable for a superintendent who, at best, has divided interests.

Carol Greenstreet

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