Are You Sure This Isn't From Morrisville?

When the words "Residents Are Split..." show up in the headline, I assume that our intrepid BCCT reporters have just come from another Palmer Avenue free for all session.

However, this time it's our brethren in Neshaminy where the fight is over closing some schools to save money. The only real difference between this fight and ours in Morrisville is that the Neshaminy students would remain inside their own district. The Morrisville school closure would scatter the students to the lowest bidder.

Otherwise, it's the same fight. Senior citizens want the board to close schools to ease growing tax bills. Kids and parents want the schools to stay open.

Take a look at the comments from the BCCT readership. Looks like another contentious schools fight is brewing in Lower Bucks.

Residents are split on closing schools

By RACHEL CANELLI
Bucks County Courier Times

To many Neshaminy students, parents and teachers, a school isn't just people - it's a place they call home.

That's what some educators, parents and pupils told the Neshaminy school board Friday night when more than a few hundred people turned out for two public hearings to discuss the possible closure of Neshaminy Middle School and the Tawanka Learning Center, the district's alternative program facility.

That program would be moved to another district building, officials said. But kids and teachers said it's important that Tawanka have its own separate place.

“I strongly believe that the program will not be as effective in any other setting,” said senior Katie Colon. “It's a tremendous difference to go to school where the hallways are never crowded, and the classrooms are safe and inviting.”

The edifice, built in 1964, and its 21 acres, could be worth $4.25 million officials said.

“My fear is that students will return to the very environment where they felt unknown and unwanted,” said teacher Josh Krieger.

Many senior citizens, though, asked the district to consider closing both schools to help ease their burden of growing tax bills.

With declining enrollment, underutilized buildings and a projected more than $12 million deficit, business administrator Joseph Paradise said the district has to consider closing schools.

Neshaminy Middle School was previously scheduled to close next year when ninth-graders move to the newly renovated high school. The board recently decided to reconsider this year as an option due to financial constraints and a strict timeline.

But students asked the board to wait one more year.

“We're searching for our identities,” said Jacqueline Kramer, an eighth-grader at Maple Point Middle School who presented the board with a petition of 260 students opposing the closure. “If our schools are combined, we'll be lost in the crowd.”

Both educators and parents like Fran Weiner said they're concerned the board is rushing into the decision to close a middle school and redistrict without planning.

“Allow the ninth-graders to finish in the school they started,” said Weiner, of Langhone.

With more than 660 students, Neshaminy Middle was built in 1965. The school, nationally recognized for its health initiatives, has 47 classrooms and 40 acres, officials said.

Teacher Kevin Knowles called Neshaminy Middle School a community that's created a tradition of culture and achievement.

“It's more than just a building, you'll be closing the spirit of our school,” said ninth-grader Mark Stanford.

Students also expressed concern over continuing extracurricular activities at another school and asked for the chance to have one last great year in their building.

In anticipation of a possible closure, a redistricting committee has already been formed of board members, administrators and parents. Their recommendation is expected in May, administrators said.

The school board did not make any decisions Friday night to close either facility because school code mandates that 90 days pass before they vote.

Schoolyard Bullying

I found some of these articles and links fascinating. Just wish I could remember why I was drawn to them...

Expert Answers on Workplace Bullying

Workplace Bullying: What Can You Do?

The Workplace Bullying Institute, WBI

Agenda Meeting Wrap-Up

I usually start this out by asking if anyone has anything to report. The first report is in! Thanks jon.

Any news to report from tonight's agenda meeting? I heard the following has made the agenda for the March 26 board meeting - whose theme should be "We've learned nothing, except how to punish anyone who disagrees with us or tries to tell us things we don't want to hear":

1. Hiring law firm Curtin & Heefer to review Dr. Yonson's contract;
2. Replacing Solicitor Robert Kelly;
3. Replacing the district's insurance broker.

Attempts were also made to put on the agenda the ~$200,000 in repairs to the Middle-High School that failed in a 3-3 vote at last month's meeting. But Robin Reithmeyer pointed out that the rules say this (and other items that failed at last month's meeting), can't be put back on the agenda for 3 months. Rules? We don't need no stinkin' rules!

Can't wait until everyone takes the "How to be a School Board Member" class at taxpayer expense - then things will be just grand...

Let's watch the rules get speedily changed at the next meeting in item 4a so that the repairs can be done in item 4b. It's school safety! Don't you care about the children?? *sigh*.

Wasn't the Emperor "doing lunch" with the insurance broker candidates mano-a-mano last month in violation of board rules? Did anyone call him on this?

Anyone else? Anything about the survey? Anything about the $2.4 million dollar toilet flush? Anything about Marlys and her magical writing skills?

Now What?

You talkin' to me?

Yeah. I'm talkin' to you.

If you're angry, irritated, infuriated, exasperated, aggravated, upset, wound up, bothered, maddened, frustrated, displeased, provoked, riled, incensed, cheesed off, put out, hacked off, narked, ticked off, dissatisfied, discontented, disaffected, displeased; fretful, complaining, querulous, pettish, testy, petulant, cranky; chafed, annoyed, piqued, vexed, aggravated, amplified, angry, anxious, augmented, beset, bothered, browned-off, bugged, burnt-up, chafed, deliberately provoked, distressed, disturbed, embarrassed, embittered, enhanced, enlarged, exacerbated, exasperated, galled, griped, harassed, heated up, heightened, hotted up, huffy, inconvenienced, increased, intensified, irked, irritated, magnified, miffed, nettled, peeved, perturbed, piqued, plagued, provoked, put-out, put to it, puzzled, resentful, riled, roiled, ruffled, sore beset, soured, troubled, vexed, worried, worse, worsened, or something else in that general mood, then you're exactly the one I want to talk to.

The problem is that I need you to take action. Are you ready? Thanks to jon for providing this comprehensive list of the Hellmann Administration's successes so far:

1. Hire a note-taker for Marlys;
2. Pay back this year's portion of the $2.4 million bond defeasement costs;
3. Pay this year's costs to switch banks to satisfy Bill Hellmann's vendetta against the original bond broker, if he succeeds at next month's meeting in passing the vote, provided his buddies Marlys, Al, & Gloria are there this time to bail him out);
4. Pay for the $2,500 flimsy unauthorized study Hellmann unilaterally commissioned on the Middle-High School;
5. Pay for $8,000 in similar flimsy studies Hellmann wants to do on the elementary schools, if he succeeds at next month's meeting in passing the vote, provided his buddies Marlys, Al, & Gloria are there this time to bail him out);
6. Pay for the ~$200,000 in repairs to the Middle-High School mentioned in the flimsy unauthorized $2,500 study above that Hellmann claimed were safety-related but Dr. Yonson, Reba Dunford, the District's maintenance guy, and about 15 other engineering firms indicated are not - again, if he succeeds at next month's meeting in passing the vote, provided his buddies Marlys, Al, & Gloria are there this time to bail him out);
7. Pay again to fix the doors at MR Reiter that were not fixed properly on the cheap in another unilateral move by Hellmann and will now have to be re-done, at a greater cost than the original estimate.

I know there's more. But isn't this enough?

The parents WILL be shut out of the decision process unless you take action now.

Tell the board you are disgusted with their antics so far. You can do it by email or by telling them face to face at one of the opportunities listed below:

**Parent Advisory, Tuesday March 11, 6:00 P.M. in the MHS LGI
**Infrastructure and Finance Committee Meetings, Wednesday March 12 at 6:30 and 7:00 P.M. MHS G-Hall conference room.
**Board of Ed Agenda Meeting, Wednesday March 12, 7:30 P.M. MHS LGI
**Education and Human Resources Committee Meetings, Wednesday March 26 at 6:30 and 7:00 P.M. MHS G-Hall conference room.
**Board of Ed Business Meeting, Wednesday March 26, 7:30 P.M. in the MHS LGI

Your silence or inaction gives them the courage to continue their disregard for the parents as an integral part of the education process. Don't let that happen.

Push Polling

Thank you to everyone who has contributed their experiences with the biased push poll that they received from the "school district." As previously noted, the district did not authorize this poll.

So before we take a look at this poll, let's review some of the bias that the phrasing of the questions and the recording of the answers can cause. A great sample of this bias comes from the Non Sequitir comic from Sunday.

