Some may know that my first job after grad school at the University of Michigan was at the United States Bureau of the Budget.

It was quite a heady experience working in the Old Executive Office Building right next to the White House.

When I called the Small Business Administration, my contacts did not know if I was calling on behalf of the White House or just asking some question I had dreamed up myself.

12-14 hour days while the budget was being put together.

Nothing to do after the budget went to the printer.

I was on the expenditure side.

Others put together the sources and amount of income.

Let’s fast forward.

Huntley School District 158 has posted its first budget draft. The memo is in the online board packet for the Finance committee.

Dated February 14th, it comes from Superintendent John Burkey.

“Attached is the first draft of the FY 2009 budget,” he writes.

But, there are only projected expenditures in the attachment.

When I was McHenry County Treasurer, it wasn’t my job to do the budget. During my first two years that was the task of McHenry County Auditor Harley Macaben. This former county board chairman was either incompetent or deliberately misrepresented the county’s financial situation.

I gave my opinion, including what I considered the fact that the general fund would not have the zero balance on December 1st that Macaben predicted.

The financed committee put in zero.

“We’ll see,” I said.

I knew the county board was building up an illegal balance with which to build a new courthouse.

Needless to say, the starting balance was not zero.

Closer to $10 million.

In any event, you can’t call something a budget if you only list expenditures.

You need a beginning balance, revenue, expenditures and an ending balance.

I know District 158’s chief financial officer has quit, but, among the quite well paid staff remaining, wouldn’t you think there would be someone who could put together a budget based on what was presented the year before?

Isn’t there an electronic spreadsheet somewhere?

And, if you are going to present only expenditures, shouldn’t known increases be included?

Contractual salary increases, for example.

Shouldn’t higher employee benefits be included?

Of course, if you used last year’s figures, you would eliminate any one time expenditures, wouldn’t you?

If you spent over $2 million buying buses in year one, that same figure would not be included in the year two budget, right?

“Superintendent Burkey is saying the increase is 5.3%. I calculate that the real increase is 8.7% without the salary and benefit increases,” board member Larry Snow told McHenry County Blog.

“In this year’s budget, Supt. Burkey thought it would be unfair to count the $2 million as a real budget increase.

“But now, he thinks it is fair to include it in the budget base in order to show a lower percentage increase for next year.

“Looks like we’re back to preparing budgets the way they used to be done.”