From the Somerset County Daily American.
Auditor General cites weaknesses in Classrooms for the Future grant
Sunday, December 28, 2008 12:09 AM EST
Auditor General Jack Wagner announced that a special performance audit found weaknesses in the Department of Education's administration of Classrooms for the Future, a three-year, $155 million initiative.
The Rendell administration initiated Classrooms for the Future in 2006 to provide laptop computers, high-speed Internet access, state-of-the-art software and intensive teacher training and support to Pennsylvania high school classrooms.
Wagner said that lax monitoring resulted in systemic deficiencies that included a lack of adequate public disclosure about program funding to school districts, inconsistent grant awards to applicants, incomplete verifications of equipment purchases and security over equipment, and insufficient monitoring of program results and planning for continued successes of the program.
Wagner's auditors identified four findings that led to 15 recommendations.
Despite the administrative flaws, Wagner noted that the program had generated enthusiasm among students and teachers. He recommended that the department continue the program through 2010 to ensure that all districts benefit.
The department originally determined that $200 million was needed to fund the program for its first three years. It budgeted $20 million for the first fiscal year that ended June 30, 2007, and $90 million a year for each of the next two fiscal years. The department received the expected funding during the first two years but received only $45 million of its expected $90 million for the 2008-09 fiscal year, for a total of $155 million received during the three-year rollout.
The department eventually awarded grants to 447 of the state's 501 school districts over the three years.
Despite the Department of Education's administrative shortcomings, Wagner said, they should not be used as an excuse to terminate the program before its impact can be fully measured.
Wagner's report is available in its entirety at www.auditorgen.state.pa.us.
Other recommendations include the following:
The department should adhere to the results from its scoring methodology when selecting grant applications, and should share the results with all districts. Grants must be awarded through an open and competitive process.
The department should conduct site visits to districts and complete a physical inventory of equipment and accessories purchased with Classrooms for the Future funds.
The department should establish minimum security measures and require districts to comply with those measures.
The department should continue to measure and evaluate the improvements in teaching and learning that have been reported preliminarily.
The department should provide the General Assembly with comprehensive periodic updates about existing results and future plans so that, if positive results continue, legislators can make informed decisions about program funding.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Commitment in Tough Times
From the Delco Times
Do not abandon commitment to education
Saturday, December 27, 2008 6:37 AM EST
By JEFFREY G. VERMEULEN Times Guest Columnist
I want to make sure Pennsylvania is able to produce the most highly skilled, best trained and appropriately educated work force. While I appreciate that the commonwealth is in tough economic times, we must look beyond the present and invest in the future of Pennsylvania’s children by making basic education funding a top policy priority. And that means we must keep a promise made last year by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to meet state funding targets for school districts by 2013-2014.
This unparalleled goal, and the investment of $275 million in basic education, was a momentous first step to improve Pennsylvania’s education funding system. It could not have been achieved without the broad bi-partisan support of the legislature.
Our policymakers came together to ensure Pennsylvania’s children were provided with increased resources aimed at improving student achievement — the key to ensuring Pennsylvania’s future economic success.
For example, 46,000 new students received tutoring or other remediation, nearly 2,000 more children are enrolled in pre- or full-day kindergarten programs, and 312,000 students are in new courses such as foreign language and advanced math and have the most up-to-date curriculum and hands-on learning tools for science.
When I look at this progress, I am thankful for this historic action but I also recognize our work is not over yet. If Pennsylvania abandons the goal of adequate and equitable school funding for all, we are failing to uphold the commitment we made to Pennsylvania’s children.
Without increased state support for our schools, teachers and students, the academic progress we’ve made in recent years will be jeopardized. Class size will expand, at-risk children will have fewer opportunities to boost achievement levels, textbooks will not be replaced, science labs won’t contain modern equipment and there will be fewer advanced class offerings.
Tough decisions will have to be made by school boards and superintendents as they seek to preserve valuable student achievement programs and recognize the financial capabilities of their local taxpayers.
The commonwealth needs to maintain its momentum on closing the funding adequacy gap for public education by making another solid investment in school districts in the 2009-10 budget and by continuing to use a school funding formula that takes into account student enrollment, district size, poverty and English proficiency.
Sure, times are tough. Spending is down. For the first time in years, Pennsylvania is experiencing a steady job loss. There is no doubt we are immersed in an economic crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in decades. But there is no greater investment during difficult economic times than in the preparation of the commonwealth’s future work force.
By ensuring that our future work force is adequately prepared to meet the challenges of a 21st century economy, we can help stimulate the economic growth of Pennsylvania in the months and years to come.
Education is an investment that contributes to the direct economic success of individuals, benefits the economy, and attracts and supports business. In fact, investments in pre-K-12th-grade education are one the most effective tools a community can utilize in order to promote economic development.
Work-force development and constant training is a critical human capital process concerned with identifying future needs, developing a productive work force, examining the skills of employees at all levels, and determining both strengths and skill gaps.
Work-force development and training can prepare today’s work force for tomorrow’s challenges. Thus, to meet the economic challenges of the future, Pennsylvania’s school districts must be provided with the resources they need today. Let’s be sure that Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the movement to build the intellectual capacity of our young people to meet the challenges of the future.
Jeffrey G. Vermeulen is president of the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce.
Do not abandon commitment to education
Saturday, December 27, 2008 6:37 AM EST
By JEFFREY G. VERMEULEN Times Guest Columnist
I want to make sure Pennsylvania is able to produce the most highly skilled, best trained and appropriately educated work force. While I appreciate that the commonwealth is in tough economic times, we must look beyond the present and invest in the future of Pennsylvania’s children by making basic education funding a top policy priority. And that means we must keep a promise made last year by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to meet state funding targets for school districts by 2013-2014.
This unparalleled goal, and the investment of $275 million in basic education, was a momentous first step to improve Pennsylvania’s education funding system. It could not have been achieved without the broad bi-partisan support of the legislature.
Our policymakers came together to ensure Pennsylvania’s children were provided with increased resources aimed at improving student achievement — the key to ensuring Pennsylvania’s future economic success.
For example, 46,000 new students received tutoring or other remediation, nearly 2,000 more children are enrolled in pre- or full-day kindergarten programs, and 312,000 students are in new courses such as foreign language and advanced math and have the most up-to-date curriculum and hands-on learning tools for science.
When I look at this progress, I am thankful for this historic action but I also recognize our work is not over yet. If Pennsylvania abandons the goal of adequate and equitable school funding for all, we are failing to uphold the commitment we made to Pennsylvania’s children.
Without increased state support for our schools, teachers and students, the academic progress we’ve made in recent years will be jeopardized. Class size will expand, at-risk children will have fewer opportunities to boost achievement levels, textbooks will not be replaced, science labs won’t contain modern equipment and there will be fewer advanced class offerings.
Tough decisions will have to be made by school boards and superintendents as they seek to preserve valuable student achievement programs and recognize the financial capabilities of their local taxpayers.
The commonwealth needs to maintain its momentum on closing the funding adequacy gap for public education by making another solid investment in school districts in the 2009-10 budget and by continuing to use a school funding formula that takes into account student enrollment, district size, poverty and English proficiency.
Sure, times are tough. Spending is down. For the first time in years, Pennsylvania is experiencing a steady job loss. There is no doubt we are immersed in an economic crisis, the likes of which we have not seen in decades. But there is no greater investment during difficult economic times than in the preparation of the commonwealth’s future work force.
By ensuring that our future work force is adequately prepared to meet the challenges of a 21st century economy, we can help stimulate the economic growth of Pennsylvania in the months and years to come.
Education is an investment that contributes to the direct economic success of individuals, benefits the economy, and attracts and supports business. In fact, investments in pre-K-12th-grade education are one the most effective tools a community can utilize in order to promote economic development.
Work-force development and constant training is a critical human capital process concerned with identifying future needs, developing a productive work force, examining the skills of employees at all levels, and determining both strengths and skill gaps.
Work-force development and training can prepare today’s work force for tomorrow’s challenges. Thus, to meet the economic challenges of the future, Pennsylvania’s school districts must be provided with the resources they need today. Let’s be sure that Pennsylvania is at the forefront of the movement to build the intellectual capacity of our young people to meet the challenges of the future.
Jeffrey G. Vermeulen is president of the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce.
Summer School for the Teachers
From the BCCT.
Teachers eager for workplace experience
There were more applicants for the program than money to fund it.
By JOHN ANASTASI
The Bucks County Intermediate Unit and Bucks County Workforce Investment Board want to expand a summer program that places teachers in local businesses and nonprofit agencies connected to the subjects the educators teach.
The “Educator in the Workplace” program received 300 applications but could only place 10 teachers last year due to finances. The two organizations devoted $5,000 to the program, which covered the $500 stipend given to each educator.
“There was an amazing response from teachers in Bucks County,” said JoAnn Perotti, the IU’s strategic planning and communications director.
The program helps teachers gain some hands-on experience in the fields and subjects they teach, said Perotti. For instance, a Pennsbury social studies teacher interned at the David Library of the American Revolution and a Bucks County Technical High School cosmetology teacher worked at a local hair salon.
Ultimately, the program is designed to better prepare students to enter the workforce since their teachers can return to the classrooms with ideas to incorporate into their lessons.
“It gives them a better idea of what the business world is looking for,” Perotti said.
It also gives the teachers better connections with the fields they teach.
Lori Salley, the cosmetology teacher who interned at Wiggle Worms Children’s Hair Salon in Northeast Philadelphia, recently had the salon owner speak to her class. Sharon Vetter, who interned at the David Library, had her class do research at the Upper Makefield foundation.
“I can see it expanding and expanding,” Perotti said of the program. “It gives teachers the opportunity to see the real world outside and how it relates to the classroom.”
The program is only limited by the money it takes to pay the teachers. During a meeting of the workforce investment board, Perotti said the teachers seem more eager to receive their Act 48 credits than the $500 stipend. Pennsylvania’s Act 48 mandates that public school teachers obtain a certain number of continuing education credits per year.
Work board member Clark Shuster, CEO of the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce, suggested eliminating the stipend if the teachers care more about the Act 48 credits than the $500. That, he said, would open up the program to more teachers. The board and IU will continue to study that possibility, officials said.
Workforce investment board executive director Liz Walsh said she’d like to see the program begin to target industries that are growing in Bucks County — particularly biosciences and alternative energy.
Teachers eager for workplace experience
There were more applicants for the program than money to fund it.
By JOHN ANASTASI
The Bucks County Intermediate Unit and Bucks County Workforce Investment Board want to expand a summer program that places teachers in local businesses and nonprofit agencies connected to the subjects the educators teach.
The “Educator in the Workplace” program received 300 applications but could only place 10 teachers last year due to finances. The two organizations devoted $5,000 to the program, which covered the $500 stipend given to each educator.
“There was an amazing response from teachers in Bucks County,” said JoAnn Perotti, the IU’s strategic planning and communications director.
The program helps teachers gain some hands-on experience in the fields and subjects they teach, said Perotti. For instance, a Pennsbury social studies teacher interned at the David Library of the American Revolution and a Bucks County Technical High School cosmetology teacher worked at a local hair salon.
Ultimately, the program is designed to better prepare students to enter the workforce since their teachers can return to the classrooms with ideas to incorporate into their lessons.
“It gives them a better idea of what the business world is looking for,” Perotti said.
It also gives the teachers better connections with the fields they teach.
Lori Salley, the cosmetology teacher who interned at Wiggle Worms Children’s Hair Salon in Northeast Philadelphia, recently had the salon owner speak to her class. Sharon Vetter, who interned at the David Library, had her class do research at the Upper Makefield foundation.
“I can see it expanding and expanding,” Perotti said of the program. “It gives teachers the opportunity to see the real world outside and how it relates to the classroom.”
The program is only limited by the money it takes to pay the teachers. During a meeting of the workforce investment board, Perotti said the teachers seem more eager to receive their Act 48 credits than the $500 stipend. Pennsylvania’s Act 48 mandates that public school teachers obtain a certain number of continuing education credits per year.
Work board member Clark Shuster, CEO of the Lower Bucks County Chamber of Commerce, suggested eliminating the stipend if the teachers care more about the Act 48 credits than the $500. That, he said, would open up the program to more teachers. The board and IU will continue to study that possibility, officials said.