A quote that has been attributed to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin goes like this: Those who cast the Votes, they decide nothing. Those who count the votes, they decide everything. A variant translation is: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. **Please note: Hold the hate mail. Despite the dictatorial similarities between the Emperor and Stalin, I am not comparing them. Stalin is still far more autocratic than a local school board president.**

So in this case, we answer a biased poll and the desired answers are pulled from the loaded questions already asked. Check out this short video on how to make a biased poll.

For those of you who were not blessed by the postal fairy with a survey, TA-DA! Here it is.

The sound you just heard was a million English teachers crying out in unison in great pain and torment.

Among the misspellings and grammatical errors are "INFARSTRUCTURE" in the title (should be "INFRASTRUCTURE") and return no later "that" 3/17/2008 rather than "than." Question 4 references "formally" rather than "formerly", and also does not capitalize "high school" as in "Morrisville high school."

That's the easy stuff that probably lowers this by at least one grade level. Now for the advanced errors in presentation.

Question 1 sets up the idea that *gasp* we might need a single school to service the approximately 1000 students.

Question 2 addresses the urgent need for plumbing, HVAC, electric and window infrastructure upgrades, as well as an opportunity to determine which one is more important, of if we should do them all together. This sounds like one of those triage scenes from M*A*S*H where Hawkeye and BJ decide who gets to be operated on first and then get into a fight over the diagnosis. The patient is terminal. Almost no amount of renovation will be a cost-effective life saver.

Question 3 goes to the heart of the screaming from the people so concerned that their little 4 year old pre-schoolers would be subjected to 18 year old seniors in the same school building. Do we need one, two, or three buildings in town. For everyone who missed it, the defeated new high school was specifically designed to keep the grades separated in different wings. Now we'll reverse engineer the process on the fly.

Question 4 is the payoff question that you were led to from the first three questions. You already agreed to renovate the high school for 1000 students. You agreed that one or more of the critical systems are failing, and you agreed to fix at least one building. So you are committed to answering yes. You are further committed to closing the two elementary schools OR closing 75% of MHS. How? To "continue as usual" is a ridiculous answer because you already said that we cannot continue along the same path.

You also unknowingly agreed to the fallacious argument that a reduction of 75% in the number of students means that 75% of the school is unused. With this same logic, since we had nine school board members for 4000 students, we should now reduce the board down by 75% and eliminate 6.75 members. Ouch! Sounds like it might be painful to be the designated 1/4 member.

What about the heating costs? We're using oil heat in inefficient boilers with antiquated single pane window glass. Both are well past their useful life and need to be replaced. Just doing the boilers and windows would reduce the heating costs. I'd even like to see floor plans of just what 75% you want to shut off. With the hallway configurations available, show us what is superfluous.

Question 5. My, oh my. There was an audit done in 2008? Perhaps you are referring to the I'll take "Cover The Emperor's Butt" for $2500, Alex hastily prepared defeasement report? If that is an audit, then I want these people working at the IRS for my next audit. You have an RFP out for a real audit that includes poking and prodding into critical systems.

In fairness, we pretty much already know what the audit will find. That we were getting off easily with a $32 million dollar new school. We'll probably find that even with cost overruns, we were getting off easily with a $37 million dollar new school.

There's another issue here as well. Have you ever heard about the the five phases of any project: “Enthusiasm, trouble, search for a scapegoat, punishment of the innocent, and praise and reward for all non-participants”? It looks like the board is setting up one or more scapegoats to accept punishment for the condition of the schools. Maybe they should keep in mind that the political side (the board itself) sets priorities and spending limits and the operational side (the people who actually do the work) work within those limits.

So you want to hire a "skilled facilities director"? With what money? What rich uncle died and left money to the district? Maybe we can ask the secretary to give back her (so far) under-earned stipend to help defray part of the cost. I see a lot of spending going on ($2500 for the Hellman building report, $2.4 million to return the bond money, for example) but I am unclear on the savings that have been achieved so far.

Final thoughts: Where are replies sent? Where is anything identifying this as a product of the MSD? Well, maybe that was a saving grace, because this is an embarrassing contribution to this contentious battle. Is there no one else out there who can obtain the information in a reasonably fair and unbiased way without embarrassing us all?

Gym Night Participation

Last night was the 44th annual Morrisville Gym Night fought between the Gold and the Blue teams at the high school. For those of you who keep score, Gold won last night over Blue.

I'm not a fan of the "everyone is great" school of recognition. Once the fundamentals are learned and you reach a certain age of awareness and accountability, it's time to learn the stark real-life lesson that not everyone wins every time. Life doesn't award participation trophies.

This time though, it's different. If you participated in gym night, then the reality that one team will win and another will lose was clear. However, all of the participants won, and here's why.

Those sixth through twelfth graders learned real life lessons like:
** Just because I worked hard does not mean I or my team will win. I and my team may not have won, but my hard work is still meaningful.
** A team together is stronger than the individual alone, but the team fails without the individual contribution.
** I am an individual, but my contribution toward the team goal raised all of us up. I may not necessarily be good performing a cheer, acting in the skit, or playing the sports, but I do know where I can contribute, and I did.
** I can be a good winner, because the next time I could be the loser. I can be a good loser, because I could be the winner the next time.

Were you there? What other life lessons do you think our kids learned last night?

The next time someone tells you that Morrisville produces lower quality students, point to gym night and tell them that you were there and saw the high quality of our students. Ask if they saw this alleged low quality themselves. The answer will probably be "NO", because they were not there to see the reality of the schools, and the good students that are the products of the Morrisville school system. Sadly, that probably includes the school board members and their sycophants who are bent upon the destruction and eradication of this little school system. I know I did not see any of them there. If this is wrong, please feel free to send word of your school board member sighting. Take a look at that "Citizenship" theme that was included in the programs last night. The next time you hear them talking, ask yourself if they are demonstrating "good citizenship" or "poor citizenship."

Thank you to the MHS administration, teachers, staff, and especially the students, who worked together to make this a success. You deserve a lot more than a mention here for your hard work and dedication. Also, a special thank you to everyone who participated in the "Locks of Love" donations. I know the hair will grow back, but I hear several Bulldogs had a rather close shave.

Items to Think About

Here's a sample of some items that have crossed my browser.

Another submission for the Wayback Machine, from October 2003 where Steve Worob was concerned that a sham feasibility study was being used by the administration to build the new school. Wow. Now it's a sham study for renovation and squandering $2.4 million in administrative fees to defease the bond. Some things never change. (Thanks to the anonymous submitter.)




















Defense of Testing Series: The Forgotten Middle: Improving Readiness for High School
The percentage of eighth graders on target to be ready for college-level work by the time they graduate from high school is so small that it raises questions not just about the prospect that these students can eventually be ready for college, but also about whether they are even ready for high school. But when students' skills are improved during middle school, the results by the end of high school can be astounding.

Who Shall Govern Our Schools?
The question of how best to "inform their discretion" while retaining control by "the people" is the task facing democratic-minded school reformers. If democracy be our ends, noted another famed educator, John Dewey, then it must also be our means.

Control school budgets; give the voters final say

Where Are We Going Today, Mr. Peabody?

Anyone remember Sherman and Peabody and the Wayback Machine?

I came across this mention from the New York Times, April 20, 1997. Did this policy work as well as it was hoped? What are we doing today?

School Districts Are Getting Tougher on Illegal Students Who Come From Other Places
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: April 20, 1997

It's crackdown time in Morrisville, Pa.: this summer, in an effort to stop students from trickling across the state line from New Jersey, the school board will require all students in the district to re-enroll and prove their residency.

And if that doesn't do the trick, the board in the 1,050-student suburban district near Trenton has also voted to award a $500 bounty to any school security guard who identifies, and turns in, an out-of-town student illegally attending the local schools.

''When school lets out and you see a lot of cars with out-of-state license plates picking children up, that's a problem,'' said Stephen Worob, treasurer of the Morrisville board and a leading supporter of the new policy. ''Another board member and I followed some over the border, on a kind of fact-finding mission. We're convinced that there are a substantial number of out-of-district kids in our schools illegally.''

