From the BCCT.
District strives to cut more
By: FREDA R. SAVANA
Bucks County Courier Times
Like everyone else, the New Hope-Solebury School District is feeling the squeeze from the rough economy.
Wrestling to bring down costs, without damaging the small district's strong reputation, New Hope Superintendent Raymond Boccuti said Wednesday his staff has found another $287,000 to slash from next year's budget.
In an impassioned and somewhat frustrated tone, Boccuti detailed cuts ranging from $144,000 from a teacher's retirement and a resignation, to $1,000 in professional books. Part-time custodians, consultants and new computers are being axed. Updated textbooks are being pushed off for another year.
"We've looked and looked at this budget. We're doing a lot of dramatic things while preserving the integrity of the school district," Boccuti told the school board.
If the new reductions make their way out of the budget, taxpayers are still facing a 4.98 percent tax hike, or a $217 increase for the owner of a home assessed at the district average. That's down from the $314 it projected earlier this year for a $33.3 million spending plan.
"To get it to zero," said the superintendent, "you'll have to gut the fund balance and cut staff and programs."
Among the proposed cuts is the "Artist in Residence" program, which brings art into schools, for a savings of $6,500. Cutting the district's school resource officer, a New Hope police officer who visits the campus periodically, would save another $45,000, according to Boccuti.
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The superintendent pointed out the officer has rarely been at the school in recent months, as he's been needed by the borough's police department, which is also struggling with budget cuts.
"I don't want us to be penny wise and pound foolish," said school director Laurence Fieber, expressing concern about the cuts. He suggested maybe the home and school association and the nonprofit New Hope Education Fund, which supports various school-related projects, could pick up some of the slack.
Board President Rebecca Malamis said parents offered to help when the district stopped running late buses to cut costs and would probably do it again.
"This is a time for our community to come together," she said.
Boccuti and the board agreed to discuss the program cuts with the local organizations and parents.
Parents, volunteers and community groups will be asked to help with some school programs.
April 16, 2009 02:20 AM
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Mayoral Candidate Speaks
Here's a comment that was made to the mayoral candidate posting that deserves to see the light of day as a posting of its own.
I am accepting it as a posting from Graeme Thomson, democratic candidate for mayor in Morrisville. If it later turns out not to be his posting, this will be removed.
In the interests of full disclosure, I believe this is the same person who was the administrator of several websites many of our readers are familiar with, but I would provide the opportunity to let the poster make that disclosure. It might make some people wonder how fervently this poster advocates investment in Morrisville while his friends would not.
Graeme has left a new comment on your post "3 Dems running for Morrisville mayor":
I guess it is time for me to chime in and introduce myself.
I am running for mayor I decided to run for mayor the day our incumbent told the school board and citizens at a school board meeting something to the effect that he had spoken to 1000 people about the school issue. It is time for absentee mayor to end and to bring someone in to the position.
I moved to Morrisville, I decided to live here, because of the town and because of the people.
When I chose Morrisville for my home I worked in New York, it was certainly not because it was close to where I worked but I wanted a home where I could raise my family. I can’t think of any place better then Morrisville.
I worked for 12 years in "Advertising and Public Relations", I know better then any of the other candidates how to talk to business leaders, and I know how to show them what a great opportunity Morrisville is.
Morrisville has some hard times ahead if we do not select a business leader. The Calhoun Street Bridge is about to be shutdown for an extended period of time cutting seriously into the number of consumers coming in to Morrisville. To make matters worse PA has increased the taxes on tobacco, making it more expensive for people from New Jersey to here and buy cigarettes then buy them in NJ. I do not smoke and wish we had a better “draw” in Morrisville but at the moment it is the biggest “draw” we have for consumers. More people come to Morrisville to buy cigarettes then any other single item. While they are here people stop at some of our other business. Weather they buy a slice of pizza or a haircut every dollar they spend while they are here adds to our economy.
We need to take strong action to remind Morrisville residents of Morrisville, this is the prime time to do just that. With the cost of fuel on the rise again it is time for the town to learn how to shop local again. During the 2nd world war there were billboards all over reminding people to conserve fuel. That combined with letting people know what businesses and services we have will bring local consumers into our shops. As the shops do better in the area we will be able to meet with business owners and show them that stores in Morrisville can make profit, if you gave a business a tax free ride they will not move here if they do not think they can make profit. It will be a long process, bringing more business into Morrisville but together we can.
As for my being a puppet, life would be a lot simpler if I were. The only person who tells me what to do is my wife, and honestly even she is not completely happy with those results☺ I have always stood up for what I believe and will fight for what I think is right, and though I am willing to listen to other opinions, my decisions are my own not what I was told. I think about my words and actions before I speak or act, so I do not need handlers.
With the work and this campaign keeping me busy I can not promise to keep popping in to this blog, but I am a computer nerd both professionally and at home so this is as good of place as any to leave questions.
Even if you do not vote for me in May I hope you will get out and vote. I also hope you will support who ever is elected in November.
Think Green, Buy Local
I am accepting it as a posting from Graeme Thomson, democratic candidate for mayor in Morrisville. If it later turns out not to be his posting, this will be removed.
In the interests of full disclosure, I believe this is the same person who was the administrator of several websites many of our readers are familiar with, but I would provide the opportunity to let the poster make that disclosure. It might make some people wonder how fervently this poster advocates investment in Morrisville while his friends would not.
Graeme has left a new comment on your post "3 Dems running for Morrisville mayor":
I guess it is time for me to chime in and introduce myself.
I am running for mayor I decided to run for mayor the day our incumbent told the school board and citizens at a school board meeting something to the effect that he had spoken to 1000 people about the school issue. It is time for absentee mayor to end and to bring someone in to the position.
I moved to Morrisville, I decided to live here, because of the town and because of the people.
When I chose Morrisville for my home I worked in New York, it was certainly not because it was close to where I worked but I wanted a home where I could raise my family. I can’t think of any place better then Morrisville.
I worked for 12 years in "Advertising and Public Relations", I know better then any of the other candidates how to talk to business leaders, and I know how to show them what a great opportunity Morrisville is.
Morrisville has some hard times ahead if we do not select a business leader. The Calhoun Street Bridge is about to be shutdown for an extended period of time cutting seriously into the number of consumers coming in to Morrisville. To make matters worse PA has increased the taxes on tobacco, making it more expensive for people from New Jersey to here and buy cigarettes then buy them in NJ. I do not smoke and wish we had a better “draw” in Morrisville but at the moment it is the biggest “draw” we have for consumers. More people come to Morrisville to buy cigarettes then any other single item. While they are here people stop at some of our other business. Weather they buy a slice of pizza or a haircut every dollar they spend while they are here adds to our economy.
We need to take strong action to remind Morrisville residents of Morrisville, this is the prime time to do just that. With the cost of fuel on the rise again it is time for the town to learn how to shop local again. During the 2nd world war there were billboards all over reminding people to conserve fuel. That combined with letting people know what businesses and services we have will bring local consumers into our shops. As the shops do better in the area we will be able to meet with business owners and show them that stores in Morrisville can make profit, if you gave a business a tax free ride they will not move here if they do not think they can make profit. It will be a long process, bringing more business into Morrisville but together we can.
As for my being a puppet, life would be a lot simpler if I were. The only person who tells me what to do is my wife, and honestly even she is not completely happy with those results☺ I have always stood up for what I believe and will fight for what I think is right, and though I am willing to listen to other opinions, my decisions are my own not what I was told. I think about my words and actions before I speak or act, so I do not need handlers.
With the work and this campaign keeping me busy I can not promise to keep popping in to this blog, but I am a computer nerd both professionally and at home so this is as good of place as any to leave questions.
Even if you do not vote for me in May I hope you will get out and vote. I also hope you will support who ever is elected in November.
Think Green, Buy Local
Inefficient, expensive, but an American icon
From the Inquirer.
Inefficient, expensive, but an American icon
The neighborhood school helps to define who we are. Consolidation threatens that.
Commentary By Jonathan Zimmerman, Posted on Tue, Apr. 14, 2009
Imagine two school districts somewhere on America's checkered educational landscape. Each district has 1,000 students. But each one also has its own superintendent, clerical employees, and buses. And neither can afford electives in art, music, or technology.
Wouldn't you want to merge them?
Across the country, governors and state legislatures are trying to do exactly that. Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell has proposed a 12-member commission to suggest ways to consolidate some of our state's 501 school districts. Lawmakers in South Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa are devising their own consolidation schemes. In these tough times, the argument goes, bigger districts will reduce administrative costs while enhancing curricula. So citizens will get more educational bang for their property-tax buck.
Only, the citizens don't see it that way. Especially in rural areas, voters have produced a flood of letters and petitions against consolidation. And in Maine, which passed a consolidation law two years ago, opponents are mounting a campaign to repeal it.
What's going on here? Part of the issue concerns money: Many voters doubt consolidation would cut costs or fear their taxes would actually go up.
But there's more. To Americans, school is not simply an institution to educate the largest number of children at the lowest expense possible. It's a symbol of community, of the geographic spaces and face-to-face relationships that help define who we are. If we give up our schools or our districts, we relinquish part of ourselves.
Consider the one-room schoolhouse, the ultimate emblem of our nation's educational localism. As late as 1913, fully one-half of the nation's students attended a single-teacher school. And they did so over the protests of state legislators and educational officials, who railed incessantly against the inefficiency of one-room schools.
In many ways, the critics were correct. These schools had children of different ages huddling around smoky stoves and reciting long passages to their young teachers, who often possessed not much more education than the kids. Meanwhile, despite the myth of the tidy "little red schoolhouse," many were barren, dilapidated shacks. They weren't even red, because parsimonious citizens refused to pay for paint.
But the schools were theirs, and that's what mattered. Often the lone public building within miles, the one-room school hosted marriages, funerals, spelling bees, and political rallies. It also featured evening dramas and debates, the only entertainment in many parts of the country.
One Utah school staged a debate about whether "a load of seed potatoes" or "a load of women" was "most needed in the community." In North Dakota, villagers deliberated on whether "the Farm Woman Works Harder and has Less Recreation than the Farm Man." (A three-judge panel ruled for the Farm Woman.)
Not surprisingly, then, these Americans bridled when states moved to consolidate their schools. "Individuality will be lost, the pride taken in 'our' school and 'our' teacher gone," warned one parent in upstate New York, identifying herself only as a "Rural Mother."
Hers was a lost cause. By 1925, 19 states had passed laws to encourage school consolidation, often giving cash awards to districts for each single-room school they closed. Thirty-five years later, in 1960, just 1 percent of our students attended a one-room school.
But we still celebrate the tiny rural school. Look at the eight entrances to the Washington headquarters of the Department of Education, installed for a 2002 rally kicking off the federal No Child Left Behind law. Each entrance is shaped like a one-room school, featuring a slanted roof and a bell tower; the only added modern element is the slogan "No Child Left Behind," emblazoned in bold letters across all of them.
"We serve the ideal of the little red schoolhouse," then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige told the rally. "It is one of the greatest symbols of America - a symbol that every child must be taught and every child must learn, that every community was involved and every parent's input valued."
How could a one-room schoolhouse become the icon for No Child Left Behind, which gave the federal government unprecedented new powers over American education? It was illogical - even laughable. Symbolically, however, it made perfect sense. Amid the anonymity and centralization of modern life, we need emblems of the local bonds that hold us together.
That's what we get from small school districts, which continue to embody America's communal ideal. A 1,000-student district is not a one-room school, to be sure, but it is still small - and it's still ours. It may not make economic or even educational sense, but it fits snugly into the story we tell about ourselves: our roots, our purpose, and our identity. Whoever wants to change that story will have to come up with a better one.
Inefficient, expensive, but an American icon
The neighborhood school helps to define who we are. Consolidation threatens that.
Commentary By Jonathan Zimmerman, Posted on Tue, Apr. 14, 2009
Imagine two school districts somewhere on America's checkered educational landscape. Each district has 1,000 students. But each one also has its own superintendent, clerical employees, and buses. And neither can afford electives in art, music, or technology.
Wouldn't you want to merge them?
Across the country, governors and state legislatures are trying to do exactly that. Here in Pennsylvania, Gov. Rendell has proposed a 12-member commission to suggest ways to consolidate some of our state's 501 school districts. Lawmakers in South Carolina, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa are devising their own consolidation schemes. In these tough times, the argument goes, bigger districts will reduce administrative costs while enhancing curricula. So citizens will get more educational bang for their property-tax buck.
Only, the citizens don't see it that way. Especially in rural areas, voters have produced a flood of letters and petitions against consolidation. And in Maine, which passed a consolidation law two years ago, opponents are mounting a campaign to repeal it.
What's going on here? Part of the issue concerns money: Many voters doubt consolidation would cut costs or fear their taxes would actually go up.
But there's more. To Americans, school is not simply an institution to educate the largest number of children at the lowest expense possible. It's a symbol of community, of the geographic spaces and face-to-face relationships that help define who we are. If we give up our schools or our districts, we relinquish part of ourselves.
Consider the one-room schoolhouse, the ultimate emblem of our nation's educational localism. As late as 1913, fully one-half of the nation's students attended a single-teacher school. And they did so over the protests of state legislators and educational officials, who railed incessantly against the inefficiency of one-room schools.
In many ways, the critics were correct. These schools had children of different ages huddling around smoky stoves and reciting long passages to their young teachers, who often possessed not much more education than the kids. Meanwhile, despite the myth of the tidy "little red schoolhouse," many were barren, dilapidated shacks. They weren't even red, because parsimonious citizens refused to pay for paint.
But the schools were theirs, and that's what mattered. Often the lone public building within miles, the one-room school hosted marriages, funerals, spelling bees, and political rallies. It also featured evening dramas and debates, the only entertainment in many parts of the country.
One Utah school staged a debate about whether "a load of seed potatoes" or "a load of women" was "most needed in the community." In North Dakota, villagers deliberated on whether "the Farm Woman Works Harder and has Less Recreation than the Farm Man." (A three-judge panel ruled for the Farm Woman.)
Not surprisingly, then, these Americans bridled when states moved to consolidate their schools. "Individuality will be lost, the pride taken in 'our' school and 'our' teacher gone," warned one parent in upstate New York, identifying herself only as a "Rural Mother."
Hers was a lost cause. By 1925, 19 states had passed laws to encourage school consolidation, often giving cash awards to districts for each single-room school they closed. Thirty-five years later, in 1960, just 1 percent of our students attended a one-room school.
But we still celebrate the tiny rural school. Look at the eight entrances to the Washington headquarters of the Department of Education, installed for a 2002 rally kicking off the federal No Child Left Behind law. Each entrance is shaped like a one-room school, featuring a slanted roof and a bell tower; the only added modern element is the slogan "No Child Left Behind," emblazoned in bold letters across all of them.
"We serve the ideal of the little red schoolhouse," then-Secretary of Education Rod Paige told the rally. "It is one of the greatest symbols of America - a symbol that every child must be taught and every child must learn, that every community was involved and every parent's input valued."
How could a one-room schoolhouse become the icon for No Child Left Behind, which gave the federal government unprecedented new powers over American education? It was illogical - even laughable. Symbolically, however, it made perfect sense. Amid the anonymity and centralization of modern life, we need emblems of the local bonds that hold us together.
That's what we get from small school districts, which continue to embody America's communal ideal. A 1,000-student district is not a one-room school, to be sure, but it is still small - and it's still ours. It may not make economic or even educational sense, but it fits snugly into the story we tell about ourselves: our roots, our purpose, and our identity. Whoever wants to change that story will have to come up with a better one.
School district mergers worth talking about
From GoErie.com
School district mergers worth talking about
Published: April 13. 2009 12:01AM
It's easy to anticipate the following arguments against Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to pare Pennsylvania's school districts from 500 to 100.
-Large districts are unworkable.
-Smaller school districts are more attuned to the needs of the community.
-Previous mergers haven't saved money.
-Models from the business world can't be imposed on public education.
-Transportation costs would eat up savings and require students to spend too much time on the bus.
But instead of dismissing Rendell's proposal, those interested in improving public education should review Rendell's ideas with an open mind.
Rendell wants to create a legislative commission with a one-year timetable "to study how best to right-size Pennsylvania's local school districts," according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Those who work in the private sector understand that businesses continually search for ways to stay competitive. Often, this leads to consolidations within a particular business or a specific industry. School districts should not escape this scrutiny.
Rendell has said that consolidation would not require individual schools to close, but that it would reduce administrative costs. In the current economy, we have reached a tipping point. Property taxes can't be hiked every year to cover government spending that grows when everyone else is cutting back.
Erie's educational leaders and taxpayers should look to previous attempts to merge school districts and learn how those districts that passed on a merger are functioning today. The Harbor Creek and Iroquois school districts received a grant to share a business manager and considered merging in 1999. Girard and Fairview almost merged 40 years ago, but the fear of loss of local control and identity killed the merger.
How do property taxes compare for those districts now? What about course offerings for students? How have administrative costs changed over a specific time frame?
"There comes a time when you have to look beyond maintaining inefficiencies because somebody wants to maintain their school colors or mascot," said Center Area Superintendent Daniel Matsook, whose district in Beaver County will merge with Monaca on July 1. We like his blunt assessment.
We also like the attitude of Robert Puerta, board president in the Saucon Valley School District. "We should appreciate the governor's courage in raising this issue at a time when there is no consensus for such action. We never lose when we take the time to honestly discuss reform, and there are some great questions to be debated in this subject," Puerta wrote in an Op-ed for the Morning Call in Allentown.