Workforce investment board executive director Liz Walsh said she’d like to see the program begin to target industries that are growing in Bucks County — particularly biosciences and alternative energy.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Are Trailers a Good Idea?
So are trailers a good idea for educational use during this emergency situation?
Perhaps.
Let's look at M. R. Reiter itself, where two trailers have been in use for about seven years now. In the picture below, those are the two white rectangles on the Hillcrest Avenue side of the school.
I'm sure one of our very knowledgeable readers has the details, but they were purchased as emergency housing several years ago. They were purchased at a deep, deep discount because they had already reached the end of their expected useful life.
They stand there still, today. Once the new school was built, they would no longer be needed, but, things change...
Here's a shot of Grandview as it stands today.
There's a lot of playground area that can be used, isn't there?
As an artist's rendition, let's add the eight trailers that would be needed. These "temporary classroom units", or whatever the politically correct euphemism is, are double wides, so for comparison purposes, I've taken a standard blue trailer and a standard white trailer at the same scale to indicate "one" classroom unit, and presto! Grandview with eight trailers.
Pretty, isn't it?
There are plenty of ways to configure the actual placement of the trailers, but consider this: The "where" of placement is less important than the "how long." We can all agree this is an emergency situation requiring flexibility on all sides. If this was really going to be temporary until a permanent solution was available, all would probably be well.
These trailers should not be installed without a long-term viable community-accepted plan in place.
Accepting trailers without assessing the longer term implications does not place the town's future, or the welfare of the students, as a high priority core concern.
Perhaps.
Let's look at M. R. Reiter itself, where two trailers have been in use for about seven years now. In the picture below, those are the two white rectangles on the Hillcrest Avenue side of the school.
I'm sure one of our very knowledgeable readers has the details, but they were purchased as emergency housing several years ago. They were purchased at a deep, deep discount because they had already reached the end of their expected useful life.
They stand there still, today. Once the new school was built, they would no longer be needed, but, things change...
Here's a shot of Grandview as it stands today.
There's a lot of playground area that can be used, isn't there?
As an artist's rendition, let's add the eight trailers that would be needed. These "temporary classroom units", or whatever the politically correct euphemism is, are double wides, so for comparison purposes, I've taken a standard blue trailer and a standard white trailer at the same scale to indicate "one" classroom unit, and presto! Grandview with eight trailers.
Pretty, isn't it?
There are plenty of ways to configure the actual placement of the trailers, but consider this: The "where" of placement is less important than the "how long." We can all agree this is an emergency situation requiring flexibility on all sides. If this was really going to be temporary until a permanent solution was available, all would probably be well.
These trailers should not be installed without a long-term viable community-accepted plan in place.
Accepting trailers without assessing the longer term implications does not place the town's future, or the welfare of the students, as a high priority core concern.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Reiter Not Opening Jan 5. Modulars for Grandview
Here's an email from an elementary parent.
M.R. Reiter parents received a phone blast December 23 announcing that students are to attend school at their present assigned locations, either Grandview or the High School, when they return from vacation on January 5th. An emergency board meeting has been called for the evening of January 5th. We've heard that the board will be deciding whether or not to purchase modular classrooms to be placed on the Grandview grounds.
Board of Ed, Monday, January 5, 2009
Special Board Meeting
NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING TO BE HELD AT 7:00 P.M. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2009 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of School Directors of The Borough of Morrisville School District, Bucks County, Pennsylvania will hold a Special Meeting of the Board at the Large Group Instruction Room of the Middle-Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Avenue, Morrisville, Pennsylvania 19067 at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, January 5, 2009 to consider and act upon matters relating to emergency purchasing and programming arising from the M.R. Reiter Elementary School facility and such other lawful matters as may come before the board.
Site: HS LGI
Time: 7:00PM
M.R. Reiter parents received a phone blast December 23 announcing that students are to attend school at their present assigned locations, either Grandview or the High School, when they return from vacation on January 5th. An emergency board meeting has been called for the evening of January 5th. We've heard that the board will be deciding whether or not to purchase modular classrooms to be placed on the Grandview grounds.
Board of Ed, Monday, January 5, 2009
Special Board Meeting
NOTICE OF SPECIAL MEETING TO BE HELD AT 7:00 P.M. MONDAY, JANUARY 5, 2009 NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the Board of School Directors of The Borough of Morrisville School District, Bucks County, Pennsylvania will hold a Special Meeting of the Board at the Large Group Instruction Room of the Middle-Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Avenue, Morrisville, Pennsylvania 19067 at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, January 5, 2009 to consider and act upon matters relating to emergency purchasing and programming arising from the M.R. Reiter Elementary School facility and such other lawful matters as may come before the board.
Site: HS LGI
Time: 7:00PM
Congratulations to Dr. Yonson
Congratulations to our own Dr. Elizabeth Hammond Yonson upon her appointment by Gov. Rendell to the Pennsylvania Early Learning Council.
Bucks County, Montgomery County residents appointed
Posted in Community, News on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm by Intelligencer editor Steve Smith
Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell today announced the appointments of two area residents to the Pennsylvania Early Learning Council: Elizabeth Hammond Yonson, Ed.D., of Warrington, and Pamela Schuessler of Glenside.
Bucks County, Montgomery County residents appointed
Posted in Community, News on Thursday, November 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pm by Intelligencer editor Steve Smith
Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell today announced the appointments of two area residents to the Pennsylvania Early Learning Council: Elizabeth Hammond Yonson, Ed.D., of Warrington, and Pamela Schuessler of Glenside.
Reiter Closure Hearing Scheduled
The Emperor's plan for closing M. R. Reiter is now coming to fruition. It says the public is invited to attend and participate.
Let's keep in mind what "participation" is, defined as by the Emperor President and the board of chosen accomplices:
* Keep quiet. Just cooperate. We need a short meeting. Don't you understand?
* If you must talk, you have three minutes. We'll do some paperwork shuffling while you talk, maybe even do some Sudoku puzzles. Our minds are already made up and we're only doing this because state law says we have to give the appearance of public input.
* Don't bring up the past. We ignored you then and we can do it again.
* Don't bring up the present. We know what's right.
* Don't bring up the future. That's someone else's problem. You were foolish enough to elect us, right?
* Don't bring up facts. They just confuse the issue. We know what's right for taxpayers.
* Students? Why do we care about them? They don't pay taxes.
Any rules I missed?
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING OF BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF MORRISVILLE BOROUGH TO CONSIDER PERMANENT CLOSURE OF M.R. REITER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Pursuant to Article VII, Section 780 of the Pennsylvania Public School Code of 1949, as amended, notice is herewith given that the Board of Directors of the School District of Morrisville Borough will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, January 14, 2008 at 7:00 pm in the Auditorium of the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Avenue, Morrisville, PA 19067 upon the question of whether or not to permanently close the M.R. Reiter Elementary School located at 150 Clymer Avenue, Morrisville Borough, Bucks County, PA 19067 at the end of the school year 2008-09 or at the end of some subsequent school year.
The public is invited to attend and participate in the hearing.
Marlys Mihok, Secretary
Board of School Directors of
School District of
Morrisville Borough
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Wednesday, 12/24/2008
Let's keep in mind what "participation" is, defined as by the Emperor President and the board of chosen accomplices:
* Keep quiet. Just cooperate. We need a short meeting. Don't you understand?
* If you must talk, you have three minutes. We'll do some paperwork shuffling while you talk, maybe even do some Sudoku puzzles. Our minds are already made up and we're only doing this because state law says we have to give the appearance of public input.
* Don't bring up the past. We ignored you then and we can do it again.
* Don't bring up the present. We know what's right.
* Don't bring up the future. That's someone else's problem. You were foolish enough to elect us, right?
* Don't bring up facts. They just confuse the issue. We know what's right for taxpayers.
* Students? Why do we care about them? They don't pay taxes.
Any rules I missed?
NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING OF BOARD OF SCHOOL DIRECTORS OF THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF MORRISVILLE BOROUGH TO CONSIDER PERMANENT CLOSURE OF M.R. REITER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
Pursuant to Article VII, Section 780 of the Pennsylvania Public School Code of 1949, as amended, notice is herewith given that the Board of Directors of the School District of Morrisville Borough will hold a public hearing on Wednesday, January 14, 2008 at 7:00 pm in the Auditorium of the Morrisville Middle/Senior High School, 550 West Palmer Avenue, Morrisville, PA 19067 upon the question of whether or not to permanently close the M.R. Reiter Elementary School located at 150 Clymer Avenue, Morrisville Borough, Bucks County, PA 19067 at the end of the school year 2008-09 or at the end of some subsequent school year.
The public is invited to attend and participate in the hearing.
Marlys Mihok, Secretary
Board of School Directors of
School District of
Morrisville Borough
Appeared in: Bucks County Courier Times on Wednesday, 12/24/2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas
There's going to be a brief pause in posting and comment approvals as Christmas approaches. We'll see about catching up on things starting again on the 26th.
Thank you to everyone for your emails and good wishes for the holiday.
Whatever your background or heritage, please accept our best wishes for a blessed holiday.
Refurbish or Replace: 90 Year Old School
From the Inquirer. They're trying to decide about refurbishing or rebuilding.
Plans to refurbish Camden High School reconsidered
By Jonathan Tamari and Matt Katz Posted on Mon, Dec. 22, 2008
New Jersey officials are reconsidering how to use $110 million budgeted for refurbishing Camden High School.
Earlier this month, the Schools Development Authority, the state agency charged with building schools in urban areas, delayed plans to spend an initial $21 million to repair the high school's facade, which in recent years has crumbled so badly it has been held up by scaffolding.
Authority officials say they are committed to investing in the 90-year-old school, but they have raised questions about how best to mesh efficient construction with preserving the building.
School officials and longtime Camden residents have opposed the idea of demolishing the building, known as the "castle on the hill" because its spires reach into the sky above the main entrance.
Yet building a new school could prove cheaper than refurbishing the old one.
"If you asked me on a personal level if I'd like to see the facade renovated and the rest of the building modernized, I would love that," said Jose Delgado, school board member. "But that may not be the option I have because the money is finite and it's somebody else's money."
Despite its academically troubled and chronically violent reputation, the 1,500-student school has a strong network of supporters and alumni.
"The community and the board want Camden High's castle on the hill to remain the castle on the hill, at least the facade," said Bart Leff, a spokesman for the district.
But the decision might not rest with the community. Authority and school officials expect to meet in January to decide how best to use the state money set aside for the school.
"Ultimately, our fiduciary obligation is to build schools which are safe, efficient and affordable," authority chairman Kris Kolluri said. "We intend to do just that within the context of balancing the community needs with the needs of the students."
Kolluri, who took over the authority at the start of December, hopes to spend a new infusion of cash wisely after an initial school-building program was mired in waste.
The agency, formerly the Schools Construction Corp., was roundly criticized for lax management as it spent $6 billion for schools in 31 mostly poor, urban districts.
Gov. Corzine recently approved $2.9 billion more in borrowing for those areas. State officials have made a point that they expect less-lavish plans this time.
"Our goal is to spend that money wisely and provide a 21st-century school," Kolluri said.
Plans to refurbish Camden High School reconsidered
By Jonathan Tamari and Matt Katz Posted on Mon, Dec. 22, 2008
New Jersey officials are reconsidering how to use $110 million budgeted for refurbishing Camden High School.
Earlier this month, the Schools Development Authority, the state agency charged with building schools in urban areas, delayed plans to spend an initial $21 million to repair the high school's facade, which in recent years has crumbled so badly it has been held up by scaffolding.
Authority officials say they are committed to investing in the 90-year-old school, but they have raised questions about how best to mesh efficient construction with preserving the building.
School officials and longtime Camden residents have opposed the idea of demolishing the building, known as the "castle on the hill" because its spires reach into the sky above the main entrance.
Yet building a new school could prove cheaper than refurbishing the old one.
"If you asked me on a personal level if I'd like to see the facade renovated and the rest of the building modernized, I would love that," said Jose Delgado, school board member. "But that may not be the option I have because the money is finite and it's somebody else's money."