The bounty payment may be unique to Morrisville. But as American society generally becomes more hostile to outsiders -- witness the backlash against immigration -- many school districts are taking a tougher line on families who illegally enroll their children in school districts where they do not pay taxes.

Usually, it is affluent suburban districts with reputations for educational excellence that guard their borders most zealously, but some urban districts, too, have discovered outsiders enrolling illegally at specialized or magnet schools.

In New York City, it was still news last year when two suburban youngsters were found to be attending Public School 41.

But on Long Island, many Nassau County school districts routinely spend much time and effort weeding out students from Queens by requiring re-registration, hiring private detectives or making home visits. In January, in the first such case on Long Island, a couple from Far Rockaway, Queens, were charged with criminal fraud for enrolling their 12-year-old son in Lawrence Middle School. The charges were based on a five-month investigation that grew out of a tip to a school registration phone line that the Lawrence district set up last year.

''I think what's driving this is that in the last two or three years, all kinds of school districts have come under more pressure to account for every dollar and every kid than in years past,'' said Michael Casserly, executive director of the Council of the Great City Schools, a coalition of the largest urban school systems.

In Ohio earlier this year, a single mother who drove a bus for the Cleveland school board was sent to jail for five days for illegally sending her kindergarten son to school in Euclid, a nearby suburb.

There are no good statistics on how many students, nationwide, enroll illegally in schools outside their own districts. But the New Jersey School Board Association estimates that 8,000 to 10,000 students in that state alone enroll illegally in suburban districts to avoid school in their poor urban areas.

According to the Education Commission of the States, 14 states have adopted legislation that either requires or encourages school districts to accept children from elsewhere in the state. Even in those states, however, districts are generally allowed to set limits and rules on how many, and which, out-of-district students they will accept, based on the openings available.

And in most states, districts can ban out-of-district students. ''Over all, on the state level, I'd say the trend is toward school choice,'' said Kathy Christie, information coordinator of the commission. ''But the wealthier school districts tend to be very concerned about out-of-district students trying to come in.''

Given the mix of tighter financing, crowded classrooms and parents' increasing sense of urgency about getting their children into good schools, education lawyers and school boards say that student residency questions seem to be arising more frequently, especially in suburban districts near struggling big-city school systems.

An Illinois law that took effect earlier this year makes illegal school registration a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail, a $500 fine and tuition reimbursement.

''Our hope is that the new law will provide some type of chilling effect on those who are undermining the system by falsely enrolling their children and not paying their share,'' said State Representative James Durkin, a chief sponsor of the law.

Mr. Durkin said the legislation had been spurred by complaints from his constituents, in a district that includes Oak Park, River Forest and other affluent suburbs just outside the Chicago city limits.

''Whenever I went to forums in my district, I would hear a great deal of concern about the number of students from Chicago falsifying their addresses,'' he said. ''In a most basic sense, it's a theft from the people who provide the funds. My constituents would tell me they were paying incredibly high local tax bills of $5,000 to $8,000 to support their schools, while these district jumpers were getting a free ride.''

Many school officials, echoing Mr. Durkin's feelings, see the issue as simply a matter of fairness to insure that only those who pay for the district's services get them.

''We have a wonderful educational program, tops in technology, with quality staff and small class size,'' said Elizabeth Fineberg, the superintendent of the Morrisville district. ''But we're only staffed for the number of children we're supposed to have in the district. We don't want to have to give less to our students. So we have worked very hard, and made every effort, to keep illegal students out. In past years, we've put out 10 or 12 students a year.''

Like many districts nationwide, Morrisville used to allow out-of-district students to attend its schools if they paid tuition. But it ended that program several years ago.

And this summer, said Mr. Worob, the board treasurer, the district will require every family to re-enroll, by requiring four proofs of residency, such as a utility bill or driver's license, and three proofs of identity. Anyone who is not the parent of the child being registered will also have to show proof of legal guardianship, he said, and other checks are being devised for divorced families with dual custody when only one parent lives in Morrisville.

But others say the number of students trying to sneak across the lines from poor neighborhoods in big cities into richer suburban schools is a powerful indicator of the poor-quality education offered in many cities.

They argue that it is not good social policy to criminalize parents' efforts to get their children into better schools -- efforts prompted by a lack of resources and a commitment to a good education, rather than by any malicious intent.

''If this country has gotten itself into a situation where we criminalize parents for searching out the education they want for their kids, we're going in the wrong direction,'' said Mr. Casserly of the urban schools coalition.

And many are troubled by the undertone of racial inequality: it is no accident, they say, that the policies tend to fall most harshly on poor black parents who cannot afford either out-of-district tuition or private school, women like Judy Kincaid, the 36-year-old Cleveland school bus driver who went to jail for sending her 5-year-old son, Quenten, to school in Euclid, Ohio.

''I put my child in the Euclid school system because I wanted him to have a better life and a better education,'' Ms. Kincaid told reporters when her case was being heard.

There was good reason for Ms. Kincaid to think the Euclid schools might be better for her son: Euclid has smaller classes, a lower dropout rate and a higher graduation rate than the troubled Cleveland schools. For Ms. Kincaid, who gave the authorities a false address, reporting that she lived with her son's aunt, the difference came down to something simpler and more tangible: in Euclid, Quenten got his own workbook, while his Cleveland kindergarten uses photocopied work sheets.

Last month, Ms. Kincaid lost her job with the Cleveland school board, said a spokesman for the schools, who said the dismissal was related to her driving record, not the district jumping. Ms. Kincaid, who now has an unlisted telephone, could not be reached for comment.

Ms. Kincaid, the first parent caught by Euclid's new enforcement policy, was confronted after a tip from a school bus driver who saw that Quenten got into a car each day when the driver dropped him off.

''The Kincaid case was our first one,'' said Patrick Newkirk, a retired detective from the Euclid Police Department who was hired by the district as a full-time residency officer in October. ''But we've referred five other fraud charges to the city prosecutor since then. And there's a lot more people we've found who registered legally, then moved, but didn't take their kids out of our schools. Those we just tell to withdraw.''

So What Did You Think?

I'm sitting here through the viewing of the Emperor's meltdown session. It's just about to end. Does anyone have any comments or observations?

The joint council-board meeting is also going on tonight. Anyone care to report from there?

Who Will Win in Ohio?

I can't answer that just yet, but thanks to the emailer who alerted me to this piece by Andrew Sullivan today. Sullivan was looking at the appeal of Hillary Clinton in Ohio and the reader forwarded the article to me with the comment: "Saw this, thought of Morrisville. In fact, if you replace Ohio with Morrisville, you will get a very accurate assessment of where the drivers of the town have put us."

The shame of it all is that it is a very apt illustration of life circa 1950 right here in Pleasantville...er...Morrisville.

Ohio still wants to have those high paying, manufacturing jobs of the 50's and 60's, and agriculture. I was struck by the interviews on 60 Minutes, Sunday night, from Chillcothe, Ohio. They all seemed to be bemoaning not being able to go to Florida once a year and buying a new car every two years. But only one had tried to get more education for the new challenges of the Global Market.

The state legislature has dragged its feet on fulfilling the Ohio Constitution’s mandate for state funding of education. The Supreme Court of Ohio has told them many times of the requirement, but is ignored. The legislature’s laughable solution was school vouchers, in effect, subsidizing the haves’ private education while giving the have-nots a limited choice. So Ohioans still are in a 50’s movie, play football in high school and Dad’s job will be waiting for you.

NAFTA did not kill the manufacturing jobs in Ohio; they were going, going, gone, before the agreement. But Ohioans have been waiting for some miracle to bring them back, and if their children do get an education, the children leave the state for better opportunities.

So we are in a state very much fighting the culture wars of the last century, educated in the last century, looking for the last century’s solutions.

Comic Relief Vision Quest

This is an oldie but a goodie.


Planning ahead is vision. Can anyone tell me the vision of the Emperor and his Trusted Toadies?

A closed and shuttered school system in Morrisville is the vision. It's like the cans you put out twice a week. Someone comes around and it just goes away. *POOF* No more pesky uncooperative administrators and no more parents concerned about their children. No more teacher labor contracts, cafeteria expenses, books, wintertime plowing and salting, PSSA or SAT scores, and Thank God!, no more feasibility studies for these decrepit school buildings.

