News

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Spectrum Management Solutions’ Assessment of Use of Measure V Bond Funds

[Following is a message to Superintendent Brian Sarvis from Julie Avnit, president/CEO of Spectrum Management Solutions (SMS). SMS provides services for the districts’ bond funds, preparing reports on budgets and expenditures of funds, reconciliation of expenditure reports, and district financial activity reports, along with preparation of state reports as required for projects which receive state matching bond funds.]

“In my experience as an independent bond accountant and consultant over the past eleven years, I have worked with several California school districts with construction programs similar in size to Santa Barbara School Districts’ Measure V program. Santa Barbara School Districts, in my opinion, have done a superb job of maximizing the total dollars spent on actual construction projects while minimizing non-project specific costs that can occur in programs of this size. Specifically, from a total of over $114M spent, only 1.7 percent of total expenditures went toward costs not specific to actual projects such as, for example, bond sale costs, legal costs, office equipment and supplies to manage the entire construction program, independent bond accountant, state funding consultants, and overall program definition, coordination and scheduling, while 98.3 percent of total expenditures went toward actual projects, including design and construction. The construction and non-construction figures are a direct calculation from the April 2008 recap given to the Bond Oversight Committee in May.”