Despite its academically troubled and chronically violent reputation, the 1,500-student school has a strong network of supporters and alumni.
"The community and the board want Camden High's castle on the hill to remain the castle on the hill, at least the facade," said Bart Leff, a spokesman for the district.
But the decision might not rest with the community. Authority and school officials expect to meet in January to decide how best to use the state money set aside for the school.
"Ultimately, our fiduciary obligation is to build schools which are safe, efficient and affordable," authority chairman Kris Kolluri said. "We intend to do just that within the context of balancing the community needs with the needs of the students."
Kolluri, who took over the authority at the start of December, hopes to spend a new infusion of cash wisely after an initial school-building program was mired in waste.
The agency, formerly the Schools Construction Corp., was roundly criticized for lax management as it spent $6 billion for schools in 31 mostly poor, urban districts.
Gov. Corzine recently approved $2.9 billion more in borrowing for those areas. State officials have made a point that they expect less-lavish plans this time.
"Our goal is to spend that money wisely and provide a 21st-century school," Kolluri said.
Right to Know Exceptions
From the BCCT
Pa. Right-to-Know law contains 30 exceptions
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know Law contains exceptions for 30 categories of records. Most do not apply to financial records or aggregated data, such as spreadsheets and databases. A summary of the exceptions:
1. LOSS OF FUNDS/PERSONAL SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would result in the loss of federal or state funds. Also, records whose release would be reasonably likely to result in substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to a person or to his or her personal security.
2. PUBLIC SAFETY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to jeopardize homeland security or public safety or preparedness.
3. INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to endanger the safety or security of a building, public utility, infrastructure or information storage system.
4. COMPUTER SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to jeopardize computer security.
5. HEALTH RECORDS: Medical, psychological and related records that contain individually identifiable health information.
6. PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION: Records containing all or part of a person's Social Security number; driver's license number, personal financial information; home, cellular or personal telephone numbers; personal e-mail addresses; employee numbers or other confidential personal identification numbers; a spouse's name, marital status, beneficiary or dependent information. Also, records containing home addresses of law-enforcement officers and judges.
7. PERSONNEL RECORDS: Letters of reference or recommendation, unless they involve an appointment to fill a vacancy in an elected office or an appointed office that requires confirmation by the state Senate.
Also, performance ratings or reviews; academic transcripts; state civil-service test results and certain local test results; applications of job applicants who are not hired; workplace support services information; written criticism about a public employee; grievance material; information about discipline, demotion or discharge contained in a personnel file, unless it involves final action by an agency that results in demotion or discharge.
8. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: Records related to collective-bargaining strategy or negotiations, and exhibits and transcripts in arbitration cases involving collective-bargaining disputes or grievances. Final contracts and arbitration awards are public.
9. DRAFTS: Drafts of bills, resolutions, regulations, policies, management directives and ordinances.
10. DELIBERATIONS: Records reflecting internal, predecisional deliberations of agencies, such as a budget recommendation, a legislative proposal or the strategy for winning approval of such proposals.
(Records requesting state funding or grants or the results of public-opinion polls are public. Also public are documents that are presented to a quorum of a public board for deliberation , such as the packets board members routinely receive , so long as they are not otherwise exempt under the law.)
11. TRADE SECRETS: Records that reveal trade secrets or other confidential proprietary information.
12. WORKING PAPERS: Notes and working papers used by a public official or employee strictly for personal use, such as message or routing slips.
13. DONATIONS: Records revealing the identity of a person who makes a donation to an agency, unless the donation is intended to provide remuneration or other tangible benefit to a public official or employee.
14. UNPUBLISHED ACADEMIC PAPERS: Unpublished lecture notes, manuscripts, articles, creative works, research material and scholarly correspondence related to a community college or state-owned university.
15. ACADEMIC TRANSCRIPTS: Academic transcripts; examinations; examination questions and answers; and examination scoring keys used by schools and licensing agencies.
16. CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS: Records related to or resulting in a criminal investigation. (Police blotters, private criminal complaints and traffic reports are public.)
17. NON-CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS: Records related to non-criminal investigations, including complaints submitted to agencies, work papers underlying an audit and records that reveal the identities of confidential sources. (Records of civil fines or penalties, settlement agreements, license revocations or similar decisional documents are public.)
18. 911 CALLS: Recordings and transcripts of 911 calls, although an agency or court may release these if deemed to be in the public's interest. Time-response logs are public.
19. DNA & RNA: Records containing DNA & RNA information.
20. AUTOPSIES: Contents of autopsy report, except for the victim's name, cause of death and manner of death.
21. MINUTES: Draft minutes of any public meeting until the next scheduled meeting of the agency. Any records of private, executive-session discussions.
22. APPRAISALS & REVIEWS: Records involving real-estate appraisals, engineering estimates, environmental reviews, audits and other evaluations involving a potential agency lease, acquisition or disposal of real property. Exception ends when a final decision is made.
23. LIBRARY & ARCHIVE USERS: The circulation and order records of an identifiable individual or group.
24. LIBRARY & MUSEUM DONORS: Rare books, documents and other materials contributed by gifts, grants or bequests to the extent imposed as a condition by the donor.
25. ENDANGERED SITES & SPECIES: Records identifying the location of an archaeological site or endangered plant or animal species not already known to the public.
26. CONTRACT BIDS: Proposals for the procurement or disposal of supplies, services or construction before the award of a contract or the opening and rejection of all bids. Also, certain financial information about the bidders.
27. INSURANCE: Records of communication between an agency and its insurance carrier, administration service organization or risk-management office. (Contracts between agencies and these entities are public.)
28. SOCIAL SERVICES: Records identifying people who apply for or receive social services, or disclosing the services they receive and other personal information.
29. CONSTITUENTS: Correspondence between state legislators and their constituents, and accompanying records that identify constituents who request assistance or other services. (Correspondence between lawmakers and lobbyists is public.)
30. MINORS: Records containing the name, home address or date of birth of child who is 17 or younger.
Pa. Right-to-Know law contains 30 exceptions
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know Law contains exceptions for 30 categories of records. Most do not apply to financial records or aggregated data, such as spreadsheets and databases. A summary of the exceptions:
1. LOSS OF FUNDS/PERSONAL SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would result in the loss of federal or state funds. Also, records whose release would be reasonably likely to result in substantial and demonstrable risk of physical harm to a person or to his or her personal security.
2. PUBLIC SAFETY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to jeopardize homeland security or public safety or preparedness.
3. INFRASTRUCTURE SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to endanger the safety or security of a building, public utility, infrastructure or information storage system.
4. COMPUTER SECURITY: Records that, if disclosed, would be reasonably likely to jeopardize computer security.
5. HEALTH RECORDS: Medical, psychological and related records that contain individually identifiable health information.
6. PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION: Records containing all or part of a person's Social Security number; driver's license number, personal financial information; home, cellular or personal telephone numbers; personal e-mail addresses; employee numbers or other confidential personal identification numbers; a spouse's name, marital status, beneficiary or dependent information. Also, records containing home addresses of law-enforcement officers and judges.
7. PERSONNEL RECORDS: Letters of reference or recommendation, unless they involve an appointment to fill a vacancy in an elected office or an appointed office that requires confirmation by the state Senate.
Also, performance ratings or reviews; academic transcripts; state civil-service test results and certain local test results; applications of job applicants who are not hired; workplace support services information; written criticism about a public employee; grievance material; information about discipline, demotion or discharge contained in a personnel file, unless it involves final action by an agency that results in demotion or discharge.
8. COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: Records related to collective-bargaining strategy or negotiations, and exhibits and transcripts in arbitration cases involving collective-bargaining disputes or grievances. Final contracts and arbitration awards are public.
9. DRAFTS: Drafts of bills, resolutions, regulations, policies, management directives and ordinances.
10. DELIBERATIONS: Records reflecting internal, predecisional deliberations of agencies, such as a budget recommendation, a legislative proposal or the strategy for winning approval of such proposals.
(Records requesting state funding or grants or the results of public-opinion polls are public. Also public are documents that are presented to a quorum of a public board for deliberation , such as the packets board members routinely receive , so long as they are not otherwise exempt under the law.)
11. TRADE SECRETS: Records that reveal trade secrets or other confidential proprietary information.
12. WORKING PAPERS: Notes and working papers used by a public official or employee strictly for personal use, such as message or routing slips.
13. DONATIONS: Records revealing the identity of a person who makes a donation to an agency, unless the donation is intended to provide remuneration or other tangible benefit to a public official or employee.
14. UNPUBLISHED ACADEMIC PAPERS: Unpublished lecture notes, manuscripts, articles, creative works, research material and scholarly correspondence related to a community college or state-owned university.
15. ACADEMIC TRANSCRIPTS: Academic transcripts; examinations; examination questions and answers; and examination scoring keys used by schools and licensing agencies.
16. CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS: Records related to or resulting in a criminal investigation. (Police blotters, private criminal complaints and traffic reports are public.)
17. NON-CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS: Records related to non-criminal investigations, including complaints submitted to agencies, work papers underlying an audit and records that reveal the identities of confidential sources. (Records of civil fines or penalties, settlement agreements, license revocations or similar decisional documents are public.)
18. 911 CALLS: Recordings and transcripts of 911 calls, although an agency or court may release these if deemed to be in the public's interest. Time-response logs are public.
19. DNA & RNA: Records containing DNA & RNA information.
20. AUTOPSIES: Contents of autopsy report, except for the victim's name, cause of death and manner of death.
21. MINUTES: Draft minutes of any public meeting until the next scheduled meeting of the agency. Any records of private, executive-session discussions.
22. APPRAISALS & REVIEWS: Records involving real-estate appraisals, engineering estimates, environmental reviews, audits and other evaluations involving a potential agency lease, acquisition or disposal of real property. Exception ends when a final decision is made.
23. LIBRARY & ARCHIVE USERS: The circulation and order records of an identifiable individual or group.
24. LIBRARY & MUSEUM DONORS: Rare books, documents and other materials contributed by gifts, grants or bequests to the extent imposed as a condition by the donor.
25. ENDANGERED SITES & SPECIES: Records identifying the location of an archaeological site or endangered plant or animal species not already known to the public.
26. CONTRACT BIDS: Proposals for the procurement or disposal of supplies, services or construction before the award of a contract or the opening and rejection of all bids. Also, certain financial information about the bidders.
27. INSURANCE: Records of communication between an agency and its insurance carrier, administration service organization or risk-management office. (Contracts between agencies and these entities are public.)
28. SOCIAL SERVICES: Records identifying people who apply for or receive social services, or disclosing the services they receive and other personal information.
29. CONSTITUENTS: Correspondence between state legislators and their constituents, and accompanying records that identify constituents who request assistance or other services. (Correspondence between lawmakers and lobbyists is public.)
30. MINORS: Records containing the name, home address or date of birth of child who is 17 or younger.
Right to Know Q and A
From the BCCT
How to file a Right-to-Know request under Pa. law
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Common questions and answers about how to file a request under Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know Law:
Q: How do I request a record from a local, county or state agency?
A: You may make the request in person, by mail, fax or e-mail. You may make the request verbally, but to preserve your right to appeal a negative decision, you must put it in writing.
A standard request form can be downloaded from the state Office of Open Records Web site , http://openrecords.state.pa.us , and printed. Local agencies may use their own forms, but also must accept this one.
Your request must be specific enough for the agency to understand what record you want. Officials may need to ask you questions to fulfill your request, but the law bars them from requiring you to explain why you want the record.
Q: How soon can I expect a response?
A: Agencies are required to respond promptly within five business days. They may grant or deny your request in that time, or under certain circumstances , if a request is extensive, for example, or a record contains nonpublic information that must be blacked out, or redacted , may advise you that it will take as much as 30 additional days to produce the records.
Q: How far back in time may I go in requesting records?
A: All records in the possession of an agency are covered by the law, no matter how old they are.
Q: Will I have to pay anything for these records?
A: Under a fee schedule established by the state Office of Open Records, agencies may charge as much as 25 cents per page for photocopying. The fee schedule bars additional charges for the cost of retrieving or redacting records, although they may charge you the actual cost of reproducing blueprints and certain other specialized documents.
Q: Can agencies require me to pay in advance?