The district problems become someone else's problem. Instead of too many IEP students in Morrisville and too low test scores, the surrounding districts each have a few more and either they prosper in their new surroundings, or the larger class numbers statistically mask their failure.

If you have time to visit the Home Depot on Route 13 at the old Levittown Shopping Center site, take a moment to stand in the parking lot and gaze east across Route 13. You can't miss it. The non-stop line of trucks with their seagull heralds. It's the Tullytown landfill.

Those things we got rid of never just "went away." They were just transported somewhere else and became some one else's problem. I know we can do better. Do you?

Joint Council-BOE Meeting Tuesday

Here's a reminder that we all need to take notice of: A joint borough council-board of education meeting. It will be tomorrow evening, March 4, 2008, at BOROUGH HALL ON UNION STREET at 7:30 P.M.

What would you ask the combined members of our joint tax force?

Buildings Survey?

What's up with this? Does it have anything to do with this previous post?

DISCLAIMER - SCHOOL BUILDING SURVEY
Recently some district residents received a survey concerning the school district buildings.

This survey was NOT authorized by the Administration of the school district.

Comic Relief

Courtesy of Luanne.

Is this funny or reality?

Morrisville: Example of What Not To Do, Part II

If you can't be a good example, at least be an example.

See what the BCCT readers think of the lessons learned here in Morrisville when applied to the new Centennial school.

"The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn't he?"

Anyone Remember "The Clash"?

I've been humming this tune all day long.

Should I stay or should I go now?
Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So come on and let me know
Should I stay or should I go?

Please vote in our newest poll. And, feel free to add an explanation as a comment to this post.

Morrisville: Example of What Not To Do

Editorial in the BCCT today

Just Another Night in Morrisville, Part III

I may need some assistance on some of the details of this part of the story, because the reconstruction I have seems to have some portions at odds with each other. SO...while some of the details of this may have to be clarified, the result is spot on.

If you remember back to the time following the revelation that the Emperor self-commissioned the $2500 Hellman building report to cover his tracks for the defeasement, it was suggested and broadly hinted at, that the Emperor was given a talking to by Counsel Kelly and the rest of the board. (Disclaimer: I was not there and those that were there are not talking. At least not to me. But if you want to, my email is listed at the top.) He was basically told, you're new and inexperienced, and you're eager to push your agenda, but this is not allowed. You can't run your own show here. You act in the name of the board only. We're covering you this time by an 8-1 vote. Go and sin no more.

Now, last night, we find out that the Emperor has been lunching with the district health care provider contact and/or other health care provider contacts (please, someone clarify!) in order to promote "competition" among the providers.

The problem is that the board did not sanction this. The Emperor also apparently casually mentioned that he was "the boss" and he wanted action taken to reduce costs to the district. (Clarification requested.)

Let me stop here and applaud the idea that the Emperor was promoting, not the way it was done. Stimulating competition and lowering costs is worthy. The Emperor has a problem with the "red tape" stuff and clearly and loudly proclaimed this for all to hear.

Captain Obvious reports that many people who have a high disdain for authority and controls have an authority and control problem of their own. Not that I'm making a correlation here, you understand.

So, that's when Robin Reithmeyer unleashed her latest load of lèse majesté and told the Emperor that this board runs on red tape.

Momentary reality check: A self professed experienced CPA with extensive contact with the US Tax Code and the IRS, as well as several municipal governments in Pennsylvania, is unaware that red tape runs the world. Um...I'm thinking, maybe...NOT!


But then, the other four board members, even Mrs. Steve "You Squandered Two Million Dollars Of Our Money" Worob began chiding him. So did Counsel Kelley. So did the audience. They had all already privately told him once not to overreach and to operate beyond his mandate. Now, the public got to watch and join in.

With last night's performance, quite a bit was lost. The openness and honesty that the Stop the Schoolers supposedly ran on, and that Bill Farrell (honestly and sincerely, I believe) mentions quite often, is revealed as nothing but hollow words, as empty as the chocolate bunnies on Easter morning when you bite their ears off. With these acts, one man has made a mockery of the eight remaining members of the board, the school administration that he holds in high disregard, the parents that he openly ignores, and yes, even the taxpayers that he is allegedly crusading for.

Don't believe me? See for yourself on the replays all next week. Watch and check back in with us here and let us know what you think. Unless the tape is mysteriously damaged or lost.

When the name "Bill Clinton" is mentioned, I'm sure the first association you made to a word was "liar". I'm not sure what one word will stick here, but for William I, Emperor of Education, I have no doubt that the single word will show itself sooner rather than later.

I believe my three minutes are up. Feel free to add as you will.

Comic Relief

An editorial view of the blind defeasement entitled "The Silence of the Lambs"

Just Another Night in Morrisville, Part II

When we last left our story, an open insurrection was beginning against the autocratic rule of the Emperor. The members of the Q in the audience were aghast at her insolence. The Emperor himself was rocked and resorted to babbling semi-coherently about school safety issues.

But before we visit this storyline, let's take a look at the delivery of the Q-gram last weekend that was discussed by several speakers. For some bizarre reason, it was disclosed that pictures are taken of the houses that receive a Q-gram. Do me a favor and leave me off the distribution list.

The shocking revelation that the class of 2008 did poorly on the mathematics section of the PSSA was not shocking. The only people that were shocked were the dilettantes who bungee in to piously shed mock public tears about our education woes and then obliviously bungee out again until the next pseudo-crisis arises.

I am as disappointed in the math score as anyone is, but the truth of the matter is that real watchers and supporters of the Morrisville school district knew this already, because they were briefed by Dr. Beth Yonson.

The percentile scores for the class of 2008 were 28% scoring proficient or higher in mathematics. In reading, it was 58%. In writing, it was 86%. We have work to do in math, but it looks like the reading and writing scores are pretty good.

There was also a speaker who did an analysis of the complete scores for the entire state. Again, while the math scores were disappointing, they were not wildly out of synch with the rest of the state.

Kudos to Robin Reithmeyer, who had the audacity to openly proclaim that the Emperor had no clothing. She laid out her case rather well (does anyone have a copy of her statement?) and had several pointed exchanges with His Highness.

Then came the insurrection. Robin pointed put that the Emperor was trying to spend money without a comprehensive plan, and that if he has allowed the original December RFP for bids to have gone out without meddling with it, the board would be reviewing the bids already, not just the process. She also properly noted that the items listed as code violations are longstanding items that are grandfathered in. She further noted that the bids will be opened next week and spending the money now without a plan was foolish.

My understanding is that the Emperor melted down quite like the Wicked Witch of the West when Dorothy doused her. He babbled about fires in the school and how the children were in danger.

Isn't it curious how these same items existed last year and candidate Hellmann didn't want them addressed, and now that he's holding on to personal responsibility for it, he's the Mother Theresa of repairs?

The $200,000 in repairs only covered the high school, not the two elementary schools. These schools are even worse off than the high school.

Speaking of the elementary schools, The Emperor arranged for his buddies to do another study, this time at the elementary schools. This time, he even managed to mention it to the board before the study started.

Both of these items failed to be approved, by a 3-3 tie, with Hellmann, Worob and Farrell wanting to plunge along without a plan, and Reithmeyer, Kemp, and Frankenfield wanting a comprehensive plan. **NOTE ADDED: I should mention that Bill Farrell has a deep and genuine interest in the safety of the schools and the students, and I believe that he is more interested in safe schools "right now" so that our kids are safe.**

On another note, I don't understand all of this, so if someone has the info, please share, but apparently Hellmann has a serious personal issue with the banking institution holding the district's money. A move out of here was not approved as well.

Then came the revelation that Billy-Boy stuck his hand in the cookie jar. Again.

More to come.

Just Another Night in Morrisville, Part I

A line like that conjures up a quiet, placid, gentle evening. Bird call, dog bark, cat meow, and cricket chirp, all combining to create their symphony of the night. Well, just like Dr. Johnny Fever transitioning the formerly quiet music station into WKRP by dragging the needle across the LP (kids, ask your fossilized parents to explain what I just said), let's take a look at last night's school board business meeting where the fun and laughs were non-stop.

Thank you to everyone who dropped me a line with their take on last night's meeting. There was a general agreement on one thing: What is the Emperor thinking?

