http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_14485472
Oh this is ridiculous. $500.00 for flip flops?
Starbucks seems to be a standard to. You know this just doesn't apply to Colorado, this is what all the states schools are doing.
And the kids need a pencil that smells why?
As school districts prepare for deep budget cuts, a Denver Post analysis of spending at the state's three largest districts found millions of dollars being spent with limited oversight on food, travel and other discretionary items.
Spending on items other than salaries and bonuses by the Jefferson County and Douglas County school districts totaled $106 million and $91 million, respectively, from July 2009 to mid-February this year.
And while the bulk of that money is spent on necessary supplies for maintenance of schools, and for direct classroom expenses (such as books, office supplies and other items), millions are spent annually on restaurants, travel and training.
In Denver Public Schools, district credit cards issued to teachers, principals and administrators were used to charge nearly $20 million in 2009. Again, much of that money, such as for additional books and supplies, was directly used to benefit classrooms.
But the analysis found so much charged in food, entertainment, travel and other discretionary items that on Friday the DPS superintendent issued new rules for credit-card holders in response to The Post's findings.
Among the expenses buried in the thousands of transactions: $270 for scented pencils for a Douglas County school, $1,228 for books at a Denver school from a company that uses color-scheme psychology, and $4,113 for doughnuts and burritos for breakfast meetings at a Denver high school.
District officials defended most of the expenses as legitimate costs in the complicated business of educating thousands of students.
Read more: http://www.denverpost.com/frontpage/ci_14485472#ixzz0gu0shnFL