A: Only if the total bill is expected to exceed $100.
Q: What if my request is turned down or ignored?
If the agency fails to respond in five business days, your request is deemed denied. In that event, or if the agency denies the request within the period, you have 15 business days to file an appeal to the Office of Open Records.
Judicial agencies, ranging from district judges to the state Supreme Court; legislative agencies; the statewide row offices (attorney general, auditor general and treasurer) are allowed to designate their own appeals officers in place of the Office of Open Records. District attorneys may appoint officers to hear appeals related to criminal investigative records of local agencies.
Further appeals may be pursued in court by either side. Appeals involving state agency denials would be filed in Commonwealth Court, and appeals involving local agencies would be filed in county common-pleas court.
Q: What are the penalties for violating the Right-to-Know Law?
A: Public agencies found by a court to have denied access to records in bad faith face a civil fine of as much as $1,500. Agencies or officials that do not promptly comply with a court order can be fined as much as $500 a day until the records are provided.
How to file a Right-to-Know request under Pa. law
By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Common questions and answers about how to file a request under Pennsylvania's new Right-to-Know Law:
Q: How do I request a record from a local, county or state agency?
A: You may make the request in person, by mail, fax or e-mail. You may make the request verbally, but to preserve your right to appeal a negative decision, you must put it in writing.
A standard request form can be downloaded from the state Office of Open Records Web site , http://openrecords.state.pa.us , and printed. Local agencies may use their own forms, but also must accept this one.
Your request must be specific enough for the agency to understand what record you want. Officials may need to ask you questions to fulfill your request, but the law bars them from requiring you to explain why you want the record.
Q: How soon can I expect a response?
A: Agencies are required to respond promptly within five business days. They may grant or deny your request in that time, or under certain circumstances , if a request is extensive, for example, or a record contains nonpublic information that must be blacked out, or redacted , may advise you that it will take as much as 30 additional days to produce the records.
Q: How far back in time may I go in requesting records?
A: All records in the possession of an agency are covered by the law, no matter how old they are.
Q: Will I have to pay anything for these records?
A: Under a fee schedule established by the state Office of Open Records, agencies may charge as much as 25 cents per page for photocopying. The fee schedule bars additional charges for the cost of retrieving or redacting records, although they may charge you the actual cost of reproducing blueprints and certain other specialized documents.
Q: Can agencies require me to pay in advance?
A: Only if the total bill is expected to exceed $100.
Q: What if my request is turned down or ignored?
If the agency fails to respond in five business days, your request is deemed denied. In that event, or if the agency denies the request within the period, you have 15 business days to file an appeal to the Office of Open Records.
Judicial agencies, ranging from district judges to the state Supreme Court; legislative agencies; the statewide row offices (attorney general, auditor general and treasurer) are allowed to designate their own appeals officers in place of the Office of Open Records. District attorneys may appoint officers to hear appeals related to criminal investigative records of local agencies.
Further appeals may be pursued in court by either side. Appeals involving state agency denials would be filed in Commonwealth Court, and appeals involving local agencies would be filed in county common-pleas court.
Q: What are the penalties for violating the Right-to-Know Law?
A: Public agencies found by a court to have denied access to records in bad faith face a civil fine of as much as $1,500. Agencies or officials that do not promptly comply with a court order can be fined as much as $500 a day until the records are provided.
Bristol's $34M School Opening Soon
While Reiter is shuttered, and Grandview and the high school are serving temporary duty, lets think about "what if"...
$34M school expected to be completed by spring
Posted in News on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm by Joan Hellyer
The price tag for Bristol’s new pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school is pushing $34 million thanks to a 2007 soil remediation delay, change orders and contractor claims, officials said.
That’s almost $4 million more than originally estimated when construction got underway in late 2006, and about $800,000 more than the most previous estimate on the project. The school board plans to use bond money and about $1.7 million from the district’s capital reserve fund to cover all the expenses, said Joseph Roe, Bristol’s business manager.
The building, located at 450 Beaver Street adjacent to Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School, is designed to serve approximately 1,110 students, district officials said.
It was supposed to open in September, but various delays, including the removal of about 2,000 tons of urban fill last year, have forced officials to push its scheduled opening to Sept. 2009.
Construction on the expansive, two-story brick building with a red and gray color scheme is about 80 percent complete, said Angelo Rago, the district’s project representative, during a tour of the school last week.
The building’s roof, structural supports, and heating and cooling systems are in place. Crews are now working on the school’s interior. The project should be finished by the spring, Rago said.
The school includes about 70 classrooms spread across a couple different floors and wings to separate the different age groups of the students, he said. The early learning center is positioned on the west side of the building and includes a separate entrance for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students.
The first floor of the classroom wing on the building’s east side will be for first- through fifth-grade students and the wing’s second floor will be for middle school-aged students, said Rago and Snyder-Girotti Principal Rosemary Parmigiani during the tour. Special education classes will be spread throughout the building.
The school includes a cafeteria, gymnasium and auditorium, and not just one space for all three, as is the case at the old Snyder-Girotti.
“Now we’ll be able to have three events going on at the same time,” Parmigiani said. “It’s something we didn’t have before.”
The school also includes a family and consumer science room and a state-of-the-art media center and library.
Along the tour, Principal Parmigiani, Rago, and John D’Angelo, the school board’s vice president, repeatedly pointed out areas designated for storage. “That’s because we don’t have any room now,” Parmigiani said.
At this point in the project, district officials don’t foresee any major problems developing, D’Angelo said.
“But we remain vigilant, because we want to stay on top of the [project’s] expenses,” he said.
$34M school expected to be completed by spring
Posted in News on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 4:17 pm by Joan Hellyer
The price tag for Bristol’s new pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school is pushing $34 million thanks to a 2007 soil remediation delay, change orders and contractor claims, officials said.That’s almost $4 million more than originally estimated when construction got underway in late 2006, and about $800,000 more than the most previous estimate on the project. The school board plans to use bond money and about $1.7 million from the district’s capital reserve fund to cover all the expenses, said Joseph Roe, Bristol’s business manager.
The building, located at 450 Beaver Street adjacent to Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School, is designed to serve approximately 1,110 students, district officials said.
It was supposed to open in September, but various delays, including the removal of about 2,000 tons of urban fill last year, have forced officials to push its scheduled opening to Sept. 2009.
Construction on the expansive, two-story brick building with a red and gray color scheme is about 80 percent complete, said Angelo Rago, the district’s project representative, during a tour of the school last week.
The building’s roof, structural supports, and heating and cooling systems are in place. Crews are now working on the school’s interior. The project should be finished by the spring, Rago said.
The school includes about 70 classrooms spread across a couple different floors and wings to separate the different age groups of the students, he said. The early learning center is positioned on the west side of the building and includes a separate entrance for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students.
The first floor of the classroom wing on the building’s east side will be for first- through fifth-grade students and the wing’s second floor will be for middle school-aged students, said Rago and Snyder-Girotti Principal Rosemary Parmigiani during the tour. Special education classes will be spread throughout the building.
The school includes a cafeteria, gymnasium and auditorium, and not just one space for all three, as is the case at the old Snyder-Girotti.
“Now we’ll be able to have three events going on at the same time,” Parmigiani said. “It’s something we didn’t have before.”
The school also includes a family and consumer science room and a state-of-the-art media center and library.
Along the tour, Principal Parmigiani, Rago, and John D’Angelo, the school board’s vice president, repeatedly pointed out areas designated for storage. “That’s because we don’t have any room now,” Parmigiani said.
At this point in the project, district officials don’t foresee any major problems developing, D’Angelo said.
“But we remain vigilant, because we want to stay on top of the [project’s] expenses,” he said.
Right to Know, Part III
From the BCCT.
Private business under scrutiny
By MARK SCOLFORO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Part 3 of 5/Read Part 4 Friday
HARRISBURG — Private businesses that do business with state and local governments in Pennsylvania are about to find themselves having to make some records available to the public.
But there are signs that many of those contractors are unaware of the provision in the new Right-to-Know Law, and experts are debating just how it will apply — a dispute that may end up being resolved by the courts.
One such group consists of the hundreds of school bus contractors, who provide about 85 percent of student transportation for the state’s 501 school districts.
Pennsylvania School Bus Association Executive Director Selina Pittenger said she hasn’t fielded questions from members about the new law.
“They’re probably thinking, ‘We’ve already been under the microscope,’ ” Pittenger said.
Terry Mutchler, director of the state Office of Open Records, said there’s a “very solid legal question” as to whether, for example, the resume of a school bus contractor’s driver would be a public record.
“If you have a bus driver that’s fired for child molestation or whatever criminal act it is, I think that there is a very strong public policy argument that the public should be made aware,” Mutchler said. “The reality is, we’re going to see a lot of litigation over very astute questions just like that.”
Major state agencies and officials with Pennsylvania townships and boroughs also said the contractor issue has barely registered on their radar screens, although that may change once the new law takes effect next month.
For county governments, the most significant third-party contracts likely to be affected involve nursing homes, mental health services and similar functions, said Doug Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The trade group is advising county governments to review their existing contracts to see if they need to be revised in light of the additional reporting duties the new law requires, Hill said.
A lawyer for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association who has researched the issue argues there may be very few — if any — documents that fit the new law.
It lets anyone obtain contractor records directly related to a governmental function the contractor has performed for a state or local agency. The records would be obtained through the agency, not directly from the contractor.
PSBA lawyer Emily Leader said the problem is that the law doesn’t define “government function.” She believes, for example, that a paving company filling potholes on a township road or a bus company driving students to school wouldn’t necessarily fit the bill.
Governments are restricted by the state Constitution in what powers they can delegate, Leader said.
The state Supreme Court, in a 2003 decision, grappled with the relationship between a governmental body and an outside vendor. In that case, the justices ordered that the records be made public.
Even though the Westmoreland County Housing Authority allowed its insurer to completely handle the legal defense and negotiate terms of a confidential settlement in a federal gender discrimination lawsuit, it lost the case and had to give the Tribune-Review Publishing Co. a copy of a settlement agreement.
Clouding the issue is a 1997 state Supreme Court decision that said Millersville and West Chester universities, while state agencies subject to the Right-to-Know Law, didn’t have to provide a textbook seller with a list of course material. The state’s high court reasoned that the universities had no part in ordering or selling textbooks and did not solicit, compile or retain information on course materials.
Leader believes it’s significant that the new law refers to governmental functions rather than simply contracts. She considers it unbroken legal ground that the courts might have to plow.
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association lawyer Teri Henning, on the other hand, believes the intent of the law is straightforward.
Determining what qualifies, she said, involves looking at what role the contractor is playing, how it relates to the operations of government and whether it has previously been performed by governments.
“A lot of government functions are being outsourced by government agencies,” Henning said. “They are certainly entitled to do that if it makes more sense from an economic or efficiency standpoint. But it should not mean these records should be shielded from public view.”
Private business under scrutiny
By MARK SCOLFORO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Part 3 of 5/Read Part 4 Friday
HARRISBURG — Private businesses that do business with state and local governments in Pennsylvania are about to find themselves having to make some records available to the public.
But there are signs that many of those contractors are unaware of the provision in the new Right-to-Know Law, and experts are debating just how it will apply — a dispute that may end up being resolved by the courts.
One such group consists of the hundreds of school bus contractors, who provide about 85 percent of student transportation for the state’s 501 school districts.
Pennsylvania School Bus Association Executive Director Selina Pittenger said she hasn’t fielded questions from members about the new law.
“They’re probably thinking, ‘We’ve already been under the microscope,’ ” Pittenger said.
Terry Mutchler, director of the state Office of Open Records, said there’s a “very solid legal question” as to whether, for example, the resume of a school bus contractor’s driver would be a public record.
“If you have a bus driver that’s fired for child molestation or whatever criminal act it is, I think that there is a very strong public policy argument that the public should be made aware,” Mutchler said. “The reality is, we’re going to see a lot of litigation over very astute questions just like that.”
Major state agencies and officials with Pennsylvania townships and boroughs also said the contractor issue has barely registered on their radar screens, although that may change once the new law takes effect next month.
For county governments, the most significant third-party contracts likely to be affected involve nursing homes, mental health services and similar functions, said Doug Hill, executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.