First, let's start off with the rumor that the defeasement cost $2 million dollars. I can categorically report that information is 100% completely false. It was actually about $2.4 million. No one knew about it except the Emperor until it was all over. The public and even a few of the board members pleaded for judicious deliberations at the January 23 meeting, but the defeasement express plowed onward. We now know the true cost. Between the previous feasibility studies and the current debt retirement costs, Morrisville is now the proud possessor of a $5 million dollar sports complex in the rear of the high school. The only good thing this did was provide a closure for the "squandering" squawkers to cease their pseudo-frugal spending chant. No matter what the Gibson board spent as an entity on studies and analyses, the Hellmann board, single handedly, spent more.

A second, and slightly more bizarre note to the defeasement, is that the Emperor will not "dumb down" a defeasement cost presentation for the board or the public. It's too complicated for us mere non-CPA mortals to comprehend. However, he will invite us to feast at the right hand of power and trek to his office where he will personally lead us through the magical mystery money tour and show us his spreadsheet. There's something about that that sounds vaguely unsettling in a sidewalk flasher type of way...

The new board secretary, Marlys Mihok, was not in attendance last night. Also missing in action are the minutes from the January 2 special meeting; the January 9 agenda meeting; the January 30 special meeting; and the February 13 agenda meeting. So now the Morrisville School District will pay for someone else to do her job. This is in addition to the stipend that she receives for not doing it and is keeping, despite past board practice of donating it back to the financially strapped community. It figures. One of the few times that I want the Emperor to exercise his financial fix-it magic pixie dust, he's asleep on the job, voting to allow Marlys to continue piling up missing minutes faster than a state work crew on a coffee break.

Then, it got interesting. With reliable toadies Mihok, Angry Al and Gloria Heater not in attendance, the first cracks in the Emperor's invincibility aura appeared.

The Emperor was ready to deny tenure to a dedicated and caring teacher if it involved a raise for her. Even if it did (and it does not, until next school year), that's a very petty attitude, but perfectly consistent for the Emperor. Congrats to our MHS vocals teacher who gained tenure last evening.

The Hellmann Building Report, formerly known as the defeasement fig leaf, was used as the rock solid cornerstone for an emergency safety repairs resolution to spend an open ended amount of money (only some $200,000 was identified, the rest was "to be determined"). At first the Emperor wanted to table the motion because his vote counting skills showed three storm troopers missing from the front lines. When the board refused to table, the Emperor became passionate about spending the money because the "professional engineers" identified these issues. Very passionate. Extremely passionate. So passionate that one has to wonder what might be in it for him.

This is not a swipe at the engineering firm. They are a well respected company with a long track record of success. But we have noted the lapses in the report, including that it is, by the candid admission of the firm, incomplete. What did you expect for $2500? A full report complete with Power Point slides?

So then, a voice of reason started to speak. It was persistent, clear, and unambiguous. Robin Reithmeyer wanted to know enough information so that she could make up her own mind, rather than relying on royal pronouncements of whim to guide her vote. She even mentioned an email that the Emperor had sent to her instructing her to keep quiet and just cooperate.

The plot thickens. More later.

Do We Need To Know This For The Test?

Nice to see that all our kids are well educated, according to USAToday . *sigh*. Where have you gone, Millard Fillmore? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references

Big Brother. McCarthyism. The patience of Job.

Don't count on your typical teenager to nod knowingly the next time you drop a reference to any of these. A study out today finds that about half of 17-year-olds can't identify the books or historical events associated with them.

Twenty-five years after the federal report A Nation at Risk challenged U.S. public schools to raise the quality of education, the study finds high schoolers still lack important historical and cultural underpinnings of "a complete education." And, its authors fear, the nation's current focus on improving basic reading and math skills in elementary school might only make matters worse, giving short shrift to the humanities even if children can read and do math.

"If you think it matters whether or not kids have common historical touchstones and whether, at some level, we feel like members of a common culture, then familiarity with this knowledge matters a lot," says American Enterprise Institute researcher Rick Hess, who wrote the study.

Among 1,200 students surveyed:

•43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900.

•52% could identify the theme of 1984.

•51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.

In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover. For instance, 88% knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led the USA into World War II, and 97% could identify Martin Luther King Jr. as author of the "I Have a Dream" speech.

Fewer (77%) knew Uncle Tom's Cabin helped end slavery a century earlier.

"School has emphasized Martin Luther King, and everybody teaches it, and people are learning it," says Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. "What a better thing it would be if people also had the Civil War part and the civil rights part, and the Harriet Tubman part and the Uncle Tom's Cabin part."

The findings probably won't sit well with educators, who say record numbers of students are taking college-level Advanced Placement history, literature and other courses in high school.

"Not all is woe in American education," says Trevor Packer of The College Board, which oversees Advanced Placement.

The study's release today in Washington also serves as a sort of coming out for its sponsor, Common Core, a new non-partisan group pushing for the liberal arts in public school curricula. Its leadership includes a North Carolina fifth-grade teacher, an author of history and science textbooks, a teachers union leader and a former top official in the George H.W. Bush administration.

Did Defeasement Cost $2 Million?

This is a rumor I'd really like to prove false. In comments to another post today, the question was posed regarding the cost of defeasement. We knew that some $25,000 went to the Hellmann crony financial firm as payment. Here we have an anonymous poster suggesting that the real costs were some two million dollars.

Can we get some real cost numbers on this? I know a certain councilman and school board spouse would complain that this is squandering if this is true.

Blogger Jon said...

Speaking of frugal spending, is there any status information on the bond defeasement that can be shared? Have the bonds been defeased? If so, how much did the defeasement cost, just the $29,000 fee for the defeasement company?

With interest rates dropping, I'm concerned that the investments made to defease the bonds won't cover everything, and that taxpayers will end up holding the bag for the difference for years to come. I hope my concerns are unfounded, especially since this was not mentioned to the public at either at the January 23 board meeting when the board almost voted to defease, or the January 30special meeting when they did.

February 26, 2008 10:22 AM

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I hear that the defeasement cost over $2 million, and that all Board members except his highness had no idea it would cost this amount. Lovely.

February 26, 2008 1:41 PM

21st Century Funding Cuts-Action Needed

I just received this urgent news tip. If you have the opportunity, please help.

We had many of the club advisors work on letters with their students. There is no better testimonial than the words out of the mouths of our children. We will be sending a large packet of letters, and petitions to each of our local representatives. Additionally, we have asked all the school district employees, and the agencies that partner with 21st Century to call the offices of Patrick Murphy, Bob Casey, and Arlen Specter. The flyer below has numbers to the local and Washington D.C. Offices

We feel that the loss, or reduction of after school programs would be devastating not just to our students, but the millions of students participating in 21st Century programming nationwide. Though we have not been notified that we would among the programs affected, neither have we received assurances that we are safe.

Please consider contacting our representatives to have your voice heard. Feel free to pass these phone numbers to anyone who may be interested in helping us to be heard.


URGENT! YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONSIDERING 21ST CENTURY FUNDING CUTS

MARK YOUR CALENDARS: February 25th and 26th –
National Call-In Days to Show Support for After School Programs.

President Bush is proposing a devastating cut to after school funds and a drastic restructure of the 21st Century Community Learning Centers. This would mean that after school programs such as Morrisville’s would not have funding needed to remain in operation. If you want to show opposition to this proposal, we are urging you to participate in a National Call-In Campaign to support after school programs on February 25th and 26th.

On February 26th the US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings will be testifying before the House of Appropriations Committee responsible for after school funding and we want Members of Congress to know that their constituents do not support the President’s proposal to cut and reconfigure the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Program.

Together we can send a message that after school programs are critically important to the success of our children and youth and that the President’s proposal should be rejected. Encourage your partners, colleagues and friends to call in n behalf of the millions of youth who need a safe, productive and inspiring place to go to during the after school hours.

Congressman Patrick Murphy –
215-826-1963 (Bristol Office) 202-225-4276 (Washington Office)

Senator Bob Casey –
215-405-9660 (Philadelphia Office) 202-228-0604 (Washington Office)

Senator Arlen Specter –
215-597-7200 (Philadelphia Office) 202-224-4254 (Washington Office)

Parent Action Alert

Here's a reminder about the upcoming school board meetings on this Wednesday night, February 27.

