The MMSD board and the public need and deserve a presentation of the proposed budget for 05-06 including a comparison with the previous year. That’s basic budget 101.
What was distributed publicly by the MMSD Administration were financial summaries without any text that would explain:

• specific measurable goals for next year – by district by department
• changes in spending by department
• what grants are outstanding – how much and what departments would be affected by grants, are the administrative, teacher and other staff that are paid through grants included in this budget
• what changes are anticipated in programming and staffing? For example there is not change in FTEs for elementary educ, but the Supt in proposing to eliminate 30% of the music education budget

The written material that supports the financial statements will be available later this week –
The public needs to ask Board members to ask for a presentation of the budget with comparisons to last year made so that the Board and the public can understand what is being proposed.
I’ve made comparisons of the FTEs and the budgets – I have the budget for 04-05 that was produced last May that can be compared to the May budget just released for 05-06, which I will be posting.