Let the debate begin, without preconceived conclusions.
School district mergers worth talking about
Published: April 13. 2009 12:01AM
It's easy to anticipate the following arguments against Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to pare Pennsylvania's school districts from 500 to 100.
-Large districts are unworkable.
-Smaller school districts are more attuned to the needs of the community.
-Previous mergers haven't saved money.
-Models from the business world can't be imposed on public education.
-Transportation costs would eat up savings and require students to spend too much time on the bus.
But instead of dismissing Rendell's proposal, those interested in improving public education should review Rendell's ideas with an open mind.
Rendell wants to create a legislative commission with a one-year timetable "to study how best to right-size Pennsylvania's local school districts," according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Those who work in the private sector understand that businesses continually search for ways to stay competitive. Often, this leads to consolidations within a particular business or a specific industry. School districts should not escape this scrutiny.
Rendell has said that consolidation would not require individual schools to close, but that it would reduce administrative costs. In the current economy, we have reached a tipping point. Property taxes can't be hiked every year to cover government spending that grows when everyone else is cutting back.
Erie's educational leaders and taxpayers should look to previous attempts to merge school districts and learn how those districts that passed on a merger are functioning today. The Harbor Creek and Iroquois school districts received a grant to share a business manager and considered merging in 1999. Girard and Fairview almost merged 40 years ago, but the fear of loss of local control and identity killed the merger.
How do property taxes compare for those districts now? What about course offerings for students? How have administrative costs changed over a specific time frame?
"There comes a time when you have to look beyond maintaining inefficiencies because somebody wants to maintain their school colors or mascot," said Center Area Superintendent Daniel Matsook, whose district in Beaver County will merge with Monaca on July 1. We like his blunt assessment.
We also like the attitude of Robert Puerta, board president in the Saucon Valley School District. "We should appreciate the governor's courage in raising this issue at a time when there is no consensus for such action. We never lose when we take the time to honestly discuss reform, and there are some great questions to be debated in this subject," Puerta wrote in an Op-ed for the Morning Call in Allentown.
Let the debate begin, without preconceived conclusions.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bensalem: Schools, Flooding, and Drainage
From the BCCT.
Council reviews drainage project
By: JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times
Township officials say the Eddington section needs a drainage basin because its storm system is old. A Democratic activist blamed area flooding on overdevelopment.
At Monday night's Bensalem Council meeting, engineers outlined an early stage plan for a soccer-field-sized drainage basin that could reduce flooding in the Eddington section.
Carroll Engineering representative Thomas Crawley said a 10-foot deep basin located on school property behind Cornwells Elementary School could reduce the flood risk for as many as 850 homes. The basin would be located closest to Cornwells Avenue and Hulmeville Road.
Crawley said it was too early to estimate the cost of the project.
Bensalem would need to first secure the land from the school district. The council took no immediate action Monday night.
Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo said the school board was currently reviewing the plan. DiGirolamo, who ordered the engineering work, said the Eddington basin "is a major project for a major problem."
Carroll Engineering attributed the flooding in the Eddington section to the age of the neighborhood.
Democratic activist Joe Kraher also said part of the problem can be tied to overdevelopment.
Members of council rejected that argument.
Councilman Joseph Szafran and Kraher got into a heated debate over the politics of flooding and development in Bensalem. The argument ended as Council President Ed Kisselback hollered, "Stop! Stop! Stop right now!"
Councilman Bryan Allen, the lone Democrat on the township council, questioned why plans for the Eddington basin were available on the Web site of the Bensalem Republican Executive Committee but not on the township's Web site.
The plans are public information and were offered to the public during a recent school board meeting, Kisselback said. Township officials said they would try to put the plans on the government Web site soon.
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
Council reviews drainage project
By: JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times
Township officials say the Eddington section needs a drainage basin because its storm system is old. A Democratic activist blamed area flooding on overdevelopment.
At Monday night's Bensalem Council meeting, engineers outlined an early stage plan for a soccer-field-sized drainage basin that could reduce flooding in the Eddington section.
Carroll Engineering representative Thomas Crawley said a 10-foot deep basin located on school property behind Cornwells Elementary School could reduce the flood risk for as many as 850 homes. The basin would be located closest to Cornwells Avenue and Hulmeville Road.
Crawley said it was too early to estimate the cost of the project.
Bensalem would need to first secure the land from the school district. The council took no immediate action Monday night.
Mayor Joseph DiGirolamo said the school board was currently reviewing the plan. DiGirolamo, who ordered the engineering work, said the Eddington basin "is a major project for a major problem."
Carroll Engineering attributed the flooding in the Eddington section to the age of the neighborhood.
Democratic activist Joe Kraher also said part of the problem can be tied to overdevelopment.
Members of council rejected that argument.
Councilman Joseph Szafran and Kraher got into a heated debate over the politics of flooding and development in Bensalem. The argument ended as Council President Ed Kisselback hollered, "Stop! Stop! Stop right now!"
Councilman Bryan Allen, the lone Democrat on the township council, questioned why plans for the Eddington basin were available on the Web site of the Bensalem Republican Executive Committee but not on the township's Web site.
The plans are public information and were offered to the public during a recent school board meeting, Kisselback said. Township officials said they would try to put the plans on the government Web site soon.
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
Slots Payoff
From the BCCT.
$200 tax break for Pa. homeowners
Bucks County Courier Times
Pennsylvania homeowners will receive nearly $770 million in property tax relief in 2009 under the latest installment from the historic Taxpayer Relief Act, Gov. Ed Rendell announced Monday.
Almost 2.7 million households' taxes across the state were lowered last year because of gaming revenues and, this year, the average statewide reduction is expected to be nearly $200 again.
That's good news for some local school districts, including Bristol Township, officials said.
"If we are at, or near, what we had last year, I am happy about it," said that district's school board president, W. Earl Bruck. "It will be a big help to taxpayers. I'm encouraged by it."
All Pennsylvania homeowners in 66 counties can receive reductions in the school property tax bills they will receive this summer. The state Department of Education in early May will provide the final figures, which will vary by district depending on how many homeowners signed up for their share of relief.
Other Lower Bucks school administrators, though, said they're hoping the rebate increases.
"Since it is possible that people who had not signed up for the homestead/farmstead exemption previously have now signed up in the past year + the amount of rebate to a taxpayer could be less than last year as we divide our total amount among more taxpayers eligible for the tax relief," said Robert Schoch, director of business administration in Council Rock.
The 2006 Taxpayer Relief Act created the Property Tax Relief Fund as a way to use gaming revenue to reduce property taxes for homeowners, specifically seniors.
Approximately 110,000 Pennsylvania seniors will pay no school property taxes again this year because of the tax relief, and many more will receive rebates of up to $975 in addition to the property tax relief that all homeowners receive. Nearly 580,000 seniors will be eligible for additional relief through the state's expanded Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program.
But many seniors said they'd still like to see more relief.
"Property taxes are the biggest hit seniors on a fixed income take," said Bill Kennedy, a Washington Crossing resident and president of the Bucks County Coalition of Senior Communities. "If you look at the millions taken in from gambling, $200, if we get that, is not very much."
In addition to delivering property tax relief to Pennsylvania homeowners, the law enacted the state's first-ever limits on school boards' ability to raise property taxes. Already this year, more than three in four school districts have reported they are going to keep any property tax increase at or below the rate of inflation. That includes Council Rock.
"In spite of the economic downturn, we are able to maintain the same level of property tax relief in the coming year that homeowners are receiving right now," Rendell said. "That is due in large part to the speed with which many of our venues were launched and their competitiveness with other states."
The act also dramatically expanded Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program. Before the expansion, approximately 310,000 older Pennsylvanians benefited from the program.
Now older families with incomes up to $35,000 are eligible for rebates of up to $975, including additional relief for seniors who pay a large share of their income in property taxes or who live in high property-tax areas.
Those eligible have until June 30 to sign up for the program by calling 1-888-222-9190.
Who will benefit
Revenue from slot-machine gambling money will benefit:
? Homeowners and farm owners (outside Philadelphia):
Less than $200 average reduction per household on school property tax bills for 2009-10 school year.
Home and farm owners must complete and return an application to the county to receive a reduction.
? Philadelphia residents:
2010 wage tax rate remains at 3.93 percent, a 5.7 percent reduction from 2008 rate of 4.169 percent.
? Philadelphia nonresidents who work in the city:
2010 wage tax rate remains at 3.5 percent, a 5 percent reduction from 2008 rate of 3.685 percent.
? Low-income elderly:
Seniors with income $35,000 or less can get rent or property tax rebates of up to $975.
Source: Rendell administration
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
$200 tax break for Pa. homeowners
Bucks County Courier Times
Pennsylvania homeowners will receive nearly $770 million in property tax relief in 2009 under the latest installment from the historic Taxpayer Relief Act, Gov. Ed Rendell announced Monday.
Almost 2.7 million households' taxes across the state were lowered last year because of gaming revenues and, this year, the average statewide reduction is expected to be nearly $200 again.
That's good news for some local school districts, including Bristol Township, officials said.
"If we are at, or near, what we had last year, I am happy about it," said that district's school board president, W. Earl Bruck. "It will be a big help to taxpayers. I'm encouraged by it."
All Pennsylvania homeowners in 66 counties can receive reductions in the school property tax bills they will receive this summer. The state Department of Education in early May will provide the final figures, which will vary by district depending on how many homeowners signed up for their share of relief.
Other Lower Bucks school administrators, though, said they're hoping the rebate increases.
"Since it is possible that people who had not signed up for the homestead/farmstead exemption previously have now signed up in the past year + the amount of rebate to a taxpayer could be less than last year as we divide our total amount among more taxpayers eligible for the tax relief," said Robert Schoch, director of business administration in Council Rock.
The 2006 Taxpayer Relief Act created the Property Tax Relief Fund as a way to use gaming revenue to reduce property taxes for homeowners, specifically seniors.
Approximately 110,000 Pennsylvania seniors will pay no school property taxes again this year because of the tax relief, and many more will receive rebates of up to $975 in addition to the property tax relief that all homeowners receive. Nearly 580,000 seniors will be eligible for additional relief through the state's expanded Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program.
But many seniors said they'd still like to see more relief.
"Property taxes are the biggest hit seniors on a fixed income take," said Bill Kennedy, a Washington Crossing resident and president of the Bucks County Coalition of Senior Communities. "If you look at the millions taken in from gambling, $200, if we get that, is not very much."
In addition to delivering property tax relief to Pennsylvania homeowners, the law enacted the state's first-ever limits on school boards' ability to raise property taxes. Already this year, more than three in four school districts have reported they are going to keep any property tax increase at or below the rate of inflation. That includes Council Rock.
"In spite of the economic downturn, we are able to maintain the same level of property tax relief in the coming year that homeowners are receiving right now," Rendell said. "That is due in large part to the speed with which many of our venues were launched and their competitiveness with other states."
The act also dramatically expanded Pennsylvania's Property Tax/Rent Rebate Program. Before the expansion, approximately 310,000 older Pennsylvanians benefited from the program.
Now older families with incomes up to $35,000 are eligible for rebates of up to $975, including additional relief for seniors who pay a large share of their income in property taxes or who live in high property-tax areas.
Those eligible have until June 30 to sign up for the program by calling 1-888-222-9190.
Who will benefit
Revenue from slot-machine gambling money will benefit:
? Homeowners and farm owners (outside Philadelphia):
Less than $200 average reduction per household on school property tax bills for 2009-10 school year.
Home and farm owners must complete and return an application to the county to receive a reduction.
? Philadelphia residents:
2010 wage tax rate remains at 3.93 percent, a 5.7 percent reduction from 2008 rate of 4.169 percent.
? Philadelphia nonresidents who work in the city:
2010 wage tax rate remains at 3.5 percent, a 5 percent reduction from 2008 rate of 3.685 percent.
? Low-income elderly:
Seniors with income $35,000 or less can get rent or property tax rebates of up to $975.
Source: Rendell administration
April 14, 2009 02:00 AM
Agenda Meeting Reminder
Morrisville School Board agenda meeting:
7:30 p.m., large group instruction room of
Middle/Senior High School,
550 W. Palmer St.
To set agenda for next week’s regular meeting. 215-736-2681
7:30 p.m., large group instruction room of
Middle/Senior High School,
550 W. Palmer St.
To set agenda for next week’s regular meeting. 215-736-2681
Monday, April 13, 2009
2009-2010 Budget Links
Here's links to the budget documents
# 09-10 Budget Calendar
# Preliminary 2009-10 Budget Presentation 3/11/09
# Proposed Preliminary 2009-10 Budget as of 4-3-09
# Preliminary Proposed 2009-10 Budget Power Point
MORRISVILLE BOROUGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
In accordance with the School Budget Calendar of the School District of Borough of Morrisville, the proposed Preliminary Budget for the 2009-2010 school year will be presented at the Finance Committee Meeting on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. in Conference Room G-9 located in the Middle/Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA.
The Board of School Directors may adopt the proposed Preliminary Budget at their monthly Board Meeting on April 22, 2009, at 7:30 p.m., in the LGI Meeting Room located in the Middle/Senior High School. The proposed Preliminary Budget is available on the website at www.mv.org and at the Business Office located in the High School.
Marlys Mihok
Board Secretary
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Sunday, 04/05/2009
# 09-10 Budget Calendar
# Preliminary 2009-10 Budget Presentation 3/11/09
# Proposed Preliminary 2009-10 Budget as of 4-3-09
# Preliminary Proposed 2009-10 Budget Power Point
MORRISVILLE BOROUGH SCHOOL DISTRICT
In accordance with the School Budget Calendar of the School District of Borough of Morrisville, the proposed Preliminary Budget for the 2009-2010 school year will be presented at the Finance Committee Meeting on Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. in Conference Room G-9 located in the Middle/Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA.
The Board of School Directors may adopt the proposed Preliminary Budget at their monthly Board Meeting on April 22, 2009, at 7:30 p.m., in the LGI Meeting Room located in the Middle/Senior High School. The proposed Preliminary Budget is available on the website at www.mv.org and at the Business Office located in the High School.
Marlys Mihok
Board Secretary
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Sunday, 04/05/2009
In high school, tougher eligibility standards?
From the York Daily Record
In high school, tougher eligibility standards the new trend?
By SEAN McLERNON, Daily Record/Sunday News
Updated: 04/11/2009 10:34:49 PM EDT
The Northeastern school board's change to its academic eligibility requirement for extracurricular activities -- implementing tougher standards -- was motivated by the desire to stress academics first, according to Northeastern High School athletic director Bryan Stephens.
It could be the start of a local trend.
Earlier this month, the spotlight was cast on Eastern York's policy, which requires students to maintain a grade of at least 70 percent in each of their classes. It is more stringent than the PIAA requirement that student-athletes merely pass at least four full-credit subjects in an approved curriculum.
Three parents complained that Eastern's policy was too demanding, and the board agreed to review it.
Less than a week later, a Northeastern policy change that implements a 70 percent standard like the one at Eastern was passed unanimously by the school board.
The policies aren't identical. Eastern gives its students a five-day grace period to bring up a grade that drops below the threshold before the student suffers a 15-day suspension from extracurricular activities. Northeastern has no warning period, according to Stephens, but the penalty is only five days and students have to attend mandatory study hall sessions.
What the policies share more than anything else is a tougher baseline standard than most schools. And that could put athletic teams at a competitive disadvantage.
Stephens said that's not something he's concerned about.
"I'll never use that excuse," Stephens said. "I'd like to think that our kids are doing what they are supposed to be doing in the classroom and that will carry over on the field. If kids aren't keeping their grades up because they can't keep up with our policy, I don't want to say shame on us, but the policy is in place and the kids will understand what's at stake here and I'm not concerned if we suffer competitively or not.
"What's important is our kids are held to that academic standard. It's important that we're stressing the academics."
YAIAA executive director Herb Schmidt said he wasn't sure if more area schools would follow Northeastern's lead, but said any school district considering a change shouldn't be discouraged from doing so.
"I see nothing wrong with it," Schmidt said. "It shouldn't have any impact. They are there to get an education. They are there to study. That's why we refer to them as student-athletes."
At Northeastern, the change in policy does have some coaches concerned, Stephens said, mainly "about whether the kids understand what the ramifications are." Stephens said that most Northeastern students take only four classes because of block scheduling and there is little margin for error.
"I worry about kids getting stuck in a class where they just don't get it -- they don't understand the subject they have been put into and would have trouble getting out of there," Stephens said. "It's not like college when you can just go in and get a pink slip from a professor to get out."
The athletic director still expressed confidence in the school's teachers, coaches and students to step up to the task.
"I think that this policy gets us on the right track," Stephens said. "I am a firm believer and have faith in both my coaches and my kids that if they are educated and understand the policy, they are going to come through with flying colors."
Red Lion boys' basketball coach Steve Schmehl said that he doesn't anticipate a change at his school, which he said sets the bar at simply passing classes, like the PIAA standard. Schmehl said that he and most head coaches require students to get weekly grade updates and said his standard "would be higher than the standard for the school so you can catch it a little bit earlier" and avoid a suspension.
Since most students are interested in pursuing higher education after high school, Schmehl said raising standards makes sense, but it "would get pretty silly" if students were required to get higher than a 70 percent.
"If you have kids that are interested in going to college, obviously D's aren't going to cut it and a lot of times C's aren't going to cut it," Schmehl said. "Holding them to a standard of a C I don't think is a bad idea, but if you end up going any higher than that, you're going to end up losing some kids."
