UNITED CITIZENS FOR

RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT
In Pursuit of Accountability, Transparency and Fiscal
Volume 2, Issue 2 Responsibility in the San Marino Unified School District
June 12, 2020

“Rather go to bed without SMUSD’S August 12, 2019 US Bank Credit Card Statement
dinner than to rise in debt.”

- Benjamin Franklin

In attempting to understand why the SMUSD faces a $3 million budget deficit, we are trying to
examine various expenditures. We have requested that the SMUSD produce all statements for
district issued credit cards used by SMUSD personnel for the time period of January 2014 through
March 2020 to look at expenditures that otherwise would not be seen by the public. Despite the
fact that US Bank makes all of the statements available online and would require no more than a
few hours to obtain, the SMUSD took a month and a half to produce only 20 out of the 75
requested statements, which we just received. We are in the process of analyzing the statements
provided and are demanding that all statements be produced.

The invoice above immediately caught our attention and raises the question—In a year in
which the SMUSD faced a $3 million budget deficit, pink slipped 31 teachers and then asked
the SMUSD and San Marino communities to donate more than $1 million to save jobs, why
was a SMUSD Administrator charging more than $2,200 at Mastro’s Steakhouse in Palm
Desert on a SMUSD Credit Card?

We will keep you apprised of additional findings. As always, we thank you for your support.
Please feel free to contact us at ucfrgsm@gmail.com