The Education Committee and Human Resources Committee meetings are at 6:30 and 7:00 in the G-hall conference room.
The business meeting starts at 7:30 in the LGI.

Parents: the future of your children is being driven simply by dollars and cents. Decisions will be made solely on this basis and will not address parental concerns. According to people who attended the last parent advisory meeting, the Emperor made it clear that the goals that the parents have for their children carry less weight than the wishes of the taxpayers.

This is not automatically bad. Frugal spending is a good thing. However, while the digital-style process of adding columns of numbers proceeds without errors, the analog-style education process is hardly as neat and tidy. There are costs and allowances required by law, common process, and even just plain decency that defy neat quantification. Remember how the Emperor wants to nickel and dime the special education kids? Your kids are next.

I see the other parents in the schools frequently, volunteering, assisting, or even just keeping up to date. I have not encountered a current school board member or a member of the criticism groups doing the same thing. This is an open call to anyone who can point to the critics of the Morrisville schools who put their money where their mouth is and actually volunteer their time in the schools.

Not a News Flash: Bucks Property Tax System Broken

This is hardly a breaking news bulletin, but it goes to show that it's not just Morrisville in a tax crunch. Maybe the people screaming about their taxes need to remember that their elected council members in Morrisville Borough, Bucks County commissioners, and Pennsylvania state representatives and senators should be the target of their "don't tax me out of my house" anger, not the students of the Morrisville school district.

Morrisville residents would most likely see their property taxes raised as the result of a county reassessment, simply going by the idea that the newer communities are generally over-assessed and the older communities are generally under-assessed, even though your individual millage may vary.

I particularly like the point made below where the less than thriving Doylestown of the 1980s had a failing business base and higher taxes. The residents built up the town, including...wait for it...building new schools!... I bolded this section to make it easier to read. And to think of the opportunity we passed up as a community.

Broken: Bucks County's property tax system is decades old

Bucks County’s system for setting property taxes is creaking with age.

Even so, county officials — elected and appointed, Democrat and Republican – have no plans to change it.

Often homeowners who paid the same price for their houses have drastically different tax bills, sometimes thousands of dollars different.

A review by The Intelligencer of nearly 13,000 home sales between May 1, 2006 and Sept. 30, 2007 shows the disparity is widespread.

Take, for example, two Doylestown homes that sold for about $430,000:

Taxes for a newly constructed home on Woodbridge Drive are $6,701. A few streets away, an Oakland Avenue home that dates back to the late 1800s has a tax bill of $1,638.

For residents who live on these streets, that translates to a difference of more than $5,000 a year.

In New Hope, the owner of a West Bridge Street home that sold for $700,000 last year paid $3,891 in taxes. That’s half the $8,087 bill paid by the owner of a New Street home that sold for less — $684,000.

The problem typically isn’t as pronounced in lower-priced properties, but it still exists.

In Bensalem Township, the owner of a Williams Street home paid $1,065 in taxes, which is nearly one-third the $2,929 tax bill paid by the owner of a Virginia Avenue home.

The sale prices? Almost identical at $122,500 and $122,100. The percentage of assessment-to-sale value? For one, it’s 5.2 percent and 14.4 for the other while state guidelines suggest it should be somewhere in the middle at 9.1.

It is not hard to find examples like this in virtually every municipality in the county.

While Bucks officials point out that, countywide, the margin of error in its assessments is within acceptable standards, that is likely little consolation to individual homeowners who are paying hundreds or thousands more in taxes for a home worth just as much as one up the road.

The analysis of these sales also suggests that newer homes are more often over assessed and older homes are more likely under assessed.

For example, Bedminster, Buckingham, Hilltown, Richland, Warrington, and Warwick, all communities that have had a significant amount of new construction, showed many more over-assessed than under-assessed homes. Those over-assessed homeowners are paying, on average, $530 to $1,255 more in property taxes.

In contrast, the older communities of Bristol, Doylestown Borough, Falls, Morrisville, New Hope and Yardley had many more under-assessed homes, translating to average tax savings to those residents of $611 to $1,819.

Old vs. new

Part of the problem is the age of each home. Across the state, taxes are based on property assessments, which are increasingly inaccurate the more time that passes between reassessments.

In Bucks, the last countywide property reassessment was in 1972. Over the years many complicating factors have put things out of whack.

For people who live in older homes in places where sale prices have skyrocketed, the skewed system is good news. Homeowners end up paying taxes based on old, outdated, and very likely low assessments. They save money — sometimes thousands.

But those who live in newly constructed homes often have higher assessments and bear much more of the tax burden than their neighbors.

The situation has spawned a number of lawsuits, here and elsewhere. The outcomes could decide the issue once and for all and force substantial change in Pennsylvania.

As homeowners who live on the older Oakland Avenue and newer Woodbridge Drive — although not in the two homes mentioned above — the Hevners and the Slebodnicks have perfect seats for the old vs. new debate.

Bob Hevner and his wife bought their Oakland Avenue home in 1984 when the borough held few signs of today’s quaint downtown that draws people from New York and Philadelphia in search of shopping and fine dining.

Back then, they said, half the stores were closed on Main Street. In the two decades since then, the taxes and commerce from residents like the Hevners built a thriving borough.

“We paid to build the schools,” Bob Hevner said, standing in his living room on a chilly winter evening. “We paid to create the fire department. We paid to make all the improvements that make Doylestown what it is today.”

They bought their home for less than $80,000, according to county tax records, but larger homes on their block now sell for many times that figure. Although he concedes their home has appreciated, it wouldn’t fill a fourth of the square footage in the large, new homes that have cropped up in Central Bucks.

“Doylestown is not a wealthy community,” said the retired chemical engineer.

Carl and Elsie Slebodnick live a few blocks away on Woodbridge Drive in the new Lantern Hill development in the borough. They don’t think they should have to subsidize residents whose assessments reflect sale prices of the early 1970s.

In 2003, the retirees downsized, selling their four-bedroom Buckingham home that sat on an acre, and purchased the three-bedroom Lantern Hill townhouse that required less up keep. Homeowners’ association fees cover things like snow removal and landscaping.

Carl Slebodnick successfully petitioned for a reassessment of a home in 1991, so he is savvy about taxes, but nothing could soften the blow of tax bills for their newly constructed townhome, which sold for about $360,000 four years ago but would likely go for more today. Their tax bill on a $49,120 assessment is $6,707, which is more than double the tax bill paid across town by the Hevners, county records show.

“We did expect them to be higher, but we didn’t expect them to be as high as they were,” he said.

While the value for the development’s 117 condos and townhouses has gone up, it’s not enough to make up for 35 years of appreciation on old homes, he said.

“In spite of (our homes’) appreciation,” he said, “other homes have appreciated too. We’re still way out of whack with where we should be.”

Assessment vs. market value

But how skewed are assessments in Bucks County and how widespread is the inequity?

The Intelligencer attempted to answer these questions by analyzing a 16-month snapshot of sales data.

The figures do not show how tax bills stack up on homes that have not sold during this window and some homes listed may have been reassessed, due to home improvements, since the county started providing the data last year.

By using a state-set percentage called the “common level ratio” as a benchmark, the 12,447 home sales can be used to compare tax rates. The figure represents the difference between a home’s market value and its assessed value. It is used to set the tax assessment for new construction.

The 2007 figure won’t be finalized until June, but the 2006 figure is 9.1, meaning your assessment should represent 9.1 percent of your home’s market value.

If all homes in the county appreciated at the same rate, the assessment would never have to change. Even as prices went up, everybody’s assessment would keep the same ratio to their market value.

But because, as expected in any real estate market, different parts of the county have appreciated at different rates, not everybody’s assessment is equitable.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for a home to be assessed at a rate as low as 5 percent of market value.

Yet new construction seems to be bearing the bulk of the tax burden — with assessments as high as 15 percent of market value.

Chadds Ford Attorney Donald Weiss, who used to represent Bucks homeowners in assessment appeals, says part of the reason might be that the extraordinary number of new homes that have been built in Bucks County distorts the formula used to set their assessments.