The trade group is advising county governments to review their existing contracts to see if they need to be revised in light of the additional reporting duties the new law requires, Hill said.
A lawyer for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association who has researched the issue argues there may be very few — if any — documents that fit the new law.
It lets anyone obtain contractor records directly related to a governmental function the contractor has performed for a state or local agency. The records would be obtained through the agency, not directly from the contractor.
PSBA lawyer Emily Leader said the problem is that the law doesn’t define “government function.” She believes, for example, that a paving company filling potholes on a township road or a bus company driving students to school wouldn’t necessarily fit the bill.
Governments are restricted by the state Constitution in what powers they can delegate, Leader said.
The state Supreme Court, in a 2003 decision, grappled with the relationship between a governmental body and an outside vendor. In that case, the justices ordered that the records be made public.
Even though the Westmoreland County Housing Authority allowed its insurer to completely handle the legal defense and negotiate terms of a confidential settlement in a federal gender discrimination lawsuit, it lost the case and had to give the Tribune-Review Publishing Co. a copy of a settlement agreement.
Clouding the issue is a 1997 state Supreme Court decision that said Millersville and West Chester universities, while state agencies subject to the Right-to-Know Law, didn’t have to provide a textbook seller with a list of course material. The state’s high court reasoned that the universities had no part in ordering or selling textbooks and did not solicit, compile or retain information on course materials.
Leader believes it’s significant that the new law refers to governmental functions rather than simply contracts. She considers it unbroken legal ground that the courts might have to plow.
Pennsylvania Newspaper Association lawyer Teri Henning, on the other hand, believes the intent of the law is straightforward.
Determining what qualifies, she said, involves looking at what role the contractor is playing, how it relates to the operations of government and whether it has previously been performed by governments.
“A lot of government functions are being outsourced by government agencies,” Henning said. “They are certainly entitled to do that if it makes more sense from an economic or efficiency standpoint. But it should not mean these records should be shielded from public view.”
Souderton Update
From the BCCT.
Battle fought over teacher pay
By RICH PIETRAS
Staff Writer
Practically everyone living in the Souderton Area School District got an unexpected — and unwanted — course in “Contract Negotiations 101” when teachers went on strike at the beginning of the school year.
Teachers returned to classes Sept. 19, but there is still no contract and teachers could strike again come spring.
At the crux of the debate has been salary and benefits — the school district has offered a three-year contract with pay raises averaging 2.5 percent, while the union wants a four-year pact with raises averaging 8.2 percent.
And if the request from the union didn’t raise eyebrows in September, it most certainly has during the economy’s scary slide. Jeffery Sultanik, the school board’s solicitor and chief negotiator, said the entire process has been disappointing.
“Obviously whenever there is a cessation in public services, the taxpayers who pay for the services, the school district, and especially the students suffer. Clearly the district is not pleased over this situation,’’ he said. “But we also remained baffled as to why the teachers have refused to move one inch on their salary demands, particularly in what has been characterized as the worst economic environment since the Great Depression. You don’t get a lot of people getting 8.2 percent increases.”
The teachers union points out that Souderton teachers’ starting salaries are the lowest in Montgomery County. The school board has argued it does not have the commercial tax base other areas enjoy, thus making comparing salaries difficult. Bill Lukridge, president of the union, said that while it has always considered the state of the economy, there are other factors to consider.
“The real issue is the amount of teachers we are losing … 20 teachers have left the district since the beginning of June for better pay. We know the economy isn’t the best, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay teachers fairly,” Lukridge said.
Lukridge also pointed to the new Souder Hill Towne Center proposed for what is now Souderton Area High School.
According to Lukridge, an economic survey of the area was completed for the nearly $66 million project and showed that residents who live within a mile of it have an average household income of $70,000. The average Souderton teacher salary is $61,600, which is $3,000 lower than the average teacher in Montgomery County.
“A 2.5 percent average increase will only keep them at the bottom for years to come and prevent us from keeping, as well as attracting, good teachers,” Lukridge said.
One of the few areas both sides have agreed upon is the low ranking of Souderton teachers’ starting salaries. At just over $37,000, they rank the lowest in the county. The school board has offered to increase them to just over $40,000.
Currently, both sides’ proposals are being reviewed by an arbitration panel, which has been reviewing data including public comments, since October. After a decision is rendered by the panel, both sides take it to a vote. But if either sides reject’s the final recommendation, the teachers could go back on strike in the spring for about a week.
“We’re hoping something happens soon after the holiday,” Lukridge said. “My goodness, we have been waiting since September.”
Battle fought over teacher pay
By RICH PIETRAS
Staff Writer
Practically everyone living in the Souderton Area School District got an unexpected — and unwanted — course in “Contract Negotiations 101” when teachers went on strike at the beginning of the school year.
Teachers returned to classes Sept. 19, but there is still no contract and teachers could strike again come spring.
At the crux of the debate has been salary and benefits — the school district has offered a three-year contract with pay raises averaging 2.5 percent, while the union wants a four-year pact with raises averaging 8.2 percent.
And if the request from the union didn’t raise eyebrows in September, it most certainly has during the economy’s scary slide. Jeffery Sultanik, the school board’s solicitor and chief negotiator, said the entire process has been disappointing.
“Obviously whenever there is a cessation in public services, the taxpayers who pay for the services, the school district, and especially the students suffer. Clearly the district is not pleased over this situation,’’ he said. “But we also remained baffled as to why the teachers have refused to move one inch on their salary demands, particularly in what has been characterized as the worst economic environment since the Great Depression. You don’t get a lot of people getting 8.2 percent increases.”
The teachers union points out that Souderton teachers’ starting salaries are the lowest in Montgomery County. The school board has argued it does not have the commercial tax base other areas enjoy, thus making comparing salaries difficult. Bill Lukridge, president of the union, said that while it has always considered the state of the economy, there are other factors to consider.
“The real issue is the amount of teachers we are losing … 20 teachers have left the district since the beginning of June for better pay. We know the economy isn’t the best, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay teachers fairly,” Lukridge said.
Lukridge also pointed to the new Souder Hill Towne Center proposed for what is now Souderton Area High School.
According to Lukridge, an economic survey of the area was completed for the nearly $66 million project and showed that residents who live within a mile of it have an average household income of $70,000. The average Souderton teacher salary is $61,600, which is $3,000 lower than the average teacher in Montgomery County.
“A 2.5 percent average increase will only keep them at the bottom for years to come and prevent us from keeping, as well as attracting, good teachers,” Lukridge said.
One of the few areas both sides have agreed upon is the low ranking of Souderton teachers’ starting salaries. At just over $37,000, they rank the lowest in the county. The school board has offered to increase them to just over $40,000.
Currently, both sides’ proposals are being reviewed by an arbitration panel, which has been reviewing data including public comments, since October. After a decision is rendered by the panel, both sides take it to a vote. But if either sides reject’s the final recommendation, the teachers could go back on strike in the spring for about a week.
“We’re hoping something happens soon after the holiday,” Lukridge said. “My goodness, we have been waiting since September.”
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Right to Know, Part II
Part 2 of the BCCT Right to Know law series.
Director vows to err on side of openness
By PETER JACKSON
HARRISBURG — In high school, Terry Mutchler’s tenacity could be measured in broken field-hockey sticks, including the time she broke her wooden stick in the heat of a game and had to use one belonging to her coach.
“She broke that one,” too, recalled her mother, Star Mutchler. But she broke it scoring the winning goal for her team.
Mutchler will need all the toughness she can muster as she leads the implementation of Pennsylvania’s new Right-to-Know Law, which takes effect Jan. 1.
“She’s a go-getter and she speaks what she thinks is right,” Star Mutchler, 78, said of her 42-year-old daughter during a telephone interview from her Stroudsburg home. Already, Mutchler has dis- played a willingness to break ranks with her boss, Gov. Ed Rendell, on politically hot issues.
For example, she advocated the disclosure of confidential lists of legislators picked by party leaders to share hundreds of millions of dollars a year for pet projects in their districts. She also called for barring public agencies from charging extra for the labor involved in redacting nonpublic information from public records.
On both sides of the open records debate, Mutchler has impressed people with her energy, work ethic and grasp of the legal complexities that confront her fledgling Office of Open Records.
“She sees both what the agencies’ concerns and issues are [and] she knows what the reporters [want],” said Elam Herr, director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which speaks for 1,455 townships.
Craig Staudenmaier, a Harrisburg lawyer who specializes in media law, called Mutchler “fair-minded but steadfast, in that what’s public is public and what’s not is not.”
Passionate, intense and no nonsense, Mutchler has firm ideas about her new job. She tells people in government and in the news media that her office will evenly enforce the law but makes clear she will err on the side of openness and won’t tolerate attempts to end-run the new requirements.
“I genuinely believe that this government does not belong to the government. It belongs to citizens,” she said in an interview earlier this month. “And it irks me when a citizen comes to the very thing it owns and is denied access to it. There’s just something fundamentally wrong about that.
“Somewhere along the line, we have forgotten the servant in public servant,” she said.
A Monroe County native, Mutchler is the youngest of seven children. Her father, a retired Army sergeant who was a World War II veteran, died several years ago.
She harbored a childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. But after working as a reporter for her high school paper and then at The Daily Collegian at Penn State University, she wound up with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
She worked at The Morning Call in Allentown for a couple of years, then was hired by The Associated Press at its Capitol bureau in Harrisburg. She worked for the news cooperative for six years, including stints at bureaus in Atlantic City, Illinois and Alaska.
In Springfield, shortly after she took over the Illinois statehouse bureau in 1993, Mutchler’s professional and personal lives intersected in a way that changed her career path. Mutchler fell in love with a state senator, the late Penny Severns, the Democratic whip who would be nominated for lieutenant governor in 1994.
Increasingly troubled over the ethical conflict created by the relationship, Mutchler transferred to AP Alaska shortly before the election, which the Democrats lost. In 1995, she left the AP and returned to Springfield to work as Severns’ spokeswoman and speechwriter until she died of breast cancer in 1998.
Mutchler earned her law degree in 1999 at Chicago’s John Marshall Law School. She was a litigation attorney in Chicago when she was lured back to Springfield in 2003 for a job in the attorney general’s office helping settle open-records disputes.
Mutchler and her partner, Maria Papacostaki, a professor and poet, rent a home in Delaware County while Mutchler continues trying to sell her home in Springfield. She receives a $120,000 salary and a state-owned car.
Question
Q: What is the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records?
A: It is a new agency in the executive branch of state government, part of the Department of Community and Economic Development. The agency’s first director is Terry Mutchler, a reporter-turned-lawyer who previously worked in a similar position under the Illinois attorney general. The 10-person staff will include six lawyers besides Mutchler.
Generally speaking, the office will decide appeals by people whose Right-to-Know Law requests have been rejected by state executive agencies or by county and local agencies. It also will provide training for those agencies and issue advisory opinions interpreting the law.
Director vows to err on side of openness
By PETER JACKSON
HARRISBURG — In high school, Terry Mutchler’s tenacity could be measured in broken field-hockey sticks, including the time she broke her wooden stick in the heat of a game and had to use one belonging to her coach.
“She broke that one,” too, recalled her mother, Star Mutchler. But she broke it scoring the winning goal for her team.
Mutchler will need all the toughness she can muster as she leads the implementation of Pennsylvania’s new Right-to-Know Law, which takes effect Jan. 1.
“She’s a go-getter and she speaks what she thinks is right,” Star Mutchler, 78, said of her 42-year-old daughter during a telephone interview from her Stroudsburg home. Already, Mutchler has dis- played a willingness to break ranks with her boss, Gov. Ed Rendell, on politically hot issues.
For example, she advocated the disclosure of confidential lists of legislators picked by party leaders to share hundreds of millions of dollars a year for pet projects in their districts. She also called for barring public agencies from charging extra for the labor involved in redacting nonpublic information from public records.
On both sides of the open records debate, Mutchler has impressed people with her energy, work ethic and grasp of the legal complexities that confront her fledgling Office of Open Records.
“She sees both what the agencies’ concerns and issues are [and] she knows what the reporters [want],” said Elam Herr, director of the Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, which speaks for 1,455 townships.