For the last 14 years, Central York girls' soccer coach Liz Critchfield has been coaching at the school in some capacity and said she has never had any academic issues with her athletes, who are also held to a standard similar to that set by the PIAA. Like Schmehl, she said 70 would be a reasonable grade to expect students to make, but would hesitate supporting a tougher standard than that.
Critchfield said that coaches and parents would have little to complain about if the minimum was bumped up to 70.
"Education has to be the No. 1 priority," Critchfield said. "Not every kid out there is going to become a professional athlete, and sometimes that's what parents are looking for or coaches are looking for -- a winning season -- instead of taking a look at the whole scenario."
PIAA'S STANDARDS
Academic and Curricular Requirements
1. You must pursue a curriculum defined and approved by your Principal as a full-time curriculum.
2. You must be passing at least four full-credit subjects, or the equivalent, as of each Friday during a grading period. If you fail to meet this requirement, you will lose your eligibility from the following Sunday through the Saturday immediately following the next Friday as of which you meet this requirement.
3. You must have passed at least four full-credit subjects or the equivalent during the previous grading period, except that eligibility for the first grading period is based on your final grades for the preceding school year. If you fail to meet this requirement, you will lose your eligibility for at least 10 or 15 school days of the next grading period, beginning on the first day that report cards are issued. If your school has four grading periods, you will be ineligible for at least 15 school days; if your school has six grading periods, you will be ineligible for at least 10 school days.
In high school, tougher eligibility standards the new trend?
By SEAN McLERNON, Daily Record/Sunday News
Updated: 04/11/2009 10:34:49 PM EDT
The Northeastern school board's change to its academic eligibility requirement for extracurricular activities -- implementing tougher standards -- was motivated by the desire to stress academics first, according to Northeastern High School athletic director Bryan Stephens.
It could be the start of a local trend.
Earlier this month, the spotlight was cast on Eastern York's policy, which requires students to maintain a grade of at least 70 percent in each of their classes. It is more stringent than the PIAA requirement that student-athletes merely pass at least four full-credit subjects in an approved curriculum.
Three parents complained that Eastern's policy was too demanding, and the board agreed to review it.
Less than a week later, a Northeastern policy change that implements a 70 percent standard like the one at Eastern was passed unanimously by the school board.
The policies aren't identical. Eastern gives its students a five-day grace period to bring up a grade that drops below the threshold before the student suffers a 15-day suspension from extracurricular activities. Northeastern has no warning period, according to Stephens, but the penalty is only five days and students have to attend mandatory study hall sessions.
What the policies share more than anything else is a tougher baseline standard than most schools. And that could put athletic teams at a competitive disadvantage.
Stephens said that's not something he's concerned about.
"I'll never use that excuse," Stephens said. "I'd like to think that our kids are doing what they are supposed to be doing in the classroom and that will carry over on the field. If kids aren't keeping their grades up because they can't keep up with our policy, I don't want to say shame on us, but the policy is in place and the kids will understand what's at stake here and I'm not concerned if we suffer competitively or not.
"What's important is our kids are held to that academic standard. It's important that we're stressing the academics."
YAIAA executive director Herb Schmidt said he wasn't sure if more area schools would follow Northeastern's lead, but said any school district considering a change shouldn't be discouraged from doing so.
"I see nothing wrong with it," Schmidt said. "It shouldn't have any impact. They are there to get an education. They are there to study. That's why we refer to them as student-athletes."
At Northeastern, the change in policy does have some coaches concerned, Stephens said, mainly "about whether the kids understand what the ramifications are." Stephens said that most Northeastern students take only four classes because of block scheduling and there is little margin for error.
"I worry about kids getting stuck in a class where they just don't get it -- they don't understand the subject they have been put into and would have trouble getting out of there," Stephens said. "It's not like college when you can just go in and get a pink slip from a professor to get out."
The athletic director still expressed confidence in the school's teachers, coaches and students to step up to the task.
"I think that this policy gets us on the right track," Stephens said. "I am a firm believer and have faith in both my coaches and my kids that if they are educated and understand the policy, they are going to come through with flying colors."
Red Lion boys' basketball coach Steve Schmehl said that he doesn't anticipate a change at his school, which he said sets the bar at simply passing classes, like the PIAA standard. Schmehl said that he and most head coaches require students to get weekly grade updates and said his standard "would be higher than the standard for the school so you can catch it a little bit earlier" and avoid a suspension.
Since most students are interested in pursuing higher education after high school, Schmehl said raising standards makes sense, but it "would get pretty silly" if students were required to get higher than a 70 percent.
"If you have kids that are interested in going to college, obviously D's aren't going to cut it and a lot of times C's aren't going to cut it," Schmehl said. "Holding them to a standard of a C I don't think is a bad idea, but if you end up going any higher than that, you're going to end up losing some kids."
For the last 14 years, Central York girls' soccer coach Liz Critchfield has been coaching at the school in some capacity and said she has never had any academic issues with her athletes, who are also held to a standard similar to that set by the PIAA. Like Schmehl, she said 70 would be a reasonable grade to expect students to make, but would hesitate supporting a tougher standard than that.
Critchfield said that coaches and parents would have little to complain about if the minimum was bumped up to 70.
"Education has to be the No. 1 priority," Critchfield said. "Not every kid out there is going to become a professional athlete, and sometimes that's what parents are looking for or coaches are looking for -- a winning season -- instead of taking a look at the whole scenario."
PIAA'S STANDARDS
Academic and Curricular Requirements
1. You must pursue a curriculum defined and approved by your Principal as a full-time curriculum.
2. You must be passing at least four full-credit subjects, or the equivalent, as of each Friday during a grading period. If you fail to meet this requirement, you will lose your eligibility from the following Sunday through the Saturday immediately following the next Friday as of which you meet this requirement.
3. You must have passed at least four full-credit subjects or the equivalent during the previous grading period, except that eligibility for the first grading period is based on your final grades for the preceding school year. If you fail to meet this requirement, you will lose your eligibility for at least 10 or 15 school days of the next grading period, beginning on the first day that report cards are issued. If your school has four grading periods, you will be ineligible for at least 15 school days; if your school has six grading periods, you will be ineligible for at least 10 school days.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Fee Based Government
From The New York Times.
It sounds like a great deal at first. The guy who caused the accident cleans it up. "It's responsibility!", you think. The costs are targeted right at the user.
You already have the choice of buying Acme brand peanut butter or paying top dollar for "Bob's Super-Chunky Organic Stone-Ground Hand-Mixed Kosher USDA-Approved Mother-in-Law-Approved Peanut Butter". This is just taking the thinking another step forward.
The next step is to apply it to the schools. Make the parents pay for their little angels to be educated. Why burden the childless or the seniors who have put in their time and dollars already?
This is good! Do you want there to be light? Pay the streetlight tax. Want sidewalks and curbs? Pay up!
Ambulance? Fire department? Sewers? Flood remediation? Economic bailout? Pay for it yourself!!
This is the point where the idea falls apart.
When does the notion of "community" begin to be considered? What is "your" responsibility, and what is "our" responsibility? That's the thornier question to answer. Call it the(y)our question.
Old people and the youngest of us use more health services than the rest of the population: Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Without the oldest to guide us with their experience and wisdom, and the youngest to replace us, life tends to sputter out. Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
The fire at your house? Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Oops...it spread to the next door house. Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Paging Mrs. O'Leary: Your steak is ready. You did say "well-done", right?
We were all issued legs at birth and can walk anywhere we want. Roads? Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Efficient transportation and a robust supply network. Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
The streetlight in front of your house. Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Does it prevent accidents and prevent crime too? Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
Things that make you go hmmmmm.....
Cities Turn to Fees to Fill Budget Gaps
By David Segal, The New York Times
After her sport utility vehicle sideswiped a van in early February, Shirley Kimel was amazed at how quickly a handful of police officers and firefighters in Winter Haven, Fla., showed up. But a real shock came a week later, when a letter arrived from the city billing her $316 for the cost of responding to the accident.
“I remember thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ ” says Ms. Kimel, 67, an office manager at a furniture store. “I always thought this sort of thing was covered by my taxes.”
It used to be. But last July, Winter Haven became one of a few dozen cities in the country to start charging “accident response fees.” The idea is to shift the expense of tending to and cleaning up crashes directly to at-fault drivers. Either they, or their insurers, are expected to pay.
Such cash-per-crash ordinances tend to infuriate motorists, and they often generate bad press, but a lot of cities are finding them hard to resist. With the economy flailing and budgets strained, state and local governments are being creative about ways to raise money. And the go-to idea is to invent a fee — or simply raise one.
Ohio’s governor has proposed a budget with more than 150 new or increased fees, including a fivefold increase in the cost to renew a livestock license, as well as larger sums to register a car, order a birth certificate or dump trash in a landfill. Other fees take aim at landlords, cigarette sellers and hospitals, to name a few.
Wisconsin’s governor, James E. Doyle, has proposed a charge on slaughterhouses that would be levied on the basis of each animal slaughtered. He also wants to more than triple the application charge for an elk-hunting license to $10, an idea that has raised eyebrows because the elk population in the state is currently too small to allow an actual hunting season.
Washington’s mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, has proposed a “streetlight user fee” of $4.25 a month, to be added to electric bills, that would cover the cost of operating and maintaining the city’s streetlights. New York City recently expanded its anti-idling law to include anyone parked near a school who leaves the engine running for more than a minute. Doing that will cost you $100.
“The most dangerous places on Staten Island are the schools at drop-off and dismissal time, when parents are parked three deep in the road,” says James S. Oddo, a City Council member from Staten Island who voted for the measure. “There is a mentality here that Johnny can’t walk 100 feet, he has to be dropped off right at the front of the school — and frankly that’s why Johnny is as pudgy as he is.”
Nothing, it seems, is off the table. In Pima County, Ariz., the County Board of Supervisors increased an assortment of fees, including the cost of AIDS testing. Florida has proposed raising medical visit co-payments for inmates in state prisons. Parking fees at the Honolulu Zoo could rise by 500 percent if a proposal there goes through.
Politicians tend to regard fees as more palatable than taxes, and more focused too. If a state needs to finance an infrastructure to oversee fishing, why shouldn’t fishermen foot the bill? But groups like the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in Washington worry that governments are now using fees to shore up budget shortfalls rather than cover specific costs incurred by specific users.
“When it comes to paying for bananas, you’ve got the market as a mechanism to make sure you’re paying a fair price,” says Josh Barro, a staff economist at the Tax Foundation. “But when it comes to getting your driver’s license renewed, the government has a monopoly, and you have no idea what it costs the state or what it’s doing with the money.”
Get-tough approach
In some cases, towns say they are merely enforcing rules that have long been on the books. For the first time in years, for instance, officials at Londonderry, N.H., have mailed notices to dog owners reminding them to renew their annual dog licenses, which cost $6.50 apiece, or face a $25 fine. Town leaders think the get-tough approach could raise an additional $20,000, but Meg Seymour, the town clerk, is dreading local reaction. When the town last sent out fine notices, in 2002, the calls to her office were vicious.
“Let’s just say that we’re the ones who take the venting,” she said. “You have no idea.”
If past patterns hold, the new wave of fees is just getting started. Gary Wagner, a professor of economics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was one author of a study of moving-vehicle and parking tickets in North Carolina, covering a 14-year period. He found a strong correlation between a dip in government revenue and a rise in ticket-writing by the police.
“But there’s a lag time,” Mr. Wagner said. “Typically, it’s about a year after the revenues drop that the police start writing more tickets.”
If you date the start of the downturn to last September, the ticket-writing is just getting under way. And New Yorkers can expect more days like the one in mid-March, when the police wrote 9,016 driving-while-phoning tickets within 24 hours, roughly 20 times the usual number.
The “accident response fee” idea could spread, too. A company in Dayton, Ohio, called the Cost Recovery Corporation specializes in setting up collection systems for municipalities that bill for police and fire responses. (The company keeps 10 percent of billings.) Inquiries have tripled in the last year, says the company’s president, Regina Moore.
“What we’re hearing from towns is, ‘The taxpayers are all over us; they don’t want to surrender more tax money,’ ” she said. “And response fees are basically a form of restitution, like paying for a stay in jail.”
Insurance companies loathe the idea, because inevitably customers assume that a crash fee is covered by their policies. (It isn’t, in most cases.) And unlike the pay-to-stay approach to jails, crash fees rarely play well in the media. The mayor of Duluth, Minn., backed off a crash fee proposal shortly after Jay Leno joked about the city, by name, in a “Tonight Show” monologue last year.
In Winter Haven, the accident response fee seemed to leaders to be a reasonable way to help finance the police and fire departments, but so far only 20 percent of the $32,000 that has been billed to at-fault drivers has been collected.
“We chose not to contract out the collection part of this, and frankly, because of staff cuts, we don’t have enough people to handle all the paperwork,” says Joy Townsend, the city’s communications officer. “We’re now evaluating how cost-effective this program is.”
Ms. Kimel, the S.U.V. driver in Florida, will not make the numbers look any better. She has no idea whether the city will come after her for that $316 bill, but she doesn’t care.
“I’m not paying,” she said, “because it isn’t fair.”
It sounds like a great deal at first. The guy who caused the accident cleans it up. "It's responsibility!", you think. The costs are targeted right at the user.
You already have the choice of buying Acme brand peanut butter or paying top dollar for "Bob's Super-Chunky Organic Stone-Ground Hand-Mixed Kosher USDA-Approved Mother-in-Law-Approved Peanut Butter". This is just taking the thinking another step forward.
The next step is to apply it to the schools. Make the parents pay for their little angels to be educated. Why burden the childless or the seniors who have put in their time and dollars already?
This is good! Do you want there to be light? Pay the streetlight tax. Want sidewalks and curbs? Pay up!
Ambulance? Fire department? Sewers? Flood remediation? Economic bailout? Pay for it yourself!!
This is the point where the idea falls apart.
When does the notion of "community" begin to be considered? What is "your" responsibility, and what is "our" responsibility? That's the thornier question to answer. Call it the(y)our question.
Old people and the youngest of us use more health services than the rest of the population: Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Without the oldest to guide us with their experience and wisdom, and the youngest to replace us, life tends to sputter out. Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
The fire at your house? Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Oops...it spread to the next door house. Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Paging Mrs. O'Leary: Your steak is ready. You did say "well-done", right?
We were all issued legs at birth and can walk anywhere we want. Roads? Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Efficient transportation and a robust supply network. Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
The streetlight in front of your house. Is that(y)our responsibility or not? Does it prevent accidents and prevent crime too? Is that(y)our responsibility or not?
Things that make you go hmmmmm.....
Cities Turn to Fees to Fill Budget Gaps
By David Segal, The New York Times
After her sport utility vehicle sideswiped a van in early February, Shirley Kimel was amazed at how quickly a handful of police officers and firefighters in Winter Haven, Fla., showed up. But a real shock came a week later, when a letter arrived from the city billing her $316 for the cost of responding to the accident.
“I remember thinking, ‘What the heck is this?’ ” says Ms. Kimel, 67, an office manager at a furniture store. “I always thought this sort of thing was covered by my taxes.”
It used to be. But last July, Winter Haven became one of a few dozen cities in the country to start charging “accident response fees.” The idea is to shift the expense of tending to and cleaning up crashes directly to at-fault drivers. Either they, or their insurers, are expected to pay.
Such cash-per-crash ordinances tend to infuriate motorists, and they often generate bad press, but a lot of cities are finding them hard to resist. With the economy flailing and budgets strained, state and local governments are being creative about ways to raise money. And the go-to idea is to invent a fee — or simply raise one.
Ohio’s governor has proposed a budget with more than 150 new or increased fees, including a fivefold increase in the cost to renew a livestock license, as well as larger sums to register a car, order a birth certificate or dump trash in a landfill. Other fees take aim at landlords, cigarette sellers and hospitals, to name a few.
Wisconsin’s governor, James E. Doyle, has proposed a charge on slaughterhouses that would be levied on the basis of each animal slaughtered. He also wants to more than triple the application charge for an elk-hunting license to $10, an idea that has raised eyebrows because the elk population in the state is currently too small to allow an actual hunting season.
Washington’s mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, has proposed a “streetlight user fee” of $4.25 a month, to be added to electric bills, that would cover the cost of operating and maintaining the city’s streetlights. New York City recently expanded its anti-idling law to include anyone parked near a school who leaves the engine running for more than a minute. Doing that will cost you $100.
“The most dangerous places on Staten Island are the schools at drop-off and dismissal time, when parents are parked three deep in the road,” says James S. Oddo, a City Council member from Staten Island who voted for the measure. “There is a mentality here that Johnny can’t walk 100 feet, he has to be dropped off right at the front of the school — and frankly that’s why Johnny is as pudgy as he is.”
Nothing, it seems, is off the table. In Pima County, Ariz., the County Board of Supervisors increased an assortment of fees, including the cost of AIDS testing. Florida has proposed raising medical visit co-payments for inmates in state prisons. Parking fees at the Honolulu Zoo could rise by 500 percent if a proposal there goes through.
Politicians tend to regard fees as more palatable than taxes, and more focused too. If a state needs to finance an infrastructure to oversee fishing, why shouldn’t fishermen foot the bill? But groups like the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in Washington worry that governments are now using fees to shore up budget shortfalls rather than cover specific costs incurred by specific users.
