It turns out that beautiful new Barrett Elementary School, with
its covered walkways and curved-roof multipurpose room, was missing
one thing: fiscal oversight.
It turns out that beautiful new Barrett Elementary School, with its covered walkways and curved-roof multipurpose room, was missing one thing: fiscal oversight.
While presenting a damning report released to trustees last week, auditor Brad Saylor said, “Checks and balances were absent.” Saylor’s report revealed that Barrett Elementary School, which opened a year late in the fall of 2001, cost 23 percent more than similarly sized schools.
With any construction project, checks and balances should be in place so that district administration closely supervises the construction management team; trustees intensely scrutinize the work of district administrators; and voters carefully review the process and end product and express approval or displeasure at school board meetings and the ballot box.
The lack of fiscal oversight by trustees is one reason three new faces are now sitting on the dais during school board meetings. Voters will not, and should not, tolerate fiscal irresponsibility.
The cost overruns are one reason that Jacobs Facilities’ contract to build Sobrato High School was not renewed. This effort, led by those three new trustees, was an important step in righting the district’s fiscal ship. Trustees should not tolerate poor management of any project and were correct to find someone else to handle Sobrato’s construction. District administrators were wrong to recommend that the Jacobs build Sobrato High School, and we’re glad trustees ignored that misguided advice.
Let’s hope San Jose-based Turner Construction, the new contractor for Sobrato, administrators and trustees see this as an important wake-up call: they have a duty to do a much better job building Sobrato High School.
Trustees failed in their fiduciary duty to protect taxpayer dollars on the Barrett construction project. Administrators failed in their jobs to get the best possible school at the best possible price. Now they’ve been presented with a huge challenge and wonderful opportunity to improve their oversight grade on the Sobrato Project.
We urge every property owner, parent and student in the district to let trustees and administrators know that they have the highest of expectations for Sobrato High School. Attend school board meetings. Write letters and make phone calls. Get knowledgeable about how the district is spending your tax dollars. And when three trustee seats are on the ballot box in November 2004, vote.
We expect everyone involved in the construction of Sobrato High School to earn an “A.” Students, parents and taxpayers of the Morgan Hill Unified School District deserve no less.