Craig Staudenmaier, a Harrisburg lawyer who specializes in media law, called Mutchler “fair-minded but steadfast, in that what’s public is public and what’s not is not.”
Passionate, intense and no nonsense, Mutchler has firm ideas about her new job. She tells people in government and in the news media that her office will evenly enforce the law but makes clear she will err on the side of openness and won’t tolerate attempts to end-run the new requirements.
“I genuinely believe that this government does not belong to the government. It belongs to citizens,” she said in an interview earlier this month. “And it irks me when a citizen comes to the very thing it owns and is denied access to it. There’s just something fundamentally wrong about that.
“Somewhere along the line, we have forgotten the servant in public servant,” she said.
A Monroe County native, Mutchler is the youngest of seven children. Her father, a retired Army sergeant who was a World War II veteran, died several years ago.
She harbored a childhood dream of becoming a lawyer. But after working as a reporter for her high school paper and then at The Daily Collegian at Penn State University, she wound up with a bachelor’s degree in journalism.
She worked at The Morning Call in Allentown for a couple of years, then was hired by The Associated Press at its Capitol bureau in Harrisburg. She worked for the news cooperative for six years, including stints at bureaus in Atlantic City, Illinois and Alaska.
In Springfield, shortly after she took over the Illinois statehouse bureau in 1993, Mutchler’s professional and personal lives intersected in a way that changed her career path. Mutchler fell in love with a state senator, the late Penny Severns, the Democratic whip who would be nominated for lieutenant governor in 1994.
Increasingly troubled over the ethical conflict created by the relationship, Mutchler transferred to AP Alaska shortly before the election, which the Democrats lost. In 1995, she left the AP and returned to Springfield to work as Severns’ spokeswoman and speechwriter until she died of breast cancer in 1998.
Mutchler earned her law degree in 1999 at Chicago’s John Marshall Law School. She was a litigation attorney in Chicago when she was lured back to Springfield in 2003 for a job in the attorney general’s office helping settle open-records disputes.
Mutchler and her partner, Maria Papacostaki, a professor and poet, rent a home in Delaware County while Mutchler continues trying to sell her home in Springfield. She receives a $120,000 salary and a state-owned car.
Question
Q: What is the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records?
A: It is a new agency in the executive branch of state government, part of the Department of Community and Economic Development. The agency’s first director is Terry Mutchler, a reporter-turned-lawyer who previously worked in a similar position under the Illinois attorney general. The 10-person staff will include six lawyers besides Mutchler.
Generally speaking, the office will decide appeals by people whose Right-to-Know Law requests have been rejected by state executive agencies or by county and local agencies. It also will provide training for those agencies and issue advisory opinions interpreting the law.
Another bailout: Pension tension
From the BCCT.
There's no sense going after the local officials who only enforce policy. Take your concerns about tax policy to the tax writers in Harrisburg.
You don't have to go that far.
Rep. Galloway has a local office in Levittown
8610 New Falls Road
Levittown, PA 19054
Phone: (215) 943-7206
Monday - Friday
8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Senator McIlhinney is even more local than that.
56 East Bridge Street
Suite 1
Morrisville, PA 19067
Phone: 215-736-5960
Toll Free: 866-739-8600
FAX: 215-736-5964
Another bailout: Pension tension
Pennsylvania taxpayers will have to dig deeper to help state and school workers retire — even as private pensions wither away.
There is not good news and bad news for Pennsylvania taxpayers. There is only bad news and worse news.
As taxpayers helplessly watch their 401(k) plans and other retirement savings dwindle, they are being asked to dig deeper into their pockets to prop up pensions for state and school employees. School pension costs will be the biggest hit, since nearly half the funding comes from the local property tax.
The Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System recently urged school districts to start putting funds in reserve to prepare for a huge jump in pension costs anticipated in three more years. The districts’ share is projected to go from 4.78 percent of payroll in 2009-2010 to 16.4 percent in 2012-13. And that estimate, prepared before the stock market tanked this fall, assumes the pension fund will earn an 8.5 percent return on investment each year.
Since pension payments are mandatory, districts either must cut other expenses or raise taxes.
The state reimburses districts for about half the cost, but it all comes from taxpayers.
Unlike private employers, the state and school districts are prohibited by law from reducing or eliminating employee pension benefits or increasing the mandatory employee payroll deduction for pensions. School employees contribute an average of 7.3 percent of salary.
Two years ago, an Associated Press series on the pension crunch projected the taxpayer subsidy for state and school employee pensions would triple by 2012 to the equivalent of $240 a year for every man, woman and child in Pennsylvania.
And that didn’t include the multi-billion dollar cost of medical, dental, vision and prescription benefits for retirees.
The blame for this mess lies with the state Legislature (who else?). Mesmerized by a stock market boom, legislators in 2001 increased their own pensions by 50 percent and — to divert attention from their own avarice — gave more than 300,000 state and school employees a 25 percent hike.
This means public employees receive a pension based on 2.5 percent of salary (the average of the three top years of compensation) for each year worked. Employees 60 and older may retire at 75 percent of salary after 30 years of service and at 100 percent after 40 years, guaranteed for life.
Even by public sector standards, Pennsylvania is extremely generous.
Maryland, for instance, increased state and school employee pensions in 2006 from 1.4 percent of salary a year to 1.8 percent. A Maryland teacher may retire at 54 percent of salary after 30 years and 72 percent after 40 years.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania taxpayers are stuck with the bill due to the Legislature’s fecklessness. We don’t know what the long-term solution is, but the first step should be for voters to “retire” those legislators who feathered their own nest at the public’s expense.
There's no sense going after the local officials who only enforce policy. Take your concerns about tax policy to the tax writers in Harrisburg.
You don't have to go that far.
Rep. Galloway has a local office in Levittown
8610 New Falls Road
Levittown, PA 19054
Phone: (215) 943-7206
Monday - Friday
8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Senator McIlhinney is even more local than that.
56 East Bridge Street
Suite 1
Morrisville, PA 19067
Phone: 215-736-5960
Toll Free: 866-739-8600
FAX: 215-736-5964
Another bailout: Pension tension
Pennsylvania taxpayers will have to dig deeper to help state and school workers retire — even as private pensions wither away.
There is not good news and bad news for Pennsylvania taxpayers. There is only bad news and worse news.
As taxpayers helplessly watch their 401(k) plans and other retirement savings dwindle, they are being asked to dig deeper into their pockets to prop up pensions for state and school employees. School pension costs will be the biggest hit, since nearly half the funding comes from the local property tax.
The Pennsylvania Public School Employees Retirement System recently urged school districts to start putting funds in reserve to prepare for a huge jump in pension costs anticipated in three more years. The districts’ share is projected to go from 4.78 percent of payroll in 2009-2010 to 16.4 percent in 2012-13. And that estimate, prepared before the stock market tanked this fall, assumes the pension fund will earn an 8.5 percent return on investment each year.
Since pension payments are mandatory, districts either must cut other expenses or raise taxes.
The state reimburses districts for about half the cost, but it all comes from taxpayers.
Unlike private employers, the state and school districts are prohibited by law from reducing or eliminating employee pension benefits or increasing the mandatory employee payroll deduction for pensions. School employees contribute an average of 7.3 percent of salary.
Two years ago, an Associated Press series on the pension crunch projected the taxpayer subsidy for state and school employee pensions would triple by 2012 to the equivalent of $240 a year for every man, woman and child in Pennsylvania.
And that didn’t include the multi-billion dollar cost of medical, dental, vision and prescription benefits for retirees.
The blame for this mess lies with the state Legislature (who else?). Mesmerized by a stock market boom, legislators in 2001 increased their own pensions by 50 percent and — to divert attention from their own avarice — gave more than 300,000 state and school employees a 25 percent hike.
This means public employees receive a pension based on 2.5 percent of salary (the average of the three top years of compensation) for each year worked. Employees 60 and older may retire at 75 percent of salary after 30 years of service and at 100 percent after 40 years, guaranteed for life.
Even by public sector standards, Pennsylvania is extremely generous.
Maryland, for instance, increased state and school employee pensions in 2006 from 1.4 percent of salary a year to 1.8 percent. A Maryland teacher may retire at 54 percent of salary after 30 years and 72 percent after 40 years.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania taxpayers are stuck with the bill due to the Legislature’s fecklessness. We don’t know what the long-term solution is, but the first step should be for voters to “retire” those legislators who feathered their own nest at the public’s expense.
Young students often most vulnerable to toxic air
From USA Today.
Young students often most vulnerable to toxic air
By Blake Morrison, Brad Heath and Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
BATON ROUGE — From the front door of the aged brick school, the 4-year-olds at Wyandotte Early Childhood Center can spot the cottony plumes from a refinery just over the trees.
The ExxonMobil plant, the nation's second-largest refinery, processes about a half-million barrels of crude oil each day. Its sprawling complex sits a few blocks from the school — and from the swing set on the playground and about 120 pairs of developing lungs.
Chris Trahan, a spokesman for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, says he's certain ExxonMobil would let the school district know if there were an accident at the plant that could hurt children. As for air quality, "It just doesn't come up in conversation," Trahan says. "It's just part of daily life out here."
The circumstances at Wyandotte mirror those at thousands of other schools across the nation, including many schools that house the youngest — and most vulnerable — kids. USA TODAY spent eight months examining the impact of industrial pollution on schoolchildren and found that 20,000 schools — about one in every six — are within a half-mile of a major industrial plant.
To help identify schools where children might be at greatest risk from toxic chemicals, USA TODAY used the government's most up-to-date computer simulation for tracking industrial pollution. Then USA TODAY mapped the locations of 127,800 public, private and parochial schools. It is a task the Environmental Protection Agency has never undertaken.
Based on the levels and potential health hazards of the chemicals likely to be outside, the model ranked Wyandotte among the worst 1% of schools in the nation — and the worst in Louisiana. It also indicated that the ExxonMobil refinery — which emits sulfuric acid, naphthalene, ammonia and benzene, among two dozen chemicals — was primarily responsible for its ranking. The model's most recent version is based on reports by more than 20,000 industrial sites in 2005.
The Baton Rouge refinery opened in 1909. Wyandotte, built in 1925, was an elementary school for much of its life. In 2000, it became an early-childhood center, a place where 4-year-olds prepare for kindergarten. The rationale for sending the youngest kids there: "It was the most available resource that we had," says Bobbie Robertson, preschool director for the district.
Proximity to industries — and the exposures to toxic chemicals that often go with it — can portend unique dangers for young children. Their bodies still are developing, and they breathe more air per pound than adults.
That means they get "a heavier dose of the chemical" with each breath, says Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who leads a unit at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York on children and the environment.
By his account, their biological fragility and the amount of air they breathe make kids at least 10 times more susceptible than adults to most toxic chemicals.
"In early childhood and the nine months before birth, there occur 'windows of vulnerability,' " Landrigan says. "We're beginning to learn that a lot of diseases appear to be triggered by early exposures, but it takes years, even decades, for those to progress to diseases like cancer, like Parkinson's disease, like Alzheimer's."
Not every child who is exposed faces those outcomes, but Landrigan and others say it is impossible to know which children might be affected and which might not. Too little is understood about the impact of thousands of chemicals on children. In part, that's because most government assessments of the dangers assume those exposed are adults.
"The science doesn't know — it can't establish — what a safe level is" for children, says Stephen Lester, the science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, an advocacy group that focuses on children and schools. "There's no tool, scientifically, for evaluating cumulative risk."
Landrigan says the lack of detailed knowledge on safe levels of exposure, coupled with today's rates of childhood cancer, asthma and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, begs "the obvious question: Is there a cause-and-effect relationship?"
Health concerns persist
School district spokesman Trahan says "there are no reported illnesses or health issues" at Wyandotte. He says the district knows of only one student at the school whose parents told the district that their child has asthma. Districtwide, parents of about 3,000 students — 6% of total enrollment — notified the school that their child was asthmatic, Trahan says. "There's probably more," he says, "but we're just not aware of them."
Residents and at least one area physician worry the problems at Wyandotte may be greater than the statistics suggest.