“When it comes to paying for bananas, you’ve got the market as a mechanism to make sure you’re paying a fair price,” says Josh Barro, a staff economist at the Tax Foundation. “But when it comes to getting your driver’s license renewed, the government has a monopoly, and you have no idea what it costs the state or what it’s doing with the money.”
Get-tough approach
In some cases, towns say they are merely enforcing rules that have long been on the books. For the first time in years, for instance, officials at Londonderry, N.H., have mailed notices to dog owners reminding them to renew their annual dog licenses, which cost $6.50 apiece, or face a $25 fine. Town leaders think the get-tough approach could raise an additional $20,000, but Meg Seymour, the town clerk, is dreading local reaction. When the town last sent out fine notices, in 2002, the calls to her office were vicious.
“Let’s just say that we’re the ones who take the venting,” she said. “You have no idea.”
If past patterns hold, the new wave of fees is just getting started. Gary Wagner, a professor of economics at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, was one author of a study of moving-vehicle and parking tickets in North Carolina, covering a 14-year period. He found a strong correlation between a dip in government revenue and a rise in ticket-writing by the police.
“But there’s a lag time,” Mr. Wagner said. “Typically, it’s about a year after the revenues drop that the police start writing more tickets.”
If you date the start of the downturn to last September, the ticket-writing is just getting under way. And New Yorkers can expect more days like the one in mid-March, when the police wrote 9,016 driving-while-phoning tickets within 24 hours, roughly 20 times the usual number.
The “accident response fee” idea could spread, too. A company in Dayton, Ohio, called the Cost Recovery Corporation specializes in setting up collection systems for municipalities that bill for police and fire responses. (The company keeps 10 percent of billings.) Inquiries have tripled in the last year, says the company’s president, Regina Moore.
“What we’re hearing from towns is, ‘The taxpayers are all over us; they don’t want to surrender more tax money,’ ” she said. “And response fees are basically a form of restitution, like paying for a stay in jail.”
Insurance companies loathe the idea, because inevitably customers assume that a crash fee is covered by their policies. (It isn’t, in most cases.) And unlike the pay-to-stay approach to jails, crash fees rarely play well in the media. The mayor of Duluth, Minn., backed off a crash fee proposal shortly after Jay Leno joked about the city, by name, in a “Tonight Show” monologue last year.
In Winter Haven, the accident response fee seemed to leaders to be a reasonable way to help finance the police and fire departments, but so far only 20 percent of the $32,000 that has been billed to at-fault drivers has been collected.
“We chose not to contract out the collection part of this, and frankly, because of staff cuts, we don’t have enough people to handle all the paperwork,” says Joy Townsend, the city’s communications officer. “We’re now evaluating how cost-effective this program is.”
Ms. Kimel, the S.U.V. driver in Florida, will not make the numbers look any better. She has no idea whether the city will come after her for that $316 bill, but she doesn’t care.
“I’m not paying,” she said, “because it isn’t fair.”
Rendell: Open Records? Did I Say That?
From citypaper.net. The Inquirer article is below.
So here's another farcical law enacted to much hoopla and then studiously ignored leaving the people it's supposed to serve with supersized helpings of nada and zilch.
Pa. agencies ignore open records laws
Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
posted by Isaiah Thompson
categories State Politicians Screwing Philly, State Politics
Today, the Inky reports on a rift between the governor's office and Office of Open Records czar Terry Mutchler. The Inky says that Mutchler wrote a three-page letter to Governor Ed Rendell's office:
According to her letter, the situation has gotten so bad that lawyers in Rendell's office have put representatives of every state agency on notice not to even take her calls. Everything has to be in writing, the lawyers insist.
"At a maximum, these examples demonstrate an anti-open-government spirit," Mutchler, a reporter turned lawyer, lamented in her letter to Rendell, written late last month.
She continued: "Some agencies . . . are using the Right-to-Know law as a shield with which to block information rather than a tool with which to open records of government."
In this spirit of his boss, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo defends the governor's apparent disinterest in implementing the open records laws he helped create by side-stepping reality with cheerful blather. Says Ardo:
"And let's not forget we're working under a relatively new law here. There is no precedent other than what we are currently setting. ... It will take some time to work out the kinks."
"No precedent," huh? Actually, there are plenty of precedents. Floridsa, where I worked as a reporter, has excellent public records laws.
In 2002, a report by the Investigative Reporters and Editors compared states based on the "open-ness" of their open records laws. Pennsylvania ranked 48th, tying with Alaska. It's not like Pa. is on the cutting edge — I'd say we've got plenty of "precedent," to follow, wouldn't you? In the entire Union, only Alabama and South Dakota were found to have less transparent policies.
This Office of Open Records was supposed to change that. Let's see that it does, Ed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Inquirer
Pa.'s public-records czar faults Rendell on openness
By Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau Posted on Fri, Apr. 10, 2009
HARRISBURG - The Rendell administration appears to be going out of its way to block public access to government documents. At least that is the impression left on the state's new open-records czar.
Terry Mutchler, executive director of Pennsylvania's Office of Public Records, has written to Gov. Rendell questioning whether top administration officials share the view that government should be open and transparent.
In the three-page letter, obtained by The Inquirer, Mutchler revealed a list of her concerns over how the administration has dealt with her and her staff - as well as individual records requests - since she was tapped to lead the open-records office in June.
According to her letter, the situation has gotten so bad that lawyers in Rendell's office have put representatives of every state agency on notice not to even take her calls. Everything has to be in writing, the lawyers insist.
"At a maximum, these examples demonstrate an anti-open-government spirit," Mutchler, a reporter turned lawyer, lamented in her letter to Rendell, written late last month.
She continued: "Some agencies . . . are using the Right-to-Know law as a shield with which to block information rather than a tool with which to open records of government."
Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo yesterday described the differences between Mutchler and the administration as "procedural and not substantive," and said the administration did not believe it had "denied anyone information that the law requires us to make public."
Still, Mutchler, a Rendell appointee, is requesting that the governor send a memorandum to all state agencies directing them to work with her office.
Ardo said the governor had not sent out such a directive because "everybody in the administration already knows the governor's view on open records and transparency in government."
'Speaks for itself'
Reached yesterday, Mutchler, who oversaw public-records access in Illinois for four years before coming to Pennsylvania, said only that the letter "speaks for itself."
The state's new open-records policy was passed last year by the legislature and signed into law by Rendell. It went into effect Jan. 1 and declared that all state, county, and local government records are public unless specifically exempted.
The law also mandated an Office of Open Records to oversee what is billed as a sea change in attitude in Pennsylvania. For years the state's definition of what constituted a public record was very narrow - among the most restrictive in the nation.
At the time of her appointment, Mutchler wrote in her letter, she requested a meeting with secretaries in Rendell's cabinet to express her vision and get their suggestions on how to implement the law smoothly. That meeting has yet to take place.
She also wrote that her office had repeatedly sought to conduct training sessions with open-records officers in each of the state agencies and had been denied.
Until recently, her office had also been shut out of meetings at state agencies in which lawyers were discussing how to interpret the new law, she said in the letter. And now, at the direction of the governor's Office of General Counsel, state agencies have been instructed not to speak with Mutchler on any open-records requests on appeal to her office.
Then there are individual skirmishes over records requests.
DEP's explanation
Just this week, Mutchler's office ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to photocopy and mail documents to a lawyer who had been denied those services.
Asked about the case this week, Mutchler said she was stunned when she saw the DEP's legal explanation for not making copies and mailing the documents.
The agency, which will appeal Mutchler's order, had argued that all it was required to do was make the records available for review, and that it was not obligated to provide copies or mail them.
"I read this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't misreading it," Mutchler said of the DEP's argument. "Even if one could make a solid legal argument that there is no obligation to photocopy or mail records, my first question out of the box is, 'Why wouldn't you?' "
Under the open-records law, Mutchler's office is the first avenue of appeal when a record is denied.
Ardo said the DEP request would have required the agency to photocopy more than 3,500 pages.
"That's as big as a Dumpster," Ardo said. "We were offering the requester an opportunity to review all 3,500 pages and copy the ones they believed were relevant."
Ardo yesterday sought to downplay any tension between the administration and Mutchler's office.
"I think the very fact that we are not in lockstep should give confidence to the public that she is independent and that occasional differences will crop up," he said.
"And let's not forget we're working under a relatively new law here. There is no precedent other than what we are currently setting. . . . It will take some time to work out the kinks."
So here's another farcical law enacted to much hoopla and then studiously ignored leaving the people it's supposed to serve with supersized helpings of nada and zilch.
Pa. agencies ignore open records laws
Friday, April 10th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
posted by Isaiah Thompson
categories State Politicians Screwing Philly, State Politics
Today, the Inky reports on a rift between the governor's office and Office of Open Records czar Terry Mutchler. The Inky says that Mutchler wrote a three-page letter to Governor Ed Rendell's office:
According to her letter, the situation has gotten so bad that lawyers in Rendell's office have put representatives of every state agency on notice not to even take her calls. Everything has to be in writing, the lawyers insist.
"At a maximum, these examples demonstrate an anti-open-government spirit," Mutchler, a reporter turned lawyer, lamented in her letter to Rendell, written late last month.
She continued: "Some agencies . . . are using the Right-to-Know law as a shield with which to block information rather than a tool with which to open records of government."
In this spirit of his boss, Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo defends the governor's apparent disinterest in implementing the open records laws he helped create by side-stepping reality with cheerful blather. Says Ardo:
"And let's not forget we're working under a relatively new law here. There is no precedent other than what we are currently setting. ... It will take some time to work out the kinks."
"No precedent," huh? Actually, there are plenty of precedents. Floridsa, where I worked as a reporter, has excellent public records laws.
In 2002, a report by the Investigative Reporters and Editors compared states based on the "open-ness" of their open records laws. Pennsylvania ranked 48th, tying with Alaska. It's not like Pa. is on the cutting edge — I'd say we've got plenty of "precedent," to follow, wouldn't you? In the entire Union, only Alabama and South Dakota were found to have less transparent policies.
This Office of Open Records was supposed to change that. Let's see that it does, Ed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Inquirer
Pa.'s public-records czar faults Rendell on openness
By Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau Posted on Fri, Apr. 10, 2009
HARRISBURG - The Rendell administration appears to be going out of its way to block public access to government documents. At least that is the impression left on the state's new open-records czar.
Terry Mutchler, executive director of Pennsylvania's Office of Public Records, has written to Gov. Rendell questioning whether top administration officials share the view that government should be open and transparent.
In the three-page letter, obtained by The Inquirer, Mutchler revealed a list of her concerns over how the administration has dealt with her and her staff - as well as individual records requests - since she was tapped to lead the open-records office in June.
According to her letter, the situation has gotten so bad that lawyers in Rendell's office have put representatives of every state agency on notice not to even take her calls. Everything has to be in writing, the lawyers insist.
"At a maximum, these examples demonstrate an anti-open-government spirit," Mutchler, a reporter turned lawyer, lamented in her letter to Rendell, written late last month.
She continued: "Some agencies . . . are using the Right-to-Know law as a shield with which to block information rather than a tool with which to open records of government."
Rendell spokesman Chuck Ardo yesterday described the differences between Mutchler and the administration as "procedural and not substantive," and said the administration did not believe it had "denied anyone information that the law requires us to make public."
Still, Mutchler, a Rendell appointee, is requesting that the governor send a memorandum to all state agencies directing them to work with her office.
Ardo said the governor had not sent out such a directive because "everybody in the administration already knows the governor's view on open records and transparency in government."
'Speaks for itself'
Reached yesterday, Mutchler, who oversaw public-records access in Illinois for four years before coming to Pennsylvania, said only that the letter "speaks for itself."
The state's new open-records policy was passed last year by the legislature and signed into law by Rendell. It went into effect Jan. 1 and declared that all state, county, and local government records are public unless specifically exempted.
The law also mandated an Office of Open Records to oversee what is billed as a sea change in attitude in Pennsylvania. For years the state's definition of what constituted a public record was very narrow - among the most restrictive in the nation.
At the time of her appointment, Mutchler wrote in her letter, she requested a meeting with secretaries in Rendell's cabinet to express her vision and get their suggestions on how to implement the law smoothly. That meeting has yet to take place.
She also wrote that her office had repeatedly sought to conduct training sessions with open-records officers in each of the state agencies and had been denied.
Until recently, her office had also been shut out of meetings at state agencies in which lawyers were discussing how to interpret the new law, she said in the letter. And now, at the direction of the governor's Office of General Counsel, state agencies have been instructed not to speak with Mutchler on any open-records requests on appeal to her office.
Then there are individual skirmishes over records requests.
DEP's explanation
Just this week, Mutchler's office ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to photocopy and mail documents to a lawyer who had been denied those services.
Asked about the case this week, Mutchler said she was stunned when she saw the DEP's legal explanation for not making copies and mailing the documents.
The agency, which will appeal Mutchler's order, had argued that all it was required to do was make the records available for review, and that it was not obligated to provide copies or mail them.
"I read this a couple of times to make sure I wasn't misreading it," Mutchler said of the DEP's argument. "Even if one could make a solid legal argument that there is no obligation to photocopy or mail records, my first question out of the box is, 'Why wouldn't you?' "
Under the open-records law, Mutchler's office is the first avenue of appeal when a record is denied.
Ardo said the DEP request would have required the agency to photocopy more than 3,500 pages.
"That's as big as a Dumpster," Ardo said. "We were offering the requester an opportunity to review all 3,500 pages and copy the ones they believed were relevant."
Ardo yesterday sought to downplay any tension between the administration and Mutchler's office.
"I think the very fact that we are not in lockstep should give confidence to the public that she is independent and that occasional differences will crop up," he said.
"And let's not forget we're working under a relatively new law here. There is no precedent other than what we are currently setting. . . . It will take some time to work out the kinks."
Friday, April 10, 2009
Pennsbury: We want a school board like Morrisville
From the BCCT.
Thank you for laying out your ideas. As a future Pennsbury parent, I thought we should begin to take more of an interest in Pennsbury affairs.
Your brethren in Morrisville the last time hid like frightened schoolgirls at a horror movie rather than reveal their agenda. We need more open discussion, not more hidden meetings at board members houses and secret agendas. The openness is refreshing. I sincerely congratulate you and hope you will keep it up.
Pay and benefits do have to be brought under control. But what if the letter had been from a four year old enclosing a nickel and saying "I want to be a doctor and need a school so I can start Kindergarten and reach my goal"? Is that any less heartwarming or touching? The shoddy deal of taxation hits a lot of people. You're running for school board, not the board of taxation. We made that mistake here in Bulldog Alley.
I do like the ideas you have about more parental involvement and keeping the operations of the school district transparent. Let's hope you succeed admirably there. You talked about "performance based pay" for teachers. That idea needs a lot more thought before it can be implemented, but it's definitely a good idea for discussion.
If you want to stand up to the special interest groups, why aren't you running for a state senate or representative's slot? You rightly identify them as the culprits in the teacher pension funding mess.
You also ignored the third way to deal with the mess: Have Harrisburg change the law. What are you doing to get that going? Smacking about the Pennsbury teachers union locally doesn't resonate well enough to reach into the conference rooms in the Capitol building.
Instead, you would seek to win a slot on the local board of education enabling you to crush the Pennsbury teachers under your iron boot heel. OK. Fine. Let's say you succeed. What did it accomplish? We're doing that in Morrisville right now, demonizing the teachers and overreacting to save the seniors, forgetting that our five year olds need saving too. Stop by and visit them, now conveniently housed in our state-of-the-art trailer park, right down the street from the contaminated school building we ignored.
How is demonizing one side going to reach a consensus? How does this ensure that the students you would represent would receive an education?
We need school board representatives who will represent the interests of the taxpayer, the seniors, AND the children all at the same time. Obama only has to deal with a global economic meltdown. That's easy compared to the bubbling fetid morass that is local politics.
I'm sure you and your likeminds will will the primary and eventual election in November. Ask the Emperor how it's going here in Morrisville. (Hint: We're looking for you and your district to save our whiny little butts.)
Trust me: The view is different from the other side of the microphone.
Disaster looms if pay and benefits aren’t brought under control
School board elections are notoriously low turnout affairs. There are no presidential or congressional races in 2009 so voter turnout will likely be low in the primary election on May 19. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Readers could mark their calendars right now to vote in their local school board elections. School taxes comprise 80 percent of most people’s property taxes in the Pennsbury School District. Every taxpayer has a vested interest in choosing the elected officials that control a $180 million annual budget.
The teacher union agenda of “spend spend spend” is being matched by the building trade unions, which recently made aggressive noises about the Makefield Elementary school renovation project. My guess is that they’d love to elect school board members to get another horrific union-biased “responsible contractor” ordinance passed, just like the Lower Makefield supervisors did. I have no doubt that union resources will be geared up against me this May. That’s because I believe in free and open markets, and I firmly believe that the people paying the bill, i.e. taxpayers, deserve representation on the school board.
When I sat down with my Republican running mate, Kathleen Zawacki, to discuss running for Pennsbury school board it became clear that we were of likeminds. Both of us have children attending the school district. Neither of us has taken any polls on any issue, nor have we hired any campaign consultants to tell us what our positions are. The volunteers of both parties who are helping our campaign are everyday people — many of whom have never been involved with any election campaign before.
In two years time, a freight train is going to hit every school district in Pennsylvania. The state Legislature has mandated that school employee retirement benefits be increased by 25 percent. This will come at a time when the teachers’ retirement fund is swimming in red ink. There will be two ways for school districts to fund this pending new mandate: severely raise property taxes and/or severely cut into educational programs. Unless school boards get a handle on the biggest item in their budgets (salaries and benefits) right now, then disaster is coming.
