Tag: California

The Long and the Short of It

Or, Don’t Use Your Credit Card to Buy Groceries (and Don’t use Bonds to Buy Technology) I was walking by Fort Point in San Francisco (you’ll know the spot from Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”).  I fell into conversation with a guy who, by coincidence, was a new customer at the bank where I worked.  He went on to

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Government’s Return on Investment

Is it ever OK to say “I spent more on that, so I am in compliance.” Is spending more money the only way to demonstrate “success?” I say this is the opposite of success. Are we going to allow school districts to shrug off poor results by spending more. I really don’t understand the critics of California’s Local Control Funding Formula’s

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Local Control Funding Formula: Nothing and Something

The California Department of Education has “updated” its reporting software by removing the previous revenue schedule and replacing it with, um, nothing. I am going out on a limb.  I have created my own multi-year calculation.  Please email me at support@fiscalshare.com if you want a copy. We are four plus months into the fiscal year,

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When School Districts Borrow

This an outstanding guide to school district debt financing by Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP.  While the guide references California law, it is useful in understanding public school finance in general. School district administrators in California function in a complex financial universe that increasingly requires familiarity with and use of sophisticated tax-exempt public finance techniques to finance

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