Charmaine Venters, a physician and director of the Louisiana State University Mid-City Clinic a few miles from the school, says she treats students from Wyandotte and other area schools who battle asthma or other respiratory ailments.
The number of children here suffering from respiratory problems is greater than anywhere else she's seen in her almost 30-year career, she says.
The differing perspectives underscore the challenge of spotting asthma in children so young, says Patrick Breysse, director of the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment at Johns Hopkins University.
"With young kids, a lot of pediatricians say it's impossible to diagnose asthma because they might just be at a wheezy stage," Breysse says. "A 4-year-old would be kind of borderline."
ExxonMobil says it has taken many steps to make the air cleaner. Spokesman Prem Nair says the company is "continually improving the air quality near our Baton Rouge complex through emissions controls, technology enhancements and process changes."
Last week, ExxonMobil agreed to pay about $6.1 million in penalties for violating terms of a previous agreement aimed at curbing emissions at its refineries, including the plant here.
Nair says only $3,000 of that penalty related to violations in Baton Rouge. The penalties were based on the company's failure to monitor and control sulfur, a chemical burned in refinery furnaces that can cause respiratory illnesses, the EPA determined.
Derek Reese, the environmental supervisor for the Baton Rouge facility, says he appreciates what is at stake.
"My wife is a teacher in the Baton Rouge school system. My son goes to Baton Rouge High," he says. "You don't have to worry about me not understanding. I don't feel any disconnect between working at Exxon and kids and families."
'I want to know'
The computer simulation used by USA TODAY to identify schools that might be in toxic hot spots was developed by the EPA. Called Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, its purpose is to trace the potential path of chemicals and compare one location to another. Bob Lee, an EPA official who oversees the model, called USA TODAY's use of it "highly appropriate" and "the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense."
With the help of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA TODAY plotted the locations of schools to rank them based on chemicals likely to be in the air outside. Some of the schools and the companies responsible for the chemicals have closed or moved since the government collected the data. Others may have opened. That means the data are not definitive but a snapshot in time.
The rankings showed 435 schools with air more toxic than the air outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary, a suburban Cincinnati school that closed in 2005 after air samples outside the building showed high levels of carcinogens coming from the plastics plant across the street.
Among the schools that ranked worse, about half were elementary or pre-K schools — places where children were likely to spend the most time outside, usually during recess. Those schools included Wyandotte; Stony Brook Elementary in York, Pa.; Edison Elementary in Council Bluffs, Iowa; and the Early Childhood Center in Kennett, Mo.
Without monitoring for toxic chemicals, often for months, no one is certain what's in the air at those locations. USA TODAY's findings, however, have prompted action in several states:
• Pennsylvania environmental authorities have pledged to monitor outside the York school and at least six others.
In some cases, they may find air quality better than the model indicates — or substantially worse. That's because USA TODAY focused on industrial pollution, which accounts for about 15%-20% of toxic chemicals in the air. In a news release, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection noted the newspaper's analysis doesn't include pollution sources such as cars, which "can greatly elevate health risks."
• Iowa regulators launched their own analysis. "We will be coming up with a plan to take a look at the schools that are ranked high," says Wayne Gieselman, the state's head of environmental protection. "If we have to place some monitors out at these sites, we'll do that."
• In Kennett, Mo., where USA TODAY identified two schools that appeared to have air worse than at Hitchens, the school district is pushing for answers. Superintendent Jerry Noble says state regulators have pledged to take months' worth of air samples at district schools.
"It's very important. If we've got a problem, I want to know," Noble says. "I believe a lot of good's going to come out of this."
Much remains unknown
The current head of EPA's Office for Children's Health Protection and Environmental Education, Ruth McCully, says protecting children also is a high priority for the agency. They are "being considered in the agency's activities, from standards to regulations to research to outreach."
In October, for instance, the EPA strengthened its standards for airborne lead, making them 10 times more stringent. It was the first time in decades the standards were strengthened.
Critics contend the changes took too long, weren't tough enough and will be difficult to enforce, in part because the agency has only about 130 monitors nationwide that can measure lead in the air. John Balbus, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, supported the change but says the EPA's own research justified an even more rigid standard.
Much is known about the impact of lead on a child. Far less is clear about other chemicals.
In a chapter of an upcoming edition of a book on pediatrics and the environment, Landrigan writes that more than 80,000 chemicals are "registered for commercial use" with the EPA.
"Children are most at risk of exposure to the 3,000 synthetic chemicals produced in quantities of more than 1 million pounds per year," he writes. But "information on potential toxicity is publicly available for only about half of the 3,000" and "information on developmental toxicity or capacity to harm infants and children is available for fewer than 20%" of these chemicals.
That leaves scientists and regulators largely guessing about the impact of specific chemicals. Those guesses often are based on their experiences, such as the determination that lead — even at low levels — stunts a child's intellectual development.
"The more we study most toxicants, the more effects we find at lower and lower doses," says Herbert Needleman, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the nation's foremost experts on lead.
"The developing brain," Needleman says, "is much more sensitive than the developed brain."
Despite the lack of scientific certainty, research has indicated the impact of chemicals, especially on elementary schoolchildren, can be life-long.
A recent study by the University of Texas correlated increased cases of leukemia and lymphoma among children to levels of butadiene in the Houston air. The carcinogen is often released by petrochemical plants and rubber and plastics manufacturers.
The 18-month study indicated that children living within 2 miles of the Houston Ship Channel had a 56% higher risk for childhood leukemia than did those living more than 10 miles away.
"You're talking about facilities that are in neighborhoods where there are schools, parks, playgrounds," says Elena Marks, director of health and environmental policy for the city of Houston, which requested the study.
At thousands of locations, the model used by USA TODAY indicated that the air outside schools appeared far more toxic than the air in the neighborhoods where the kids lived.
At 16,500 schools, the air outside appeared at least twice as toxic as the air at a typical location in the school district.
At Wyandotte, the model indicated the air was 71.3 times more toxic than the average air in the district. That means kids who lived more than a kilometer away were likely leaving homes where the air outside was better than the air outside the school.
Rodney Mallett, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, says the closest monitoring station to Wyandotte that could measure toxic chemicals is about 2 miles away. Despite the vulnerability of children, "we don't have them placed outside of any schools," Mallett says of state monitors. The reason? "If you put them just where the schools are," he says, "you're going to get just what's outside the school."
Company-school partnership
ExxonMobil has developed a special relationship with area schools. Schools spokesman Trahan says company officials try "to get students to get into science. They offer free tutoring" to some students and professional development for teachers.
The company, which also operates a chemical plant here and employs about 2,250 people at those facilities, has worked with citizen groups. Two representatives of the company sit on the board of North Baton Rouge Neighborhoods United, says Bea Gransberry, a board member. ExxonMobil officials have assured the board they are doing everything possible to reduce emissions, she says.
"We felt that if they were over there working, they're closer than we are to it, and they weren't going to do anything to harm themselves," she says.
Activist Lois Gibbs, director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, says parents are too often willing to accept a local industry's assurances that all is well — and that, if pollution were dangerous, the government would know. "It's easy to believe that," she says. "It's our economy. It's our jobs. And then there's the guilt — 'I have to admit I'm willingly, knowingly allowing my child to be poisoned.' "
"The answer," Gibbs says, "is to move that guilt and frustration into action."
That's why monitoring is so important, says Ruth Breech, program director for Global Community Monitor, a non-profit that works with communities interested in testing air quality. "Ultimately," Breech says, "it's about putting pressure on your city government, your EPA and the polluter themselves."
Physician Landrigan faults government agencies for making assumptions about the safety of toxic chemicals. One assumption: "Chemicals are safe until they are proven dangerous." Landrigan says history — and the best science — show how dangerous that assumption can be. "We've learned from long and bitter experience (that toxic chemicals) in fact turned out to be dangerous, and especially so to children."
That leaves one option, scientists say. "The only authentic response is prevention. Stop exposure before it happens," says Needleman, an expert on lead. "The payoffs would be enormous. I don't think we know how smart our kids could be."
Young students often most vulnerable to toxic air
By Blake Morrison, Brad Heath and Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
BATON ROUGE — From the front door of the aged brick school, the 4-year-olds at Wyandotte Early Childhood Center can spot the cottony plumes from a refinery just over the trees.
The ExxonMobil plant, the nation's second-largest refinery, processes about a half-million barrels of crude oil each day. Its sprawling complex sits a few blocks from the school — and from the swing set on the playground and about 120 pairs of developing lungs.
Chris Trahan, a spokesman for the East Baton Rouge Parish School System, says he's certain ExxonMobil would let the school district know if there were an accident at the plant that could hurt children. As for air quality, "It just doesn't come up in conversation," Trahan says. "It's just part of daily life out here."
The circumstances at Wyandotte mirror those at thousands of other schools across the nation, including many schools that house the youngest — and most vulnerable — kids. USA TODAY spent eight months examining the impact of industrial pollution on schoolchildren and found that 20,000 schools — about one in every six — are within a half-mile of a major industrial plant.
To help identify schools where children might be at greatest risk from toxic chemicals, USA TODAY used the government's most up-to-date computer simulation for tracking industrial pollution. Then USA TODAY mapped the locations of 127,800 public, private and parochial schools. It is a task the Environmental Protection Agency has never undertaken.
Based on the levels and potential health hazards of the chemicals likely to be outside, the model ranked Wyandotte among the worst 1% of schools in the nation — and the worst in Louisiana. It also indicated that the ExxonMobil refinery — which emits sulfuric acid, naphthalene, ammonia and benzene, among two dozen chemicals — was primarily responsible for its ranking. The model's most recent version is based on reports by more than 20,000 industrial sites in 2005.
The Baton Rouge refinery opened in 1909. Wyandotte, built in 1925, was an elementary school for much of its life. In 2000, it became an early-childhood center, a place where 4-year-olds prepare for kindergarten. The rationale for sending the youngest kids there: "It was the most available resource that we had," says Bobbie Robertson, preschool director for the district.
Proximity to industries — and the exposures to toxic chemicals that often go with it — can portend unique dangers for young children. Their bodies still are developing, and they breathe more air per pound than adults.
That means they get "a heavier dose of the chemical" with each breath, says Philip Landrigan, a pediatrician who leads a unit at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York on children and the environment.
By his account, their biological fragility and the amount of air they breathe make kids at least 10 times more susceptible than adults to most toxic chemicals.
"In early childhood and the nine months before birth, there occur 'windows of vulnerability,' " Landrigan says. "We're beginning to learn that a lot of diseases appear to be triggered by early exposures, but it takes years, even decades, for those to progress to diseases like cancer, like Parkinson's disease, like Alzheimer's."
Not every child who is exposed faces those outcomes, but Landrigan and others say it is impossible to know which children might be affected and which might not. Too little is understood about the impact of thousands of chemicals on children. In part, that's because most government assessments of the dangers assume those exposed are adults.
"The science doesn't know — it can't establish — what a safe level is" for children, says Stephen Lester, the science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, an advocacy group that focuses on children and schools. "There's no tool, scientifically, for evaluating cumulative risk."
Landrigan says the lack of detailed knowledge on safe levels of exposure, coupled with today's rates of childhood cancer, asthma and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, begs "the obvious question: Is there a cause-and-effect relationship?"
Health concerns persist
School district spokesman Trahan says "there are no reported illnesses or health issues" at Wyandotte. He says the district knows of only one student at the school whose parents told the district that their child has asthma. Districtwide, parents of about 3,000 students — 6% of total enrollment — notified the school that their child was asthmatic, Trahan says. "There's probably more," he says, "but we're just not aware of them."
Residents and at least one area physician worry the problems at Wyandotte may be greater than the statistics suggest.
Charmaine Venters, a physician and director of the Louisiana State University Mid-City Clinic a few miles from the school, says she treats students from Wyandotte and other area schools who battle asthma or other respiratory ailments.
The number of children here suffering from respiratory problems is greater than anywhere else she's seen in her almost 30-year career, she says.
The differing perspectives underscore the challenge of spotting asthma in children so young, says Patrick Breysse, director of the Center for Childhood Asthma in the Urban Environment at Johns Hopkins University.
"With young kids, a lot of pediatricians say it's impossible to diagnose asthma because they might just be at a wheezy stage," Breysse says. "A 4-year-old would be kind of borderline."