If we don’t properly control labor costs ahead of this pending pension crisis, it won’t be just taxpayers who pay the price. It will be our school children. It will probably be the arts programs and the extracurricular activities that get cut first. That’s not right. Yet the two endorsed Democrat candidates for school board are backed by union-funded PACs and by state Rep. Steve Santarsiero, who helped himself to thousands of dollars in teacher union money to get elected.
There are many reforms that are needed at Pennsbury. Academic performance in the high school needs to improve. That means looking at the block scheduling and the split between classes in East and West buildings. There needs to be greater parental access and input into all school board decisions. Televising the board meetings would bring about greater public transparency. Performance-related pay for our professional educators needs to be discussed too.
Parents and taxpayers have a choice on May 19. Kathleen Zawacki and I will appear on both sides of the ballot in this upcoming primary election. Democrats and Republicans alike will have an opportunity to vote for us, and cast party label aside. We intend to protect our children’s educational needs by standing up to the powerful special interest groups.
A few months ago I received a handwritten letter from a fixed-income senior that contained a crumpled up $5 contribution. The letter read “my property taxes are one third of my income and I’m terrified of losing my home. You are my only hope.”
It broke my heart that someone as irrelevant as me was considered that important. After returning her $5 and thanking this lady for her kind words, I decided to run for school board. You see, this lady deserves better than the shoddy deal she has been dealt by the crushing burden of taxation. It would be my honor to represent her.
Please come out and vote.
Thank you for laying out your ideas. As a future Pennsbury parent, I thought we should begin to take more of an interest in Pennsbury affairs.
Your brethren in Morrisville the last time hid like frightened schoolgirls at a horror movie rather than reveal their agenda. We need more open discussion, not more hidden meetings at board members houses and secret agendas. The openness is refreshing. I sincerely congratulate you and hope you will keep it up.
Pay and benefits do have to be brought under control. But what if the letter had been from a four year old enclosing a nickel and saying "I want to be a doctor and need a school so I can start Kindergarten and reach my goal"? Is that any less heartwarming or touching? The shoddy deal of taxation hits a lot of people. You're running for school board, not the board of taxation. We made that mistake here in Bulldog Alley.
I do like the ideas you have about more parental involvement and keeping the operations of the school district transparent. Let's hope you succeed admirably there. You talked about "performance based pay" for teachers. That idea needs a lot more thought before it can be implemented, but it's definitely a good idea for discussion.
If you want to stand up to the special interest groups, why aren't you running for a state senate or representative's slot? You rightly identify them as the culprits in the teacher pension funding mess.
You also ignored the third way to deal with the mess: Have Harrisburg change the law. What are you doing to get that going? Smacking about the Pennsbury teachers union locally doesn't resonate well enough to reach into the conference rooms in the Capitol building.
Instead, you would seek to win a slot on the local board of education enabling you to crush the Pennsbury teachers under your iron boot heel. OK. Fine. Let's say you succeed. What did it accomplish? We're doing that in Morrisville right now, demonizing the teachers and overreacting to save the seniors, forgetting that our five year olds need saving too. Stop by and visit them, now conveniently housed in our state-of-the-art trailer park, right down the street from the contaminated school building we ignored.
How is demonizing one side going to reach a consensus? How does this ensure that the students you would represent would receive an education?
We need school board representatives who will represent the interests of the taxpayer, the seniors, AND the children all at the same time. Obama only has to deal with a global economic meltdown. That's easy compared to the bubbling fetid morass that is local politics.
I'm sure you and your likeminds will will the primary and eventual election in November. Ask the Emperor how it's going here in Morrisville. (Hint: We're looking for you and your district to save our whiny little butts.)
Trust me: The view is different from the other side of the microphone.
Disaster looms if pay and benefits aren’t brought under control
School board elections are notoriously low turnout affairs. There are no presidential or congressional races in 2009 so voter turnout will likely be low in the primary election on May 19. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that way. Readers could mark their calendars right now to vote in their local school board elections. School taxes comprise 80 percent of most people’s property taxes in the Pennsbury School District. Every taxpayer has a vested interest in choosing the elected officials that control a $180 million annual budget.
The teacher union agenda of “spend spend spend” is being matched by the building trade unions, which recently made aggressive noises about the Makefield Elementary school renovation project. My guess is that they’d love to elect school board members to get another horrific union-biased “responsible contractor” ordinance passed, just like the Lower Makefield supervisors did. I have no doubt that union resources will be geared up against me this May. That’s because I believe in free and open markets, and I firmly believe that the people paying the bill, i.e. taxpayers, deserve representation on the school board.
When I sat down with my Republican running mate, Kathleen Zawacki, to discuss running for Pennsbury school board it became clear that we were of likeminds. Both of us have children attending the school district. Neither of us has taken any polls on any issue, nor have we hired any campaign consultants to tell us what our positions are. The volunteers of both parties who are helping our campaign are everyday people — many of whom have never been involved with any election campaign before.
In two years time, a freight train is going to hit every school district in Pennsylvania. The state Legislature has mandated that school employee retirement benefits be increased by 25 percent. This will come at a time when the teachers’ retirement fund is swimming in red ink. There will be two ways for school districts to fund this pending new mandate: severely raise property taxes and/or severely cut into educational programs. Unless school boards get a handle on the biggest item in their budgets (salaries and benefits) right now, then disaster is coming.
If we don’t properly control labor costs ahead of this pending pension crisis, it won’t be just taxpayers who pay the price. It will be our school children. It will probably be the arts programs and the extracurricular activities that get cut first. That’s not right. Yet the two endorsed Democrat candidates for school board are backed by union-funded PACs and by state Rep. Steve Santarsiero, who helped himself to thousands of dollars in teacher union money to get elected.
There are many reforms that are needed at Pennsbury. Academic performance in the high school needs to improve. That means looking at the block scheduling and the split between classes in East and West buildings. There needs to be greater parental access and input into all school board decisions. Televising the board meetings would bring about greater public transparency. Performance-related pay for our professional educators needs to be discussed too.
Parents and taxpayers have a choice on May 19. Kathleen Zawacki and I will appear on both sides of the ballot in this upcoming primary election. Democrats and Republicans alike will have an opportunity to vote for us, and cast party label aside. We intend to protect our children’s educational needs by standing up to the powerful special interest groups.
A few months ago I received a handwritten letter from a fixed-income senior that contained a crumpled up $5 contribution. The letter read “my property taxes are one third of my income and I’m terrified of losing my home. You are my only hope.”
It broke my heart that someone as irrelevant as me was considered that important. After returning her $5 and thanking this lady for her kind words, I decided to run for school board. You see, this lady deserves better than the shoddy deal she has been dealt by the crushing burden of taxation. It would be my honor to represent her.
Please come out and vote.
ERIP Recap
From BucksLocalNews.com
Morrisville School District approves early retirement plans
By Petra Chesner Schlatter, Staff Editor Posted on Thu, Apr 9, 2009
The Morrisville School Board has approved on an early retirement incentive plan (ERIP) for eligible staff members.
Six board members voted yes and two members, Robin Reithmeyer and Gloria Heater, dissented. Al Radosti was absent from the meeting.
Heater said the district would not save enough money by offering the retirement package.
Reithmeyer protested the motion, alleging that Board President Bill Hellman had made a deal with the union without the full board’s knowledge.
This is the first time the Morrisville School District has offered an early retirement plan to district employees. The incentive was not part of the original collective bargaining agreement, but was added as an amendment by the school board’s vote.
At least nine people are expected to take the package.
After the meeting Board Member Jack Buckman said, “The teachers want to have a health care plan for a number of years. Usually, a health plan doesn’t go with you. We agreed to that.”
According to Buckman, the package will save the district money, but it ends on how many people accept the deal and if the district has to replace the retiree.
“When you replace one employee,” he said, “You usually get them for less money. The other ones were here so long; they’re on the top of the salary range.”
Paul DeAngelo, the district’s business administrator, said every teacher’s salary is included in the 2009-10 Preliminary Proposed Budget. However, he did not factor the ERIP program into the budget.
To be eligible for the ERIP, permanent professional employees must have 15 years of service. In addition, participants would be required to retire on June 30.
Under the plan, there are two options for participants.
The first is a lump sum payment with two cash payments between September 2009 and January 2010.
If three people take the plan, they would receive $25,000 each. If three to five take it, they would each receive $40,000. If six to eight take it, they would each receive $50,000. For nine or more retirees, they would each receive $70,000.
The second option would be medical premium reimbursement up until age 65 with caps on the total premiums.
Teachers have until April 30 to notify the school district if they want to take early retirement.
Drew King, president of the Morrisville Education Association, said last month that he had presented some information to the school board president to initiate discussion on a possibility of an early retirement package.
Governor asks for merger study:
Meanwhile, the issue of school districts merging in Pennsylvania has come up. Gov. Ed Rendell’s budget calls for the creation of a committee to research whether some school districts in the state should be consolidated. There are now 501 school districts in the Commonwealth. The governor wants to reduce that to 100.
The Morrisville School Board requested its solicitor, former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, to prepare a resolution on the matter for the next board meeting, which is scheduled for April 22.
At this time it’s not known what the chances are of Morrisville merging with the Pennsbury School District, although in the past Pennsbury officials have indicated they would prefer not to merge the districts.
Morrisville School District approves early retirement plans
By Petra Chesner Schlatter, Staff Editor Posted on Thu, Apr 9, 2009
The Morrisville School Board has approved on an early retirement incentive plan (ERIP) for eligible staff members.
Six board members voted yes and two members, Robin Reithmeyer and Gloria Heater, dissented. Al Radosti was absent from the meeting.
Heater said the district would not save enough money by offering the retirement package.
Reithmeyer protested the motion, alleging that Board President Bill Hellman had made a deal with the union without the full board’s knowledge.
This is the first time the Morrisville School District has offered an early retirement plan to district employees. The incentive was not part of the original collective bargaining agreement, but was added as an amendment by the school board’s vote.
At least nine people are expected to take the package.
After the meeting Board Member Jack Buckman said, “The teachers want to have a health care plan for a number of years. Usually, a health plan doesn’t go with you. We agreed to that.”
According to Buckman, the package will save the district money, but it ends on how many people accept the deal and if the district has to replace the retiree.
“When you replace one employee,” he said, “You usually get them for less money. The other ones were here so long; they’re on the top of the salary range.”
Paul DeAngelo, the district’s business administrator, said every teacher’s salary is included in the 2009-10 Preliminary Proposed Budget. However, he did not factor the ERIP program into the budget.
To be eligible for the ERIP, permanent professional employees must have 15 years of service. In addition, participants would be required to retire on June 30.
Under the plan, there are two options for participants.
The first is a lump sum payment with two cash payments between September 2009 and January 2010.
If three people take the plan, they would receive $25,000 each. If three to five take it, they would each receive $40,000. If six to eight take it, they would each receive $50,000. For nine or more retirees, they would each receive $70,000.
The second option would be medical premium reimbursement up until age 65 with caps on the total premiums.
Teachers have until April 30 to notify the school district if they want to take early retirement.
Drew King, president of the Morrisville Education Association, said last month that he had presented some information to the school board president to initiate discussion on a possibility of an early retirement package.
Governor asks for merger study:
Meanwhile, the issue of school districts merging in Pennsylvania has come up. Gov. Ed Rendell’s budget calls for the creation of a committee to research whether some school districts in the state should be consolidated. There are now 501 school districts in the Commonwealth. The governor wants to reduce that to 100.
The Morrisville School Board requested its solicitor, former Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick, to prepare a resolution on the matter for the next board meeting, which is scheduled for April 22.
At this time it’s not known what the chances are of Morrisville merging with the Pennsbury School District, although in the past Pennsbury officials have indicated they would prefer not to merge the districts.
3 Dems running for Morrisville mayor
From the BCCT.
How about school board?
3 Dems running for Morrisville mayor post;
no one from GOP filed for primary
Posted in News on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
by Courier Times staff writer Danny Adler
Three Morrisville Democrats are vying for the Democratic ticket’s mayoral nomination this spring.
No Republicans have filed to run in the primary, including current Mayor Thomas Wisnosky, who said he’s not seeking re-election.
The Morrisville Democratic Club endorsed Patricia Schell, 59, who sat on borough council for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s. The Democrats running against Schell are Councilwoman Rita Ledger, 48, who is serving her fourth year on council and sat on the zoning hearing board before that, and Graeme Thomson, 37, a computer technician who sits on historic Summerseat’s board of directors.
How about school board?
3 Dems running for Morrisville mayor post;
no one from GOP filed for primary
Posted in News on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
by Courier Times staff writer Danny Adler
Three Morrisville Democrats are vying for the Democratic ticket’s mayoral nomination this spring.
No Republicans have filed to run in the primary, including current Mayor Thomas Wisnosky, who said he’s not seeking re-election.
The Morrisville Democratic Club endorsed Patricia Schell, 59, who sat on borough council for 16 years in the 1980s and 1990s. The Democrats running against Schell are Councilwoman Rita Ledger, 48, who is serving her fourth year on council and sat on the zoning hearing board before that, and Graeme Thomson, 37, a computer technician who sits on historic Summerseat’s board of directors.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Education stimulus needs to stimulate students
From the BCCT.
Education stimulus needs to stimulate students
The stimulus package provides $5 billion to modernize our educational infrastructure. Schools, especially in urban areas, are in dire need of modernization (wouldn’t hurt to start with clean and safe bathrooms). But until we confront the educational system’s failure to keep kids from dropping out before graduation, the billions in expenditures will only be putting a pretty and expensive face on a half-empty future for both the kids and society as a whole.
Rather than aggressively working to reverse the dropout problem, some cities already have raised the white flag. Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s decision — “Imagine 2014” — to turn over 35 poor-performing schools to outside organizations is a clear signal that Ackerman and the school district have no idea how to turn around these schools. Shuttling off the schools and their at-risk students outside of the system without first revamping how we approach teaching those so seemingly resistant to learning is just a relocation of the same problem.
Keeping kids engaged and in school is a cost-cutting measure that positively impacts a child’s emotional and physical health as well as his or her effect on the world at large. The savings to institutional and governmental support systems, based on those who will stay in the system rather than drop out, is palpable in real dollars.
That’s real stimulus.
The good news is that accomplishing this is no great mystery. The mystery is how a system filled with smart people has seemed to miss the obvious for so many years. You engage students’ interest in learning by learning what interests them. From that, we build curriculums that both interests and teaches. Better to start with what they understand than what they don’t; with what drives them, not what pushes them away; with what changes them for the better, not what inhibits their desire to learn.
Our present educational process makes an effort to teach the same thing in the same way to every student. But how in the world can we expect all children, as diverse as they are, to learn the same way or at the same speed?
Most important in any teaching proposition is establishing the proper place to start. Just below failure there is a place of knowledge, a place of comfort and, therefore, a viable learning tool. Of course, what is comfortable for the student may be an uncomfortable place for a system now encumbered with a teaching-to-the-test mentality based on standard academics.
Today, we may need to tap into music, sports, video games, even the street to reach some students. It’s not about embracing incompetence or lowering standards, but having students recognize their own strengths, no matter what they are, and using them as a jumping off point.
Accountability, such as what was pounded into the system through No Child Left Behind, should not only come in test scores, but in what should be the goal of any educational system: How well it works as the student transitions out of the theoretical trappings of memorized test answers and into the real world.
It’s the old parable of either feeding a villager fish for one day or teaching the villager to fish so he can eat forever. When we tap into what drives a student, we learn how the student can drive himself or herself. Is there any teacher who wouldn’t want to trade in his or her time teaching to the test for teaching to a class full of students who want to learn?
Of course there are systemic reforms that need to take place, and last month President Obama said he asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan “to make sure that we’re rewarding innovation.” Duncan said money in the stimulus package would be for “pushing a “significant reform agenda.”
Money that benefits both teachers and students.
Stimulating.
Education stimulus needs to stimulate students
The stimulus package provides $5 billion to modernize our educational infrastructure. Schools, especially in urban areas, are in dire need of modernization (wouldn’t hurt to start with clean and safe bathrooms). But until we confront the educational system’s failure to keep kids from dropping out before graduation, the billions in expenditures will only be putting a pretty and expensive face on a half-empty future for both the kids and society as a whole.
Rather than aggressively working to reverse the dropout problem, some cities already have raised the white flag. Philadelphia School District Superintendent Arlene Ackerman’s decision — “Imagine 2014” — to turn over 35 poor-performing schools to outside organizations is a clear signal that Ackerman and the school district have no idea how to turn around these schools. Shuttling off the schools and their at-risk students outside of the system without first revamping how we approach teaching those so seemingly resistant to learning is just a relocation of the same problem.
Keeping kids engaged and in school is a cost-cutting measure that positively impacts a child’s emotional and physical health as well as his or her effect on the world at large. The savings to institutional and governmental support systems, based on those who will stay in the system rather than drop out, is palpable in real dollars.
That’s real stimulus.
The good news is that accomplishing this is no great mystery. The mystery is how a system filled with smart people has seemed to miss the obvious for so many years. You engage students’ interest in learning by learning what interests them. From that, we build curriculums that both interests and teaches. Better to start with what they understand than what they don’t; with what drives them, not what pushes them away; with what changes them for the better, not what inhibits their desire to learn.