Thousands of new homes have been added to the tax rolls each year for nearly 20 years and their assessments, set by a formula designed to find an average, are then used to help set the next year’s average.

A true average would look at all the homes in the county and what their market value is each year compared to their assessment, but the only way to do that is with a reassessment.

“You don’t have to be a mathematician to see how unfair it is,” he said. “I think this is what the people have to be seeing. Some people are over-assessed compared with their neighbor.”

The county uses other averages and formulas to show that, overall, county assessments are within or close to industry-accepted ranges.

Within those countywide averages, however, are variations between individual properties that can be striking.

That’s because the difference between a home assessed at 9 percent of market value and 8 percent may not appear significant, but it can have a dramatic impact on a tax bill.

Richard Almy, a Phoenix-based consultant who has studied property values in Allegheny County, said even small differences in ratios translate to thousands of dollars in inequitable taxes.

When assessments are close to 100 percent of market value, those small differences are less noticeable. But when, over the course of years, assessments drop to only a small percentage of real value, the impact is magnified.

“Less than 100 percent of market value is a graveyard of assessors’ mistakes,” he said, quoting a common turn of phrase for people in his line of work. “If you’re down around 9.1, one percentage point difference translates into a fairly huge difference in what you pay in taxes.”

Meeting the standards

Over the years and even until now, the county commissioners in Bucks have defended the current assessment system. While they may not go as far as to say it is fair or even good, they claim most alternatives would be worse. Reassessing, they have said, will be too expensive, or it will force people out of their homes. They have argued that the problem really is the property tax, and the county should just wait until the state gets rid of that.

Still, the present commissioners and their lawyer attempt to justify assessments by pointing to measurements calculated by the state — “coefficient of dispersion” and “price-related differential” — to make the case that now is not the time for a costly and time-consuming reassessment.

In fact, county solicitor Guy Matthews says Bucks is among the best-scoring counties on the PRD scale.

“Bucks County is in a very favorable position on that,” he said.

Asked how such a disparity between new construction and old can exist, Matthews said over-assessed homeowners might appeal to the Assessment Board of Appeals to get their taxes lowered, but the owners of under-assessed properties are unlikely to appeal.

“Where property is under-assessed,” he said, “we can’t do anything about it because that would be illegal spot assessment.”

Illegal spot reassessment is exactly what some have criticized the county for doing a dozen years ago.

Richard Brosius, the county’s chief appraiser, said in a deposition given as part of a pending lawsuit against the county, that his office reassessed about 18,000 mostly townhomes and condos in a five-year period during the early 1990s because they were over assessed.

These changes can then impact the state-set average, as the re-assessed homes, with their lower assessments, are sold.

Tax experts who hear Bucks hasn’t reassessed in 35 years have a hard time believing that assessments — and therefore taxes — could possibly be fair.

Tom Connelly, formerly of the State Tax Equalization Board, said the reality that new home owners in a county like Bucks are paying a higher tax rate than older home owners “creates class war.”

The only solution is a countywide reassessment, he said.

“One of the unique features of Bucks County is they don’t have a major city so their values are for the most part evenly distributed,” he said. “It would appear that in the southern part of county they are not getting the appreciation of real estate values. As compared to more recently developed areas where there is still appreciation.”

Montgomery County, whose reassessment is only a decade old, is an example of why states are increasingly switching to annual reassessment.

The county implemented new assessments in 1998 at a cost of about $8 million, according to the head of the assessor’s office Thomas Brauner. Before that, the last time they had reassessed was 1978.

The ratio between sale and market value is down to 50.7, but it’s unclear how many properties stray from that number. Brauner has declined to answer questions about whether it’s time to reassess, as has Bucks’ Brosius.

A Band-Aid

Commissioners Charley Martin and Jim Cawley have consistently rejected doing a reassessment because they say the state’s system of taxing individuals based on the property they own is simply unfair.

They don’t want to put a Band-Aid on the problem.

Martin, a Republican, has gone so far as to say that people moving into pricey homes built in the county essentially deserve to pay higher taxes because they’re the ones putting a strain on infrastructure.

“If the new people coming in to the county are paying a little more that’s fine with me,” he said at an August public meeting.

However, a group of retirees who have lived in Bucks for years and then bought new homes in age-restricted communities are convinced the inequitable tax system means they pay disproportionately high bills too. They even sued the county to prove it.

Like the incumbent commissioners, Democrats who ran for commissioner last year did not support reassessment.

“We didn’t because it wouldn’t be fair to people living in homes who are just making ends meet and then would not be able to make ends meet,” said incoming Commissioner Diane Marseglia. “Coming up with a reassessment would not be equitable.”

Marseglia said she wouldn’t be able to afford her Middletown home if there was a countywide reassessment. She would like to see the county convene a nonpartisan committee of residents to study the issue for six months.

Across the state, elected officials have been reluctant to order reassessments. They view raising taxes — especially on seniors — as tantamount to political suicide.

But a reassessment doesn’t automatically mean higher taxes. As assessments go up, millage rates must come down. In a reassessment year, the revenue local taxing bodies receive from property taxes must remain essentially neutral. Individual properties owners might end up paying more in taxes because their assessments are artificially low now, but others should see their taxes fall as they no longer have to subsidize those under-assessed properties.

Good News on a Morrisville Student

Congrats to Andrew Brake!

From The Trenton Times
Auto insurance company awards $20K scholarship
Friday, February 22, 2008

WEST WINDSOR -- A Wyncote, Pa., high school student was cho sen from 300 applicants to receive a $20,000 tuition scholarship from the New Jersey-based Citizen United Reciprocal Exchange auto insurance company that has offices in the township.

Andrew "Jordy" Freed of Cheltenham High School is the third recipient of the "Pay It Forward" Scholarship, which is based on the 2000 movie of the same name and promotes contributions to society for no personal gain.

The four other finalists were Andrew Brake of Morrisville High School; David Karas of Notre Dame High School in Lawrence; Joshua Suslak from West Windsor-Plainsboro High School South and Kimberly Critelli from The College of New Jersey in Ewing.

Each of the five finalists will receive a plaque and $1,000 from CURE for textbooks as well as other gifts.

Freed focused his winning essay on organizing benefit concerts that raise money for charitable organizations such as tsunami relief.

Morrisville Schizophrenia

Once again, Morrisville gets the opportunity to star as its own worst enemy. The headline for the story in the BCCT today is Residents split over Gateway Center.

We're always split. I'm not condemning partisanship--Biblically, sharpening steel upon steel is recommended because it provides a keener edge, and so it is with ideas. The more the ideas are worked upon by more and more people, the better the ideas can be.

However, we here in Morrisville have the uncanny ability to use this sharpening capacity for cross-purposes. Instead of buckling down to the admittedly hard work of making things happen, we're left with the same type of petty sibling bickering that used to have my father threatening to pull the car over.

Time and time again, we see "residents split" in the headline, whether it be for the late new school, Gateway, or whatever dispute du jour. I find it fascinating how the same people who bemoaned the high taxes that accompanied the new school and contributed to its demise, are the same people who do not want the new development to lower those same taxes.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to move to such a contentious little town, where anything new is greeted with derisive scorn and no one is a longtime resident until they've been here for over five decades? Imagine the sign at the foot of the Calhoun Street bridge--"Welcome to Morrisville. Now get out."

Sorry Mr. Mayor--your explanation notwithstanding, the Borough Council has a large share of the ignominy factor here for the nearly complete inaction and lack of support for a major new business initiative. After two years, this new building should be soliciting new tenants, not requesting approval actions. The fig leaf of legality aside, egos and hubris on the part of borough leaders have delayed this process. The sliver of land that is needed from Williamson Park doesn't destroy anything but the goose latrine area in the former leaf dump. The toll bridge commission sliver of land is ready to be acquired, but only if the borough council signals a go-ahead. Stop this squandering of this opportunity and settle this once and for all.

Residents split over Gateway Center

Disagreement continues over early plans for the Morrisville Gateway Center.

Some residents say the borough needs the extra tax base the proposed commercial office building at the corner of Bridge Street and Delmorr Avenue could bring to the borough.

Others say there are places better suited for the building, which calls for the purchase or lease of two acres of unused land at the southern end of Williamson Park.

