Culver City Observer -

Letter to the Editor

The Culver City School Board has been severely negligent in handling their budgets for decades. When I was asked to run for the School Board in the 1990's, while I decided not to, I helped someone run instead. As an ex-accountant and business efficiency expert at that time, I did a deep analysis of the School District's budget. What a hot mess. Even back in the 1990s, I found around a million dollars that they had squandered that they could have retained with just a few changes in the way they buy goods and services. The reason I am voting NO on Measure E is twofold. The first reason is that they continue to squander money. The first time they submitted a ballot measure to tap into our property taxes, they stated definitively that they would NEVER come back and ask for additional funds from our properties again. THEY LIED! They have come back several times since then and now they want much more from the property owners. Enough of this incompetence. It is time for them to work within their budget (like we all do), change their bad financial habits and become efficient. The second reason that I am voting NO on Measure E is that until the district stops bringing in troubled kids that were thrown out of their schools outside of the Culver City District, who promote fighting and bring weapons onto our campuses, which costs us more in security in order to take in these kids for the minimal amount that we are getting for taking them in, we need to FIGHT BACK. All kids should have the right to a great education, but not at the expense of the other kids who are trying to learn and want basic safety and security on our campuses. Culver City deserves better. We should not carry the burden for the School Boards' mismanagement. By the way, they haven't even used up the funds from the last time they took money from the homeowners.

While there are additional problems with the schools, these are the main reasons are why I am voting NO on Measure E. Stop the School Board from sucking more money out of our property taxes.

Thank you,

Robin Turner

Culver City