Our present educational process makes an effort to teach the same thing in the same way to every student. But how in the world can we expect all children, as diverse as they are, to learn the same way or at the same speed?
Most important in any teaching proposition is establishing the proper place to start. Just below failure there is a place of knowledge, a place of comfort and, therefore, a viable learning tool. Of course, what is comfortable for the student may be an uncomfortable place for a system now encumbered with a teaching-to-the-test mentality based on standard academics.
Today, we may need to tap into music, sports, video games, even the street to reach some students. It’s not about embracing incompetence or lowering standards, but having students recognize their own strengths, no matter what they are, and using them as a jumping off point.
Accountability, such as what was pounded into the system through No Child Left Behind, should not only come in test scores, but in what should be the goal of any educational system: How well it works as the student transitions out of the theoretical trappings of memorized test answers and into the real world.
It’s the old parable of either feeding a villager fish for one day or teaching the villager to fish so he can eat forever. When we tap into what drives a student, we learn how the student can drive himself or herself. Is there any teacher who wouldn’t want to trade in his or her time teaching to the test for teaching to a class full of students who want to learn?
Of course there are systemic reforms that need to take place, and last month President Obama said he asked Education Secretary Arne Duncan “to make sure that we’re rewarding innovation.” Duncan said money in the stimulus package would be for “pushing a “significant reform agenda.”
Money that benefits both teachers and students.
Stimulating.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Centennial: Schools Will Close
From the BCCT.
Panel: Schools will close
By: MANASEE WAGH
The Intelligencer
The full Centennial school board will consider the options at a meeting later this month.
Centennial School District will need to close two or even three of its elementary schools in coming years, the district's operating committee said Tuesday night.
Using suggestions from architects, the panel said the only way to provide a quality education to all of its 2,600 K-5 students is to pare down the existing six buildings.
The committee and other board members considered several options that are variations on architectural firm Burt Hill's 13 original suggestions.
The new options and their costs, which don't include revenue from selling some buildings, range from keeping four K-5 schools and selling two at a cost of $72.8 million to keeping three schools and selling three at a cost of between $65.1 million and $78 million, depending on renovations and reconstruction.
Board members quickly eliminated an option of using an existing school, building a new school and selling the remaining five at a cost of $71.8 million.
Most of the committee's attention was focused on the three K-5 schools options, in part because they would be arranged centrally across the district. Keeping Willow Dale, McDonald and Stackpole elementary schools means no student would be more than 2 miles from their elementary school, said architects.
Maintaining three schools would save the most money in operational costs - $2.5 million annually, said Victor Lasher, the district's director of facilities.
Board and resident opinions varied widely, from keeping four schools to waiting another two years to gather more information about the educational impact of each option.
Considering a four-school option is not cost-effective in the long run, said committee member Cynthia Mueller. It would require more staff and renovations to more buildings, and full-day kindergarten for all four schools wouldn't be financially possible, she said.
Committee member Betty Huf said she would rather keep four buildings than only three, but she didn't want to pursue any option too quickly, a sentiment that several community members echoed.
Resident Janet Richard said she doesn't want the board to move any of those options forward until the board considers the input of a community task force to study the elementary issue.
"There are people here who want to be involved. Even if it takes a two-year commitment, the community will have ownership of this," she said.
Superintendent Sandy Homel said that she has been talking to home and school association members to help provide ideas for the elementary schools as plans develop.
Regardless of what the full board eventually decides, district officials say that two or more schools will have to go.
Business director Tim Vail has projected that expenditures will outpace revenues in the next five years, with $5.8 million devoted to the schools' annual upkeep and needed renovations. The district also has to worry about a new teachers contract in June 2010 and a jump in district contributions to the Public School Employees' Retirement System by 2013.
The committee will revisit plans for the three K-5 school options at its next meeting, expected to be held later this month.
Details of the new plans are to be posted soon on the district's Web site at www.centennialsd.org.
Panel: Schools will close
By: MANASEE WAGH
The Intelligencer
The full Centennial school board will consider the options at a meeting later this month.
Centennial School District will need to close two or even three of its elementary schools in coming years, the district's operating committee said Tuesday night.
Using suggestions from architects, the panel said the only way to provide a quality education to all of its 2,600 K-5 students is to pare down the existing six buildings.
The committee and other board members considered several options that are variations on architectural firm Burt Hill's 13 original suggestions.
The new options and their costs, which don't include revenue from selling some buildings, range from keeping four K-5 schools and selling two at a cost of $72.8 million to keeping three schools and selling three at a cost of between $65.1 million and $78 million, depending on renovations and reconstruction.
Board members quickly eliminated an option of using an existing school, building a new school and selling the remaining five at a cost of $71.8 million.
Most of the committee's attention was focused on the three K-5 schools options, in part because they would be arranged centrally across the district. Keeping Willow Dale, McDonald and Stackpole elementary schools means no student would be more than 2 miles from their elementary school, said architects.
Maintaining three schools would save the most money in operational costs - $2.5 million annually, said Victor Lasher, the district's director of facilities.
Board and resident opinions varied widely, from keeping four schools to waiting another two years to gather more information about the educational impact of each option.
Considering a four-school option is not cost-effective in the long run, said committee member Cynthia Mueller. It would require more staff and renovations to more buildings, and full-day kindergarten for all four schools wouldn't be financially possible, she said.
Committee member Betty Huf said she would rather keep four buildings than only three, but she didn't want to pursue any option too quickly, a sentiment that several community members echoed.
Resident Janet Richard said she doesn't want the board to move any of those options forward until the board considers the input of a community task force to study the elementary issue.
"There are people here who want to be involved. Even if it takes a two-year commitment, the community will have ownership of this," she said.
Superintendent Sandy Homel said that she has been talking to home and school association members to help provide ideas for the elementary schools as plans develop.
Regardless of what the full board eventually decides, district officials say that two or more schools will have to go.
Business director Tim Vail has projected that expenditures will outpace revenues in the next five years, with $5.8 million devoted to the schools' annual upkeep and needed renovations. The district also has to worry about a new teachers contract in June 2010 and a jump in district contributions to the Public School Employees' Retirement System by 2013.
The committee will revisit plans for the three K-5 school options at its next meeting, expected to be held later this month.
Details of the new plans are to be posted soon on the district's Web site at www.centennialsd.org.
Souderton: Tentative Pact
From the BCCT.
Board authorizes tentative pact with unions
By: LOU SESSINGER
The Intelligencer
The Souderton Area School Board is willing to accept most of two recommended contract settlements with the unions that represent the school district's teacher aides and secretaries with the exception of provisions related to the employees' health insurance coverage.
At a special meeting Tuesday evening, the board took two votes on the contract settlements recommended by state-appointed fact finder John Skonier.
Regarding the Souderton Area Educational Support Personnel Association, which represents about 140 teacher aides, the board authorized a tentative agreement that approves the fact finder's report with the following exception:
"Employees who work seven or more hours a day and at least 170 days per school year shall be entitled to participate in the lowest cost teachers' health care plan for single employee benefits provided that the employees contribute 10 percent of the health care premium."
Regarding the approximately 50-member Souderton Area Secretaries Association, the tentative agreement was similar but with slightly different language dealing with how the employees are classified and whether the provisions of their employment were "tied to" the teacher aides union contract.
In addition, 10-month employees who work seven or more hours a day can participate in the lowest cost teachers' health plan for single coverage and a contribution of 10 percent of the premium cost.
The teachers currently have a choice of different health plans with different co-pay options and other features.
School board President Bernard S. Currie after the meeting was apologetically tight-lipped about the board's tentative agreement.
"All I can really talk about tonight is the fact that the board authorized a tentative agreement," he said. "I can't say any more about the details because the employees haven't had a chance to vote on it. It wouldn't be fair for them to read about it in the newspaper before they had a chance to vote on it."
When asked if some of the aides and secretaries have not had health care insurance, all Currie would say is "some have and some have not." He declined to elaborate.
Neither would Currie explain how the board's health care provision differed from the fact finder's recommendation to which the board took exception.
According to Gary Smith, the Pennsylvania State Education Association representative who has been working on contract negotiations with both unions, the secretaries were scheduled to vote on the fact finder's recommendation today and the teacher aides on Thursday.
Both unions have been working under the terms of contracts that expired in June 2008.
Meanwhile, the school board and the district's teachers union are awaiting the report of an arbitration panel aimed at resolving their contract impasse. The sticking points are salary and health insurance.
Board authorizes tentative pact with unions
By: LOU SESSINGER
The Intelligencer
The Souderton Area School Board is willing to accept most of two recommended contract settlements with the unions that represent the school district's teacher aides and secretaries with the exception of provisions related to the employees' health insurance coverage.
At a special meeting Tuesday evening, the board took two votes on the contract settlements recommended by state-appointed fact finder John Skonier.
Regarding the Souderton Area Educational Support Personnel Association, which represents about 140 teacher aides, the board authorized a tentative agreement that approves the fact finder's report with the following exception:
"Employees who work seven or more hours a day and at least 170 days per school year shall be entitled to participate in the lowest cost teachers' health care plan for single employee benefits provided that the employees contribute 10 percent of the health care premium."
Regarding the approximately 50-member Souderton Area Secretaries Association, the tentative agreement was similar but with slightly different language dealing with how the employees are classified and whether the provisions of their employment were "tied to" the teacher aides union contract.
In addition, 10-month employees who work seven or more hours a day can participate in the lowest cost teachers' health plan for single coverage and a contribution of 10 percent of the premium cost.
The teachers currently have a choice of different health plans with different co-pay options and other features.
School board President Bernard S. Currie after the meeting was apologetically tight-lipped about the board's tentative agreement.
"All I can really talk about tonight is the fact that the board authorized a tentative agreement," he said. "I can't say any more about the details because the employees haven't had a chance to vote on it. It wouldn't be fair for them to read about it in the newspaper before they had a chance to vote on it."
When asked if some of the aides and secretaries have not had health care insurance, all Currie would say is "some have and some have not." He declined to elaborate.
Neither would Currie explain how the board's health care provision differed from the fact finder's recommendation to which the board took exception.
According to Gary Smith, the Pennsylvania State Education Association representative who has been working on contract negotiations with both unions, the secretaries were scheduled to vote on the fact finder's recommendation today and the teacher aides on Thursday.
Both unions have been working under the terms of contracts that expired in June 2008.
Meanwhile, the school board and the district's teachers union are awaiting the report of an arbitration panel aimed at resolving their contract impasse. The sticking points are salary and health insurance.
Secretary's computer monitored
From the BCCT.
Impassioned infighting and underhanded behavior: Not just for Morrisville any longer.
Officials: Secretary's computer monitored
By: JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times
Accusations flew back and forth despite the borough solicitor's warning that personnel matters should remain confidential.
Six years before her recent suspension, Tullytown Secretary Beth Pirolli's work computer was fitted with a device to track her activity, borough officials disclosed Tuesday night during a heated town hall meeting.
As the regular council meeting quickly devolved into a discussion about Pirolli, Councilman Rick Adams said then-resident Ed Armstrong, who is now a councilman, personally "put on the rubber gloves" and had installed a device on the borough's secretary work computer to monitor it for political activity.
Adams said the bill for the device had been filed under another name and he challenged Armstrong and others at the meeting to take a lie detector test and answer questions about the alleged incident.
Armstrong flatly denied installing any such device. Armstrong said it was Adams who had approached him in 2003 to ask whether it was possible to monitor Pirolli's computer. Armstrong said he told Adams that it was possible to monitor the computer, but he denied any further involvement.
Beth Pirolli's sister Holly Kettler said at the meeting Armstrong "was obsessed" with the borough secretary, who was suspended March 26 after a closed-door meeting of the Tullytown Council.
Kettler asked whether anyone had contacted her sister to talk about the allegations that led to the suspension. Council President Joseph Shellenberger said that no one had contacted her.
There was certainly plenty of talk about the borough secretary Tuesday, though she wasn't in the borough hall to hear it or to respond. The newspaper was also unable to reach Pirolli after a visit to her home on Main Street.
The details about Pirolli's career and her recent suspension were discussed publicly and for about an hour during the meeting. Borough solicitor Mike Sellers repeatedly cautioned that such that personnel matters should remain confidential.
At the March 26 meeting, Councilwoman Mary Ann Gahagan had publicly stated that at least some of the allegations involved certain checks that were found in Pirolli's desk.
The borough secretary was suspended with an affirming vote by council members George Fox, Ed Czyzyk, Shellenberger and Armstrong. The motion to suspend Pirolli included a condition that she should continue to receive both pay and benefits.
However, Councilman Matt Pirolli, Beth's brother, said she was not being paid and he wanted to know why. Pirolli abstained last month from voting on her suspension.
Shellenberger said there was "a very good answer" as to why the borough secretary had not been paid.
That reason was discussed in a closed-door meeting and should remain confidential, Shellenberger said.
Longtime borough resident Al DiGiovanni said he came to the council meeting Tuesday night to complain about basketball hoops on his street.
"But from what I'm seeing here tonight," he said, "you guys have a much bigger problems than I have."
Impassioned infighting and underhanded behavior: Not just for Morrisville any longer.
Officials: Secretary's computer monitored
By: JAMES MCGINNIS
Bucks County Courier Times
Accusations flew back and forth despite the borough solicitor's warning that personnel matters should remain confidential.
Six years before her recent suspension, Tullytown Secretary Beth Pirolli's work computer was fitted with a device to track her activity, borough officials disclosed Tuesday night during a heated town hall meeting.
As the regular council meeting quickly devolved into a discussion about Pirolli, Councilman Rick Adams said then-resident Ed Armstrong, who is now a councilman, personally "put on the rubber gloves" and had installed a device on the borough's secretary work computer to monitor it for political activity.
Adams said the bill for the device had been filed under another name and he challenged Armstrong and others at the meeting to take a lie detector test and answer questions about the alleged incident.
Armstrong flatly denied installing any such device. Armstrong said it was Adams who had approached him in 2003 to ask whether it was possible to monitor Pirolli's computer. Armstrong said he told Adams that it was possible to monitor the computer, but he denied any further involvement.
Beth Pirolli's sister Holly Kettler said at the meeting Armstrong "was obsessed" with the borough secretary, who was suspended March 26 after a closed-door meeting of the Tullytown Council.
Kettler asked whether anyone had contacted her sister to talk about the allegations that led to the suspension. Council President Joseph Shellenberger said that no one had contacted her.
There was certainly plenty of talk about the borough secretary Tuesday, though she wasn't in the borough hall to hear it or to respond. The newspaper was also unable to reach Pirolli after a visit to her home on Main Street.
The details about Pirolli's career and her recent suspension were discussed publicly and for about an hour during the meeting. Borough solicitor Mike Sellers repeatedly cautioned that such that personnel matters should remain confidential.
At the March 26 meeting, Councilwoman Mary Ann Gahagan had publicly stated that at least some of the allegations involved certain checks that were found in Pirolli's desk.
The borough secretary was suspended with an affirming vote by council members George Fox, Ed Czyzyk, Shellenberger and Armstrong. The motion to suspend Pirolli included a condition that she should continue to receive both pay and benefits.
However, Councilman Matt Pirolli, Beth's brother, said she was not being paid and he wanted to know why. Pirolli abstained last month from voting on her suspension.
Shellenberger said there was "a very good answer" as to why the borough secretary had not been paid.
That reason was discussed in a closed-door meeting and should remain confidential, Shellenberger said.
Longtime borough resident Al DiGiovanni said he came to the council meeting Tuesday night to complain about basketball hoops on his street.
"But from what I'm seeing here tonight," he said, "you guys have a much bigger problems than I have."
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
New stats for PSSAs
From the Inquirer.
Pa.: New stats better gauge student achievement
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer, Posted on Mon, Apr. 6, 2009
When results of the recent PSSA tests are released this summer, they will likely show a dramatic increase in the number of schools meeting state-mandated No Child Left Behind proficiency standards.
Last year, 72 percent of Pennsylvania public schools met the marks, based primarily on the math and reading tests for grades three to eight and 11. In the Philadelphia area, 65 percent of schools met the benchmarks.
This year, close to 250 more schools across the state - about 28 percent of those that did not meet the standards last year - could achieve the proficiency levels, based on projections from 2008 scores.
The increase would not be the result of academic progress, however, but would come from a new statistical method of calculating test results that provides other benefits as well by helping educators analyze student and school performance in more in-depth ways.
For the first time this year, schools will get credit for meeting state standards if statistical projections of students' test results show enough improvement in coming years, even if the children are not performing at grade level now. Fifteen states use similar systems.
"We now have a scientific method of projecting whether or not a school . . . will bring a grade or a group to proficiency," Gerald Zahorchak, the Pennsylvania secretary of education, said in an interview. "It's the power of a new way to look at data - to look at whether schools have really made and will be making progress with their students."
In preparation for using projected test scores to meet proficiency standards, the state has assigned each student an identification number, allowing the system to track PSSA results from year to year. The tracking numbers were instituted in 2006, but this is the first year that past test scores will be used to calculate school proficiency.
Kristen Lewald, state coordinator for the new PSSA tracking system, said that just as a baseball player's batting average is a good predictor of how good a hitter he or she will be in, "the best predictor of a student's performance is their history."
Before this year, school-achievement calculations were based on the current-year scores of all students in the tested grades as well as other groups: minorities, special-education students, English-language learners, and low-income students.