“Please don't infringe on the little bit of green space that we have,” resident Herbert Brookes told the borough council Tuesday night.

Resident Sharon Hughes said there are other areas that wouldn't require using any park land.

“One of the best things Morrisville has is a park along the river,” she said.

The executive vice president of Penn Jersey Real Properties, the Morrisville-based developer that proposed the idea in May 2006, disagreed.

“There is no other place. This is the best location,” said Dan Jones, the executive vice president, who claimed that the building would be the “cornerstone to redevelopment in Morrisville.”

But there is a list of people who desperately want the Gateway Center, a proposed 50,000-square-foot building in its infant stages that Penn Jersey claims could bring between 400 and 600 jobs to the borough and revitalize the business district. Only sketches have been given to borough council and no formal plans have been submitted yet.

Resident Judy Miller said the new office complex could lower the tax burden on residents and add a boost for other businesses in the downtown district. She urged the council to enter into a non-binding agreement of sale with the developer.

“Taxpayers desperately need relief,” Gayle Haug said.

Council President Nancy Sherlock said the council would not make any decisions on the matter, but residents could expect the board to specifically address the matter “in the very near future.”

“Unfortunately, right now ... there's nothing council is legally allowed to discuss,” said Mayor Thomas Wisnosky. Officials have said they can't comment on the proposal because no preliminary plans have been submitted.

What's The Beef?

Seems like the Morrisville students are now part of the nationwide recall of tainted beef products.

However, the best part of the article are the four (at present) comments posted by readers.

Schools in Bucks part of beef recall

The state Agriculture Department identified six Bucks County school systems among 196 in Pennsylvania that have received recalled beef from a California packing plant.

The Pennsbury, Bensalem, Bristol Township, Morrisville and Quakertown Area public school districts and the Woods Schools in Langhorne received recalled products under the National School Lunch program, according to the state. Also on the list of nearby districts: Philadelphia, Abington and Lower Merion.

The state is urging officials at the schools to check their supplies and follow recall instructions if any of the meats are in storage. Agriculture officials noted Tuesday there is "very low risk to human health" in the recall of products from the Hallmark/Westland Meat Packaging Co. of Chino, Calif. The company voluntarily recalled 143 million pounds of raw and frozen beef products on Sunday.

Information on the recall can be found at www.fsis.usda.gov on the Web.

February 19, 2008 10:15 PM
Comments To This Article:

* Fleura - How could this happen????
(02/19/2008 )
These are our children, our future, who have received this recalled product.

??Recalled as a precaution?? I know of no business that would choose to loose that much money as a precaution. THe typical response is - cross your fingers and hope that this goes away without incident - I am a teacher in one of the effected schools and saw many sick children over the past 2 weeks. Some classrooms were half empty.

?? Just a precaution?? Who are they kidding?

* David Evan - Thank free market economics without controls
(02/19/2008 )
Thank free market economics without controls for the state of the economy and the compromises on our safety and well being. Next time, think before you vote.

* - Fleura
(02/19/2008 )
Fleura, if you're really a teacher, I'm more frightened by your misuse of "effected" than the beef recall. It should be "affected". Sheesh.

* - Smitty
(02/19/2008 )
Fleura- "lose", not "loose". You ARE a teacher!

The Emperor's Job Approval

It's time to retire the Emperor's job approval poll. This was the poll that received the most participation, with 42 votes. The only real note of interest was the four votes from stop the schoolers.

Heroic and wise?

Wow--pretty amazing.

I guess the tyranny of the Emperor today is not good enough. We need to relive the past again. GET OVER IT!

If the racist remark was made, it should be addressed. Are you suggesting otherwise? Why would a statute of limitations apply?

Who ever said that contacting Pennsbury was a bad thing? The old board did contact Pennsbury and again Pennsbury declined. That was for a MERGER, not for a contract farming scheme. There is a difference. A merger would mean some sort of representation on the Pennsbury school board, even if it was only one seat. Under a contact farm out plan, community representation would be nothing.

The catastrophe is yet to come. Stay tuned.

NOTE ADDED: I apologize to the readers for providing the time and space to reprint this from the BCCT. When you search on the writer's name, there is a veritable cornucopia of opinions and rebuttals printed. The words "outrageous" and "convoluted" and similar words appear often. I will not provide her the space again.

Heroic and wise

Thumbs down to the Courier Times for its subversion of the miracle of democracy that happened in Morrisville when its residents, following the true meaning of Summerseat, the Revolutionary-era mansion in the center of town, rose up against a tyrannical school board president who treated our people like dirt!

And now, this same person claims from “exile” that she overheard an opponent of her agenda make a racist remark over a year ago.

Last year, under her leadership, the old Morrisville school board sent out feelers to Pennsbury about taking our students. This was reported in the Courier. Now the paper screams foul that the new board has contacted other school districts.

What would Morrisville's home and business owners do now if that unnecessary new school had been approved and taxes thus rose astronomically while the present mortgage/economic crisis happening?

We should applaud the heroism and common sense wisdom of Morrisville and its new school board for saving our town from complete catastrophe!

Gloria del Vecchio
Morrisville

School Renovation Questionnaire

I'm going to throw this out and see if anyone might pick it up and run with it. I've received several emails mentioning a school renovations questionnaire but I have not seen anything definitive about it and no one will speak on the record about it. I've been told that it was presented to a select few and that the questions are somewhat misleading and intentionally steer the respondent into providing the responses desired.

That however, is not a problem. I expect the results of any survey requested of this board to be spun and presented in the direction desired. Before anyone quacks at me about saying this, this criticism is a blanket observation for any elected official or group. However, my trust level with the Stop the School people's board has eroded with each royal pronouncement from the Emperor's lips.

I've also been told that it contains egregious spelling errors and is formatted in a manner that is amateurish in general, but is doubly embarrassing as a representation of a school system.

The Sunday Funny Papers

OK, so digital is not quite like getting your hands smudged with newsprint Sunday mornings. But it's close. Just don't smudge the pixels.

Luann and teenage learning styles

Comic Relief

The Pickles comic strip.

I wonder what his PSSA scores were like.

Another Feasibility Study...

I just wonder what the Q will say about this. Isn't it just squandering the district's money to do ANOTHER study?

NOTICE
The School District of Borough of Morrisville will accept sealed bids on a proposal for a school facility study of all currently used buildings and grounds of the District. Bids will be received until 10:00 a.m. prevailing time, March 7, 2008 at which time they will be opened and read publicly in Conference Room F-10 of the Middle/ Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA.
A walk through of the facilities is required. Interested parties may obtain a copy of the Request for Proposal and to schedule a walk through by contacting Reba Dunford, CPA, Business Administrator, School District of Borough of Morrisville, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA 19067.
Marlys Mihok, Secretary

Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Saturday, 02/16/2008

Are you a "Fixer" or a "Disposer"?

Thanks to borows, who posed a very interesting characterization of the schools situation in Morrisville.

Borows has left a new comment on your post "Why Are We Here?":

Seems to me there are two camps in Morrisville.

There are the "FIXERS" who say 'We see there is a problem with the facilities and with the educational programs, so let us expend energy and money to fix them because we know that whatever we do will benefit the community as a whole'

Then there are the "DISPOSERS" who say 'We see there is a problem with the facilities and with the educational programs, but it is better to be rid of the problem all together because if we expend energy and money trying to make it better, it will not benefit the community more than it will cost the community'.

The common ground is the problems with the district. Maybe the dialogue should have started there.

The differences are in how to solve the problems. Fix or Dispose.

A question should be asked of each school of thought.

For the Fixers: Is there any amount of energy and money that can solve the problems? The next question would be: Is it practical to assume that this amount of energy and money can be generated in Morrisville?

For the Disposers: Given the social and legal constraints and responsibilities to educate our children, will the problems be solved by disposing of them from Morrisville all together? The next question would be: What is the cost to the community to dispose of the problem, and what would the cost to the community be if disposal fails to solve the problems?

So I leave the floor open for public comment sans the 45 minute limit. Which are you, why, and what do you propose?

I'm definitely a fixer. A whole Morrisville is much better than a partitioned one. The money and energy can certainly be generated right here, right now. I do question if the collective willpower is available to be generated to back up the "we can do it."