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I am writing this letter specifically to those folks in School District 118 who are voters, taxpayers and parents in our district. As many of you know, I grew up in this area and graduated from the Northland Schools. I have lived here my entire life and chose to build my business here. I can say without a doubt that I have never seen this school district in as big of a mess as we are right now. As a School Board member I am embarrassed as to what has taken place over the past year. The current seven person board voted to close the Longville School this past May for "financial reasons". For many months School Board members Dave Kitchenhoff and Terry Gross preached that if we did not close the Longville Campus we would be unable to ever pass a referendum and the district is on the brink of financial ruin. Mr. Kitchenhoff assured me that "The majority of voters want it closed" I submit to you, the public, that nearly half of the voters in our district are located in the Longville area and that this same area is responsible for over half of the district's tax base. It is the support of these people that we need to help maintain the important functions of our entire school district.

Our administration has repeatedly over the past year told the Board that we will need an operating referendum this November based on $2,500.00 per pupil. This amounts to a tax increase of about $221.00 per $100,000 of real estate value. At our School Board meeting on July 15, 2010 this same administration reversed itself and made the recommendation that we NOT run a referendum because the public sentiment is so against it. It seems several of our board members and our administration directly contradict each other. In addition, I thought we ran referendums based on financial need that we could justify to the tax payers, not public sentiment.

[[In-content Ad]]I would like to ask the other six members of the school board to respond to this letter by explaining to you folks what we are going to do now? Better yet, why don't you, the taxpayers ask them where we are at now that the fiscal year ended June 30th, 2010. I find it ironic that we are not scheduled to receive the financial data for this past year until just after the elections in November. While you are asking the other six members of the board these questions you might want to follow up by asking for an explanation as to why they voted to suddenly replace our very capable, hard working attorney, Jon Huseby. Mr. Huseby is employed by the firm of Fuller, Wallner, Cayko & Pederson a law firm very highly respected throughout all of Minnesota, and in my opinion is the best firm in the northern half of the state. Mr. Huseby was replaced by an attorney in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, three hours away. At our Board meeting July 15th, I asked the question as to how much this new law firm had billed the district and was told "nearly $23,000.00. Our bill from the Fuller firm for all of last year (2009) was $9,676.12. Here again more money channeled away from the classroom.

Finally, I will let you folks do the math. According to the Department of Education, we receive over $15,000.00 per student per year. We have, since the Board's actions in May, 2010 lost 28 students. In addition, the errors made in putting teachers on unrequested leave has cost the district another $175,000.00, We lost $107,000.00 in sparsity aid due to board action. And because of the flawed and incomplete application for a four day school week which was subsequently denied by the Department of Education we lost another $133,000.00 If you have a calculator handy you will see that all of this cost the taxpayers about $835,000.00 in the last six months.

As an elected member of this board I felt you folks should be kept informed. I can assure you that I will continue to fight against this waste and mismanagement.

Sincerely,

Rusty Lilyquist

School Board Member District 118

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