If 56 percent of students in all groups score proficient or above in math and 63 percent are proficient in reading, a school meets state standards, called making adequate yearly progress. Schools where test scores show sizable improvement also make the grade. Those that don't meet the standards must act to improve performance; continued failure leads to increasingly drastic sanctions.
Starting this year, each school's proficiency will be measured by those scoring methods and by the new statistical projections, which educators call the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS).
Tracking individual student performance through identification numbers is a better way to determine whether schools are doing their job, education experts say.
In districts where many students move to new schools or out of the area from one year to the next, for example, comparing school scores for last year's third grade and this year's fourth grade would not tell much about how well the school is educating children. That's because many students would not be the same ones who took the test the year before. The new system solves that problem by tracking students' performance no matter what school or district they are in.
As a result, the new tracking system has become a powerful new diagnostic tool, helping educators get a good grasp on how students are progressing, said Victoria Gehrt, assistant superintendent of the Kennett Consolidated School District.
Gehrt said her district uses the tracking data to figure out everything from how well a new math curriculum is working to analyzing whether students at all achievement levels are making a year's worth of academic progress in a year's time.
"It's a great tool - the PSSA score only tells if students are proficient but it doesn't tell you whether you are making a difference - whether there is student growth from year to year," she said.
In the West Chester Area School District, the tracking system helps schools make earlier sixth-grade placements, using score projections from previous years, said Robert Culp, the district's elementary math and science assessment director.
In Montgomery County's Methacton district, the tracking system was used to analyze the effectiveness of some lower-level math courses that were eventually eliminated, superintendent Timothy Quinn said. And it is used to make sure students are taking courses that are rigorous enough to challenge them, he said. "Getting As and scoring proficient on the state tests is not enough," Quinn said. The tracking system, he added, "really pushes high-achieving districts like ours to ask, 'Are we doing as much as possible?' "
The student tracking system, which began with a $4 million federal grant to the state in 2005, has other uses as well. Starting with the senior class of 2010, for example, the Education Department will be able to accurately calculate four-year high school drop-out rates, a key statistic that has been difficult to compute.
The department now collects student demographic and attendance information, school staff demographics and courses taught, school course offerings, and what courses students take.
In the fall, the system will be extended to Pennsylvania's 14 community colleges and 14 State System of Higher Education universities; state-related and private colleges also have been invited to join. The state wants to better understand how students can be adequately prepared for college and how they do once they get there.
With a prekindergarten through college tracking system, Zahorchak said, "the possibilities are limited only by our imagination."
Pa.: New stats better gauge student achievement
By Dan Hardy, Inquirer Staff Writer, Posted on Mon, Apr. 6, 2009
When results of the recent PSSA tests are released this summer, they will likely show a dramatic increase in the number of schools meeting state-mandated No Child Left Behind proficiency standards.
Last year, 72 percent of Pennsylvania public schools met the marks, based primarily on the math and reading tests for grades three to eight and 11. In the Philadelphia area, 65 percent of schools met the benchmarks.
This year, close to 250 more schools across the state - about 28 percent of those that did not meet the standards last year - could achieve the proficiency levels, based on projections from 2008 scores.
The increase would not be the result of academic progress, however, but would come from a new statistical method of calculating test results that provides other benefits as well by helping educators analyze student and school performance in more in-depth ways.
For the first time this year, schools will get credit for meeting state standards if statistical projections of students' test results show enough improvement in coming years, even if the children are not performing at grade level now. Fifteen states use similar systems.
"We now have a scientific method of projecting whether or not a school . . . will bring a grade or a group to proficiency," Gerald Zahorchak, the Pennsylvania secretary of education, said in an interview. "It's the power of a new way to look at data - to look at whether schools have really made and will be making progress with their students."
In preparation for using projected test scores to meet proficiency standards, the state has assigned each student an identification number, allowing the system to track PSSA results from year to year. The tracking numbers were instituted in 2006, but this is the first year that past test scores will be used to calculate school proficiency.
Kristen Lewald, state coordinator for the new PSSA tracking system, said that just as a baseball player's batting average is a good predictor of how good a hitter he or she will be in, "the best predictor of a student's performance is their history."
Before this year, school-achievement calculations were based on the current-year scores of all students in the tested grades as well as other groups: minorities, special-education students, English-language learners, and low-income students.
If 56 percent of students in all groups score proficient or above in math and 63 percent are proficient in reading, a school meets state standards, called making adequate yearly progress. Schools where test scores show sizable improvement also make the grade. Those that don't meet the standards must act to improve performance; continued failure leads to increasingly drastic sanctions.
Starting this year, each school's proficiency will be measured by those scoring methods and by the new statistical projections, which educators call the Pennsylvania Value-Added Assessment System (PVAAS).
Tracking individual student performance through identification numbers is a better way to determine whether schools are doing their job, education experts say.
In districts where many students move to new schools or out of the area from one year to the next, for example, comparing school scores for last year's third grade and this year's fourth grade would not tell much about how well the school is educating children. That's because many students would not be the same ones who took the test the year before. The new system solves that problem by tracking students' performance no matter what school or district they are in.
As a result, the new tracking system has become a powerful new diagnostic tool, helping educators get a good grasp on how students are progressing, said Victoria Gehrt, assistant superintendent of the Kennett Consolidated School District.
Gehrt said her district uses the tracking data to figure out everything from how well a new math curriculum is working to analyzing whether students at all achievement levels are making a year's worth of academic progress in a year's time.
"It's a great tool - the PSSA score only tells if students are proficient but it doesn't tell you whether you are making a difference - whether there is student growth from year to year," she said.
In the West Chester Area School District, the tracking system helps schools make earlier sixth-grade placements, using score projections from previous years, said Robert Culp, the district's elementary math and science assessment director.
In Montgomery County's Methacton district, the tracking system was used to analyze the effectiveness of some lower-level math courses that were eventually eliminated, superintendent Timothy Quinn said. And it is used to make sure students are taking courses that are rigorous enough to challenge them, he said. "Getting As and scoring proficient on the state tests is not enough," Quinn said. The tracking system, he added, "really pushes high-achieving districts like ours to ask, 'Are we doing as much as possible?' "
The student tracking system, which began with a $4 million federal grant to the state in 2005, has other uses as well. Starting with the senior class of 2010, for example, the Education Department will be able to accurately calculate four-year high school drop-out rates, a key statistic that has been difficult to compute.
The department now collects student demographic and attendance information, school staff demographics and courses taught, school course offerings, and what courses students take.
In the fall, the system will be extended to Pennsylvania's 14 community colleges and 14 State System of Higher Education universities; state-related and private colleges also have been invited to join. The state wants to better understand how students can be adequately prepared for college and how they do once they get there.
With a prekindergarten through college tracking system, Zahorchak said, "the possibilities are limited only by our imagination."
Neshaminy Turns into Morrisville
From the BCCT
Dear Sam: Come on over to Morrisville. Much to our shame, fire all the teachers and replace them, and a state takeover of the district are the stated goals of the Emperor's minions.
Find middle ground
I recently attended a senior meeting regarding the current situation in Neshaminy School District at the Lower Southampton Library. Mostly everyone there was quite concerned how things are going. Many had suggestions on how to fix the problems.
Jim Barrett (chairman of the Democratic committee in Lower Southampton) said, “We should cut the administrators’ pay by say 20 percent. Sue Barrett (an ex-school board member) said, “We should fire all of them and start new from scratch. Or we could declare the school district bankrupt and let the state take it over.”
For two prominent community leaders to make these kinds of suggestions is, in my view, outrageous. I’m sure most members of the community do not want the state to run our schools.
A school board member, Joe Blasch, started reading a list of programs they can cut such as music, art, school bus routes, have part-time library, etc. I felt this too is a bit much and stated, “You want to cut things from our kids and not our teachers.”
Our kids are our most important and precious asset. We have many great teachers in our schools who care a great deal about our kids. I know, I have a boy in third grade and he loves school. That’s because of our teachers.
What we need is for the union and the school board to go back to the table and find some middle ground where everyone will be dealt with fairly. Our children should not suffer for an unreasonable union leader or an unreasonable community leader.
Sam Pozzuolo Feasterville
Dear Sam: Come on over to Morrisville. Much to our shame, fire all the teachers and replace them, and a state takeover of the district are the stated goals of the Emperor's minions.
Find middle ground
I recently attended a senior meeting regarding the current situation in Neshaminy School District at the Lower Southampton Library. Mostly everyone there was quite concerned how things are going. Many had suggestions on how to fix the problems.
Jim Barrett (chairman of the Democratic committee in Lower Southampton) said, “We should cut the administrators’ pay by say 20 percent. Sue Barrett (an ex-school board member) said, “We should fire all of them and start new from scratch. Or we could declare the school district bankrupt and let the state take it over.”
For two prominent community leaders to make these kinds of suggestions is, in my view, outrageous. I’m sure most members of the community do not want the state to run our schools.
A school board member, Joe Blasch, started reading a list of programs they can cut such as music, art, school bus routes, have part-time library, etc. I felt this too is a bit much and stated, “You want to cut things from our kids and not our teachers.”
Our kids are our most important and precious asset. We have many great teachers in our schools who care a great deal about our kids. I know, I have a boy in third grade and he loves school. That’s because of our teachers.
What we need is for the union and the school board to go back to the table and find some middle ground where everyone will be dealt with fairly. Our children should not suffer for an unreasonable union leader or an unreasonable community leader.
Sam Pozzuolo Feasterville
Monday, April 6, 2009
April 25: Join The Friends of the Delaware Canal
From Kate Fratti in the BCCT.
Calling all canal lovers
By: KATE FRATTI
Bucks County Courier Times
Feeling ambitious? Or just in need of some fresh air? The Friends of the Delaware Canal hope so. They need you to lend them a hand at spring cleaning on April 25.
Come on. At least think about it. If you ever visit the canal for long walks, bike rides, fishing and exercising the dog, it's not a bad way to show some gratitude. Also not a bad way to meet other canal lovers or to spend some free quality time with the kids. Tell them Canal Cleanup Day is a treasure hunt.
Friends Director Susan Taylor has made a few interesting finds in the years she's been participating in the cleanup. Seems she found a perfectly intact dried bat once. "As in the mammal bat," she explained. OK. Treasure is a strong word.
She did find a bag of coins totaling $10. Another time she found prom accessories, including bow tie and corsage. She also was on hand to watch a helper find a snapping turtle hiding in a tire. "The person dropped that tire really fast," she recalled. It was good for a laugh.
The Friends of the Delaware Canal is "an independent, not-for-profit organization working to restore, preserve and improve the canal and its surroundings. Its primary goals are to ensure that the canal is fully watered from Easton to Bristol and that the towpath trail is useable over its entire length.
No small task, but a supremely worthwhile goal. Bucks County boasts an awful lot of pretty places to soak up nature, but portions of the canal rival all others.
I live closest to the sections near Black Rock Road in Lower Makefield. It's one of my favorite places. Dredging there is expected to be done by May 18.
Which means my part of the canal - between Yardley and Morrisville - will be picture postcard perfect again this summer. Turtles sunning (when they aren't hiding in tires), fish jumping, birds of every feather and wildflowers along the banks, water lilies in the center. Come early enough in the morning or late enough in the day and you'll see deer coming to drink.
I'll never understand how anyone who's witnessed the historic canal's beauty could leave behind the litter they do - things like soda cans and tangled fishing tackle - requiring a massive cleanup every spring.
Susan says she'll need about 100 volunteers to get the job done this year. And that's with 30 of the 60 miles of canal between Bristol and Easton still undergoing restoration so off the cleanup roster.
For work purposes, the canal has been divided into three zones, upper, central and lower canal. Cleanup teams will be led by area coordinators. The New Hope Garden Club is pitching in. As always, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Middle School in Bristol Township will be doing its part, too. Mary Kehoe will coordinate in Bristol again.
"She recruits young people and the Bristol Hibernians. She gets lots of food donated from local businesses to feed her crew," Susan said.
Canal Cleanup Day will begin at 9 a.m. and continue throughout the day. Everyone who wants to participate should choose a convenient or needy location, and then contact the area coordinator. The coordinator will let volunteers know where to meet and what to bring. Gloves, long-handled nets, boots, and branch snippers are useful, Susan said. Trash bags will be provided.
"Canoe or kayak owners who are volunteering in sections of the canal that have water are urged to bring their boats to retrieve the elusive trash that lies just out of reach in the water and on the berm bank," she said.
If you live in Falls and enjoy the canal, you are especially needed. The Friends still are seeking a coordinator for the cleanup there. To lead a group of "willing trash pickers, brush clippers and tire retrievers," call 215-862-2021.
That's also the number to call for all other information about the cleanup day and to find out who your coordinator will be. You also can e-mail questions to friends@fodc.org.
Calling all canal lovers
By: KATE FRATTI
Bucks County Courier Times
Feeling ambitious? Or just in need of some fresh air? The Friends of the Delaware Canal hope so. They need you to lend them a hand at spring cleaning on April 25.
Come on. At least think about it. If you ever visit the canal for long walks, bike rides, fishing and exercising the dog, it's not a bad way to show some gratitude. Also not a bad way to meet other canal lovers or to spend some free quality time with the kids. Tell them Canal Cleanup Day is a treasure hunt.
Friends Director Susan Taylor has made a few interesting finds in the years she's been participating in the cleanup. Seems she found a perfectly intact dried bat once. "As in the mammal bat," she explained. OK. Treasure is a strong word.
She did find a bag of coins totaling $10. Another time she found prom accessories, including bow tie and corsage. She also was on hand to watch a helper find a snapping turtle hiding in a tire. "The person dropped that tire really fast," she recalled. It was good for a laugh.
The Friends of the Delaware Canal is "an independent, not-for-profit organization working to restore, preserve and improve the canal and its surroundings. Its primary goals are to ensure that the canal is fully watered from Easton to Bristol and that the towpath trail is useable over its entire length.
No small task, but a supremely worthwhile goal. Bucks County boasts an awful lot of pretty places to soak up nature, but portions of the canal rival all others.
I live closest to the sections near Black Rock Road in Lower Makefield. It's one of my favorite places. Dredging there is expected to be done by May 18.
Which means my part of the canal - between Yardley and Morrisville - will be picture postcard perfect again this summer. Turtles sunning (when they aren't hiding in tires), fish jumping, birds of every feather and wildflowers along the banks, water lilies in the center. Come early enough in the morning or late enough in the day and you'll see deer coming to drink.
I'll never understand how anyone who's witnessed the historic canal's beauty could leave behind the litter they do - things like soda cans and tangled fishing tackle - requiring a massive cleanup every spring.
Susan says she'll need about 100 volunteers to get the job done this year. And that's with 30 of the 60 miles of canal between Bristol and Easton still undergoing restoration so off the cleanup roster.
For work purposes, the canal has been divided into three zones, upper, central and lower canal. Cleanup teams will be led by area coordinators. The New Hope Garden Club is pitching in. As always, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Middle School in Bristol Township will be doing its part, too. Mary Kehoe will coordinate in Bristol again.
"She recruits young people and the Bristol Hibernians. She gets lots of food donated from local businesses to feed her crew," Susan said.
Canal Cleanup Day will begin at 9 a.m. and continue throughout the day. Everyone who wants to participate should choose a convenient or needy location, and then contact the area coordinator. The coordinator will let volunteers know where to meet and what to bring. Gloves, long-handled nets, boots, and branch snippers are useful, Susan said. Trash bags will be provided.
"Canoe or kayak owners who are volunteering in sections of the canal that have water are urged to bring their boats to retrieve the elusive trash that lies just out of reach in the water and on the berm bank," she said.
If you live in Falls and enjoy the canal, you are especially needed. The Friends still are seeking a coordinator for the cleanup there. To lead a group of "willing trash pickers, brush clippers and tire retrievers," call 215-862-2021.
That's also the number to call for all other information about the cleanup day and to find out who your coordinator will be. You also can e-mail questions to friends@fodc.org.
Districts ambivalent about merger idea
From the Erie Times-News.
School districts ambivalent about governor's merger idea
BY VALERIE MYERS
Published: April 05. 2009 12:01AM
SCHOOL DISTRICTS -- BY THE NUMBERS
The number of public-school districts, public schools and public-school students is actually increasing nationally:
1993-94 school year:
14,523 public-school districts, 83,621 public schools, 43.5 million public-school students.
2007-08: 14,556 public-school districts, 100,308 public schools, 49.8 million public-school students.
SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics
When two Beaver County school districts are pronounced the Central Valley School District on July 1, they will be the first ever to merge without the state Department of Education forcing them to do so.
The voluntary consolidation of the Center Area and Monaca school districts will reduce the number of Pennsylvania's local school districts from 501 to 500 -- or 400 more than Gov. Ed Rendell wants.
Rendell has proposed a legislative commission to recommend ways to downsize -- he says "right-size" -- the number of public school districts to no more than 100, or about 1.5 school districts per county.
The action has precedent; the state has ordered a number of school district consolidations through the years. The most widespread through the 1960s pared 2,277 local school districts to 669, said David Davare, director of research services for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Not many people regret those consolidations.
But many wonder whether further consolidations are financially and educationally prudent.
Keeping up (or down) with Joneses
Rendell points to neighboring Maryland as a model for Pennsylvania's schools. Maryland has just 24 school districts -- one in each county.
The upsides of consolidation, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, include reducing "staggering, and growing" administrative costs, local property tax relief, and pooling of resources for better, more-affordable education, including more class choices than small districts can provide.
Also, only 10 states have more school districts than Pennsylvania, and many of the highest-achieving states are organized into far fewer school districts, according to the PDE.
But a 2001 study by Syracuse University's Center for Policy Research found that school district consolidations in New York state have saved money only for very small districts, had negligible savings for districts of 1,500 students, and increased costs in larger districts -- both in dollars for labor and transportation and in staff, student and parent engagement.
And in other states where consolidations have recently been ordered, they aren't universally popular. In Maine, voters are organizing a referendum in hopes of repealing a 2007 law requiring consolidation of the state's 290 local school districts into about 80.
In Nebraska, where a 2005 state law requires elementary-only school districts to merge with K-12 districts, a lawsuit attempting to overturn the law was dismissed in federal court but has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Been there, (not) done that
Retired Harbor Creek schools Superintendent David Smith at one time favored the consolidation of the Harbor Creek and Iroquois school districts.
Analysis and some preliminary consolidation of the two administrations changed his mind.
The two districts were the last in Erie County to seriously consider consolidation, in 1999. A state incentive grant paid for some administrative consolidation, including sharing a business manager who worked half of each day at Harbor Creek and half at Iroquois.
"The savings we anticipated just weren't there," Smith said. "By and large, it worked out well, but it wasn't saving money. The business manager was putting in ungodly hours."
Other pocketbook issues and the educational issues of consolidation are tougher to address, Smith said. One school district might have a junior high school and the other a middle school. One might have its buildings paid for while the other has significant debt that taxpayers in the combined district would have to pay off.
Academic success and which schools close, which remain open and whether new schools are needed can be even bigger headaches.
"And when you start talking about cost savings and closing down schools that aren't efficient or too small, then you get into transportation issues, and that's a nightmare. Transportation costs are enormous," Smith said.
The toll isn't just in gasoline and maintenance, but time, he said.
"How much time are youngsters spending on that bus and what activities are they going to miss out on because they're on that bus? You have to consider those kinds of things as well," Smith said.
Tigers and Yellowjackets 1, Vikings 0
Another problem with consolidation is loss of local identity and control. It was the deal-breaker when Fairview and Girard school districts looked at consolidation 40 years ago. By state mandate at the time, no district could have fewer than 4,000 students. Both Fairview and Girard were below that number and planned consolidation while appealing the mandate.
The two districts drew up plans for a joint Lake Erie High School and together hired a football coach and bought Viking wrestling mats and football uniforms before the state Board of Education finally granted their appeals -- based on loss of local control and identity and no real educational benefit -- in 1970. The red-and-black Fairview Tigers and yellow-and-black Girard Yellowjackets wound up divvying the blue-and-gold Viking spoils.
Those local identities and loyalties can derail consolidation, said Daniel Matsook, superintendent of the Center Area School District now merging with Monaca.
"We call those matters of the heart, and we've put them on the back burner," Matsook said. "There comes a time when you have to look beyond maintaining inefficiencies because somebody wants to maintain their school colors or mascot."
Third time's no charm
In Chautauqua County's Ripley Central School District, the economics of consolidation with neighboring Westfield or Sherman schools haven't convinced voters who decide the issue in New York state. Ripley has looked at mergers three times in the past 10 years. They've been rejected by one of the parties all three times, most recently by voters in the Westfield Academy and Central School District in February.
"There's no overwhelming proof that centralization eliminates or reduces taxes," said Jeff Buchholz, who taught in Ripley and was president of the teachers union there through all but the most recent merger effort.
Central (Valley) issues
For Monaca and Center Area school districts, where enrollments have declined along with the steel industry, consolidation is expected to improve both education and economics. The two districts expect to save a combined $1.4 million annually, Department of Education spokesman Michael Race said.
Still, consolidation -- including closing an elementary school and deciding on middle school rather than junior high -- hasn't been easy, Center Area's superintendent said. The two school districts have been working on the merger for more than three years.
"We went into this agreeing only to investigate whether merger makes sense or not; we didn't go into it saying we're going to merge," Matsook said. "We looked at the facts, and the facts bore this out."
School districts ambivalent about governor's merger idea
BY VALERIE MYERS
Published: April 05. 2009 12:01AM
SCHOOL DISTRICTS -- BY THE NUMBERS
The number of public-school districts, public schools and public-school students is actually increasing nationally:
1993-94 school year:
14,523 public-school districts, 83,621 public schools, 43.5 million public-school students.
2007-08: 14,556 public-school districts, 100,308 public schools, 49.8 million public-school students.
SOURCE: National Center for Education Statistics
When two Beaver County school districts are pronounced the Central Valley School District on July 1, they will be the first ever to merge without the state Department of Education forcing them to do so.
The voluntary consolidation of the Center Area and Monaca school districts will reduce the number of Pennsylvania's local school districts from 501 to 500 -- or 400 more than Gov. Ed Rendell wants.
Rendell has proposed a legislative commission to recommend ways to downsize -- he says "right-size" -- the number of public school districts to no more than 100, or about 1.5 school districts per county.
The action has precedent; the state has ordered a number of school district consolidations through the years. The most widespread through the 1960s pared 2,277 local school districts to 669, said David Davare, director of research services for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Not many people regret those consolidations.
But many wonder whether further consolidations are financially and educationally prudent.
Keeping up (or down) with Joneses
Rendell points to neighboring Maryland as a model for Pennsylvania's schools. Maryland has just 24 school districts -- one in each county.
The upsides of consolidation, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, include reducing "staggering, and growing" administrative costs, local property tax relief, and pooling of resources for better, more-affordable education, including more class choices than small districts can provide.
Also, only 10 states have more school districts than Pennsylvania, and many of the highest-achieving states are organized into far fewer school districts, according to the PDE.
But a 2001 study by Syracuse University's Center for Policy Research found that school district consolidations in New York state have saved money only for very small districts, had negligible savings for districts of 1,500 students, and increased costs in larger districts -- both in dollars for labor and transportation and in staff, student and parent engagement.
And in other states where consolidations have recently been ordered, they aren't universally popular. In Maine, voters are organizing a referendum in hopes of repealing a 2007 law requiring consolidation of the state's 290 local school districts into about 80.
In Nebraska, where a 2005 state law requires elementary-only school districts to merge with K-12 districts, a lawsuit attempting to overturn the law was dismissed in federal court but has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Been there, (not) done that
Retired Harbor Creek schools Superintendent David Smith at one time favored the consolidation of the Harbor Creek and Iroquois school districts.
Analysis and some preliminary consolidation of the two administrations changed his mind.
The two districts were the last in Erie County to seriously consider consolidation, in 1999. A state incentive grant paid for some administrative consolidation, including sharing a business manager who worked half of each day at Harbor Creek and half at Iroquois.
"The savings we anticipated just weren't there," Smith said. "By and large, it worked out well, but it wasn't saving money. The business manager was putting in ungodly hours."
Other pocketbook issues and the educational issues of consolidation are tougher to address, Smith said. One school district might have a junior high school and the other a middle school. One might have its buildings paid for while the other has significant debt that taxpayers in the combined district would have to pay off.
Academic success and which schools close, which remain open and whether new schools are needed can be even bigger headaches.
"And when you start talking about cost savings and closing down schools that aren't efficient or too small, then you get into transportation issues, and that's a nightmare. Transportation costs are enormous," Smith said.
The toll isn't just in gasoline and maintenance, but time, he said.
"How much time are youngsters spending on that bus and what activities are they going to miss out on because they're on that bus? You have to consider those kinds of things as well," Smith said.
Tigers and Yellowjackets 1, Vikings 0
Another problem with consolidation is loss of local identity and control. It was the deal-breaker when Fairview and Girard school districts looked at consolidation 40 years ago. By state mandate at the time, no district could have fewer than 4,000 students. Both Fairview and Girard were below that number and planned consolidation while appealing the mandate.
The two districts drew up plans for a joint Lake Erie High School and together hired a football coach and bought Viking wrestling mats and football uniforms before the state Board of Education finally granted their appeals -- based on loss of local control and identity and no real educational benefit -- in 1970. The red-and-black Fairview Tigers and yellow-and-black Girard Yellowjackets wound up divvying the blue-and-gold Viking spoils.
Those local identities and loyalties can derail consolidation, said Daniel Matsook, superintendent of the Center Area School District now merging with Monaca.
"We call those matters of the heart, and we've put them on the back burner," Matsook said. "There comes a time when you have to look beyond maintaining inefficiencies because somebody wants to maintain their school colors or mascot."
Third time's no charm
In Chautauqua County's Ripley Central School District, the economics of consolidation with neighboring Westfield or Sherman schools haven't convinced voters who decide the issue in New York state. Ripley has looked at mergers three times in the past 10 years. They've been rejected by one of the parties all three times, most recently by voters in the Westfield Academy and Central School District in February.
"There's no overwhelming proof that centralization eliminates or reduces taxes," said Jeff Buchholz, who taught in Ripley and was president of the teachers union there through all but the most recent merger effort.
Central (Valley) issues
For Monaca and Center Area school districts, where enrollments have declined along with the steel industry, consolidation is expected to improve both education and economics. The two districts expect to save a combined $1.4 million annually, Department of Education spokesman Michael Race said.
Still, consolidation -- including closing an elementary school and deciding on middle school rather than junior high -- hasn't been easy, Center Area's superintendent said. The two school districts have been working on the merger for more than three years.
"We went into this agreeing only to investigate whether merger makes sense or not; we didn't go into it saying we're going to merge," Matsook said. "We looked at the facts, and the facts bore this out."
The Money Man
From the Inquirer.
PhillyDeals: Former CEO is Pa.'s stimulus watchdog
By Joseph N. DiStefano Posted on Sun, Apr. 5, 2009
While U.S. government officials have been driving bosses out of boardroom windows as it takes over troubled automakers and banks, Gov. Rendell has gone the other way, tapping a private-sector chief executive officer as a watchdog for Pennsylvania's handling of nearly $10 billion in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, a.k.a. stimulus funds.
State government "is an unknown world, for me," said Ronald J. Naples, who retired in 2008 after 28 years as a chief executive, first at Philadelphia's former Hunt Manufacturing Corp., and for 13 years at multinational Quaker Chemical Corp. in Conshohocken.
He'll get to learn fast. Besides serving as the spending program's chief accountability officer, with a salary just a fraction of what he made in his last corporate job, Naples - a Republican backer of Democrat Rendell - is also almost nearly the only business voice on the governor's Stimulus Oversight Commission, whose board he'll head.
With Naples, there's state General Services Secretary James Creedon, who's in charge of actually spending the stimulus dollars, business-lobby leader Gene Barr, electricians' union officer Donald Siegel, state United Way chief Tony Ross - plus no less than eight Pennsylvania politicians and aides, a mixed ticket of Democrats and Republicans, federal and state, each faction with constituents to please.
It's not this group's job - or Naples' - to command where each dollar goes. The stimulus has marked $4 billion for Medicare and other health-care programs, $2.6 billion for school projects, $1.4 billion for roads, trains, and buses, $1.1 billion for job training and relief, hundreds of millions more for housing and energy.
Nor will the group much affect the resulting fights breaking out in the General Assembly over how stimulus spending can be creatively applied to reduce the need for scarce state dollars, leaving other subsidies to live another day.
Naples says his job "is making sure we're accountable for the results. That's the challenge that attracted me."
"We're in a situation where the country has a really big problem," he said. "It's an important time for our leaders to get it right, and to know we're getting it right. What are we doing with the money? What are the results?"
There's already a Web site - recovery.pa.gov
Under fire
What does Naples add to the state's existing spending process and its capacity for self-measurement?
He started in the public sector - as a West Point graduate and an Army artillery officer in Vietnam. "In combat, things go wrong," he said. "There's no excuses. You go and fix them. All the way down the line."
Running a public company, Naples had to balance customers and workers, short-term and long-term goals, while boosting sales and earnings to keep Wall Street analysts and shareholders happy, in the face of growing world competition.
"When I arrived at Quaker, the world was evolving to where we needed to deal with global business," he said, and go beyond the old arrangement of local plants selling directly to local customers in Europe, Asia, or the United States.
"We had to change the way we went after markets, established jobs, set up financial and people reporting," he continued. "So we could deal with General Motors the same in Shanghai as in Detroit.
"We had to learn, and to teach our people, that their knowledge was a company asset. We had to show our people, so they could show the customers, that we were delivering, not just products, but service."
Government spending has its own competing interest groups, political cycles, personal connections - much of it difficult to quantify in managerial terms.
"This will be an interesting process for me," Naples said. "Friends have asked me, 'Why in the world do you want to do this kind of job. You have a good reputation. Why put it at risk?'
"For me, if I have a good reputation, it's there to be spent. It's what's given me the opportunity to do good and important things."
He paused, on the phone from his home in Wynnewood, his wife bustling through the room: "This will be the education of Ron Naples," he said. "Because it really is a different world."
PhillyDeals: Former CEO is Pa.'s stimulus watchdog
By Joseph N. DiStefano Posted on Sun, Apr. 5, 2009
While U.S. government officials have been driving bosses out of boardroom windows as it takes over troubled automakers and banks, Gov. Rendell has gone the other way, tapping a private-sector chief executive officer as a watchdog for Pennsylvania's handling of nearly $10 billion in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, a.k.a. stimulus funds.
State government "is an unknown world, for me," said Ronald J. Naples, who retired in 2008 after 28 years as a chief executive, first at Philadelphia's former Hunt Manufacturing Corp., and for 13 years at multinational Quaker Chemical Corp. in Conshohocken.
He'll get to learn fast. Besides serving as the spending program's chief accountability officer, with a salary just a fraction of what he made in his last corporate job, Naples - a Republican backer of Democrat Rendell - is also almost nearly the only business voice on the governor's Stimulus Oversight Commission, whose board he'll head.
With Naples, there's state General Services Secretary James Creedon, who's in charge of actually spending the stimulus dollars, business-lobby leader Gene Barr, electricians' union officer Donald Siegel, state United Way chief Tony Ross - plus no less than eight Pennsylvania politicians and aides, a mixed ticket of Democrats and Republicans, federal and state, each faction with constituents to please.
It's not this group's job - or Naples' - to command where each dollar goes. The stimulus has marked $4 billion for Medicare and other health-care programs, $2.6 billion for school projects, $1.4 billion for roads, trains, and buses, $1.1 billion for job training and relief, hundreds of millions more for housing and energy.
Nor will the group much affect the resulting fights breaking out in the General Assembly over how stimulus spending can be creatively applied to reduce the need for scarce state dollars, leaving other subsidies to live another day.
Naples says his job "is making sure we're accountable for the results. That's the challenge that attracted me."
"We're in a situation where the country has a really big problem," he said. "It's an important time for our leaders to get it right, and to know we're getting it right. What are we doing with the money? What are the results?"
There's already a Web site - recovery.pa.gov
Under fire
What does Naples add to the state's existing spending process and its capacity for self-measurement?
He started in the public sector - as a West Point graduate and an Army artillery officer in Vietnam. "In combat, things go wrong," he said. "There's no excuses. You go and fix them. All the way down the line."
Running a public company, Naples had to balance customers and workers, short-term and long-term goals, while boosting sales and earnings to keep Wall Street analysts and shareholders happy, in the face of growing world competition.
"When I arrived at Quaker, the world was evolving to where we needed to deal with global business," he said, and go beyond the old arrangement of local plants selling directly to local customers in Europe, Asia, or the United States.
"We had to change the way we went after markets, established jobs, set up financial and people reporting," he continued. "So we could deal with General Motors the same in Shanghai as in Detroit.
"We had to learn, and to teach our people, that their knowledge was a company asset. We had to show our people, so they could show the customers, that we were delivering, not just products, but service."
Government spending has its own competing interest groups, political cycles, personal connections - much of it difficult to quantify in managerial terms.
"This will be an interesting process for me," Naples said. "Friends have asked me, 'Why in the world do you want to do this kind of job. You have a good reputation. Why put it at risk?'
"For me, if I have a good reputation, it's there to be spent. It's what's given me the opportunity to do good and important things."
He paused, on the phone from his home in Wynnewood, his wife bustling through the room: "This will be the education of Ron Naples," he said. "Because it really is a different world."
Public Notices: Boiler Cleaning
From the BCCT.
NOTICE TO BIDDERS
MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT
The Morrisville School District is requesting sealed bids for Boiler Cleaning for the 2009-2010 school year. Specifications may be obtained from the Morrisville School District, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA 19067, to the attention of Paul W. DeAngelo, Business Administrator, 215-736-5933.
Bids must be received on or before April 14, 2009 at
which time they will be opened publicly at 9:30 a.m. in Conference Room F-10 of the Middle/Senior High School. The owner reserves the right to waive any information and to accept or reject any/all bids in its best interest.
Marlys Mihok
Board Secretary
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on 03/25/2009 and 04/01/2009
NOTICE TO BIDDERS
MORRISVILLE SCHOOL DISTRICT
The Morrisville School District is requesting sealed bids for Boiler Cleaning for the 2009-2010 school year. Specifications may be obtained from the Morrisville School District, 550 West Palmer Street, Morrisville, PA 19067, to the attention of Paul W. DeAngelo, Business Administrator, 215-736-5933.
Bids must be received on or before April 14, 2009 at
which time they will be opened publicly at 9:30 a.m. in Conference Room F-10 of the Middle/Senior High School. The owner reserves the right to waive any information and to accept or reject any/all bids in its best interest.
Marlys Mihok
Board Secretary
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on 03/25/2009 and 04/01/2009
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