ExxonMobil says it has taken many steps to make the air cleaner. Spokesman Prem Nair says the company is "continually improving the air quality near our Baton Rouge complex through emissions controls, technology enhancements and process changes."
Last week, ExxonMobil agreed to pay about $6.1 million in penalties for violating terms of a previous agreement aimed at curbing emissions at its refineries, including the plant here.
Nair says only $3,000 of that penalty related to violations in Baton Rouge. The penalties were based on the company's failure to monitor and control sulfur, a chemical burned in refinery furnaces that can cause respiratory illnesses, the EPA determined.
Derek Reese, the environmental supervisor for the Baton Rouge facility, says he appreciates what is at stake.
"My wife is a teacher in the Baton Rouge school system. My son goes to Baton Rouge High," he says. "You don't have to worry about me not understanding. I don't feel any disconnect between working at Exxon and kids and families."
'I want to know'
The computer simulation used by USA TODAY to identify schools that might be in toxic hot spots was developed by the EPA. Called Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators, its purpose is to trace the potential path of chemicals and compare one location to another. Bob Lee, an EPA official who oversees the model, called USA TODAY's use of it "highly appropriate" and "the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense."
With the help of researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA TODAY plotted the locations of schools to rank them based on chemicals likely to be in the air outside. Some of the schools and the companies responsible for the chemicals have closed or moved since the government collected the data. Others may have opened. That means the data are not definitive but a snapshot in time.
The rankings showed 435 schools with air more toxic than the air outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary, a suburban Cincinnati school that closed in 2005 after air samples outside the building showed high levels of carcinogens coming from the plastics plant across the street.
Among the schools that ranked worse, about half were elementary or pre-K schools — places where children were likely to spend the most time outside, usually during recess. Those schools included Wyandotte; Stony Brook Elementary in York, Pa.; Edison Elementary in Council Bluffs, Iowa; and the Early Childhood Center in Kennett, Mo.
Without monitoring for toxic chemicals, often for months, no one is certain what's in the air at those locations. USA TODAY's findings, however, have prompted action in several states:
• Pennsylvania environmental authorities have pledged to monitor outside the York school and at least six others.
In some cases, they may find air quality better than the model indicates — or substantially worse. That's because USA TODAY focused on industrial pollution, which accounts for about 15%-20% of toxic chemicals in the air. In a news release, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection noted the newspaper's analysis doesn't include pollution sources such as cars, which "can greatly elevate health risks."
• Iowa regulators launched their own analysis. "We will be coming up with a plan to take a look at the schools that are ranked high," says Wayne Gieselman, the state's head of environmental protection. "If we have to place some monitors out at these sites, we'll do that."
• In Kennett, Mo., where USA TODAY identified two schools that appeared to have air worse than at Hitchens, the school district is pushing for answers. Superintendent Jerry Noble says state regulators have pledged to take months' worth of air samples at district schools.
"It's very important. If we've got a problem, I want to know," Noble says. "I believe a lot of good's going to come out of this."
Much remains unknown
The current head of EPA's Office for Children's Health Protection and Environmental Education, Ruth McCully, says protecting children also is a high priority for the agency. They are "being considered in the agency's activities, from standards to regulations to research to outreach."
In October, for instance, the EPA strengthened its standards for airborne lead, making them 10 times more stringent. It was the first time in decades the standards were strengthened.
Critics contend the changes took too long, weren't tough enough and will be difficult to enforce, in part because the agency has only about 130 monitors nationwide that can measure lead in the air. John Balbus, chief scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, supported the change but says the EPA's own research justified an even more rigid standard.
Much is known about the impact of lead on a child. Far less is clear about other chemicals.
In a chapter of an upcoming edition of a book on pediatrics and the environment, Landrigan writes that more than 80,000 chemicals are "registered for commercial use" with the EPA.
"Children are most at risk of exposure to the 3,000 synthetic chemicals produced in quantities of more than 1 million pounds per year," he writes. But "information on potential toxicity is publicly available for only about half of the 3,000" and "information on developmental toxicity or capacity to harm infants and children is available for fewer than 20%" of these chemicals.
That leaves scientists and regulators largely guessing about the impact of specific chemicals. Those guesses often are based on their experiences, such as the determination that lead — even at low levels — stunts a child's intellectual development.
"The more we study most toxicants, the more effects we find at lower and lower doses," says Herbert Needleman, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the nation's foremost experts on lead.
"The developing brain," Needleman says, "is much more sensitive than the developed brain."
Despite the lack of scientific certainty, research has indicated the impact of chemicals, especially on elementary schoolchildren, can be life-long.
A recent study by the University of Texas correlated increased cases of leukemia and lymphoma among children to levels of butadiene in the Houston air. The carcinogen is often released by petrochemical plants and rubber and plastics manufacturers.
The 18-month study indicated that children living within 2 miles of the Houston Ship Channel had a 56% higher risk for childhood leukemia than did those living more than 10 miles away.
"You're talking about facilities that are in neighborhoods where there are schools, parks, playgrounds," says Elena Marks, director of health and environmental policy for the city of Houston, which requested the study.
At thousands of locations, the model used by USA TODAY indicated that the air outside schools appeared far more toxic than the air in the neighborhoods where the kids lived.
At 16,500 schools, the air outside appeared at least twice as toxic as the air at a typical location in the school district.
At Wyandotte, the model indicated the air was 71.3 times more toxic than the average air in the district. That means kids who lived more than a kilometer away were likely leaving homes where the air outside was better than the air outside the school.
Rodney Mallett, a spokesman for the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, says the closest monitoring station to Wyandotte that could measure toxic chemicals is about 2 miles away. Despite the vulnerability of children, "we don't have them placed outside of any schools," Mallett says of state monitors. The reason? "If you put them just where the schools are," he says, "you're going to get just what's outside the school."
Company-school partnership
ExxonMobil has developed a special relationship with area schools. Schools spokesman Trahan says company officials try "to get students to get into science. They offer free tutoring" to some students and professional development for teachers.
The company, which also operates a chemical plant here and employs about 2,250 people at those facilities, has worked with citizen groups. Two representatives of the company sit on the board of North Baton Rouge Neighborhoods United, says Bea Gransberry, a board member. ExxonMobil officials have assured the board they are doing everything possible to reduce emissions, she says.
"We felt that if they were over there working, they're closer than we are to it, and they weren't going to do anything to harm themselves," she says.
Activist Lois Gibbs, director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, says parents are too often willing to accept a local industry's assurances that all is well — and that, if pollution were dangerous, the government would know. "It's easy to believe that," she says. "It's our economy. It's our jobs. And then there's the guilt — 'I have to admit I'm willingly, knowingly allowing my child to be poisoned.' "
"The answer," Gibbs says, "is to move that guilt and frustration into action."
That's why monitoring is so important, says Ruth Breech, program director for Global Community Monitor, a non-profit that works with communities interested in testing air quality. "Ultimately," Breech says, "it's about putting pressure on your city government, your EPA and the polluter themselves."
Physician Landrigan faults government agencies for making assumptions about the safety of toxic chemicals. One assumption: "Chemicals are safe until they are proven dangerous." Landrigan says history — and the best science — show how dangerous that assumption can be. "We've learned from long and bitter experience (that toxic chemicals) in fact turned out to be dangerous, and especially so to children."
That leaves one option, scientists say. "The only authentic response is prevention. Stop exposure before it happens," says Needleman, an expert on lead. "The payoffs would be enormous. I don't think we know how smart our kids could be."
Monday, December 22, 2008
Pennsylvania Right to Know Law
The BCCT is beginning a series on the new Pennsylvania Right to Know Law.
Who are the Morrisville contacts?
For the borough: George Mount, borough manager
For the school district: Paul DeAngelo, business administrator
Considering the secrecy that the Emperor and the board of chosen accomplices has employed over the past year of amazing cosmic power, I'm expecting Mr. DeAngelo's waiting room to be a bit too small to accommodate the number of people wanting answers.
The school district has a link right on the home page. I did not see one on the borough webpage.
New law makes secrecy more difficult
Seeking records used to mean proving why they should be released; now the government must prove why they shouldn’t.
By PETER JACKSON
HARRISBURG — PennDOT’s list of dangerous roads and intersections is an official secret, shielded from the public because of loopholes in the state’s Right-to-Know Law.
In 2006, a Commonwealth Court panel upheld PennDOT’s refusal to turn over a partial list to a Pittsburgh television station. The court said the station had failed to prove the information was sufficiently connected to an account, contract, voucher or decision — categories in the law that define what is a public record.
“The situation is a Catch-22 for requesters, in that the agencies and courts hold them to an impossible standard — prove there is a connection, but you cannot have the records that will enable you to do so,” said Gayle Sproul, a media lawyer who represented Hearst-Argyle Television Stations, WTAE’s owner, in the case.
Public-access advocates hope that widely shared frustration will subside after Jan. 1, when an overhaul of the state’s Right-to-Know Law takes effect. The changes are expected to dramatically expand what people can find out about what goes on behind the scenes of the state and local governments.
The new Right-to-Know Law will repeal the 52-year-old original, long regarded as one of the nation’s weakest.
No longer will you, journalists or activists interested in mining government records have to cross their fingers and hope the document they want fits into one of a half-dozen narrow categories. Nor will they have to hire a lawyer and go to court to challenge an agency’s refusal to turn over a record.
The new law is built on the presumption that most government records are open — the opposite presumption of the current law. It also places on public agencies — from state bureaucracies to county governments and local school districts — the legal burden of showing why a record should be withheld, instead of forcing requesters to establish why it should be made public.
“This is really a change in the culture of governance in Pennsylvania,” said Barry Kauffman, director of Pennsylvania Common Cause. “In too many cases, employees and officials of government agencies had an attitude that they own the government records instead of just being the caretakers of the government records.”
In most case, those whose requests are denied will be able to appeal directly to a new, nonjudicial agency — the Office of Open Records — whose director has a track record as an advocate of public access.
Teri Henning, general counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, which spearheaded lobbying for the new law, said the hope “is that, over time, these fundamental changes will create a culture of openness in Pennsylvania government.”
That spirit of openness is tempered in the law by a list of 30 wide-ranging exceptions that are tailored to respond to such concerns as personal privacy, public safety and internal deliberations by public officials.
The exceptions, which make up about one-fifth of the law, are “very wordy, very detailed and dense, filled with what I will call, kindly, mumbo jumbo,” said Sproul, who’s also president of the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition. “That in itself is an impediment to getting public records.”
The law also expands access to government contracts: Private businesses that do business with state and local governments are required to make some records available to the public. It covers all of state government, including — to a limited extent — the Legislature and the state’s judicial system, both previously exempt.
It covers an array of state affiliated entities including community colleges, the 14 state owned universities in the State System of Higher Education and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. The state related universities — Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln — are generally exempt, but required to issue annual financial reports that include their highest 25 employee salaries.
Local agencies covered by the law include counties, boroughs, townships and school districts, as well as charter schools, vocational schools and intermediate units.
By now, every agency should have designated an open-records officer to oversee compliance, adopted a policy for managing its records and briefed employees on how to handle records requests.
No one is predicting a flawless implementation.
“There’s going to be confusion at the beginning ... from citizens, from public officials and from members of the media,” said Terry Mutchler, the lawyer and former reporter that Gov. Ed Rendell appointed to a six-year term as director of the openrecords office.
Many observers predict a spike in records requests — and appeals to Mutchler’s office — in early 2009 as Pennsylvanians test their access under the new law. That will likely be followed by a gradual return to a more normal pace.
“After five years, we’ll forget it was ever such a big deal,” said Emily Leader, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which speaks for the state’s 501 school districts.
Mutchler, who’s hiring six staff lawyers to help her handle the expected deluge of appeals, has been working with associations representing county commissioners, township supervisors and school boards — as well as newspapers. At some sessions, concerns were expressed about the status of e-mails.
The new law defines a record as “information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, that documents a transaction or activity of an agency.” That includes not only e-mails, but audio recordings, photos and even films.
“Here’s the e-mail training,” Mutchler told a Pennsylvania School Boards Association workshop in October. “If you don’t want to read it on Page One, don’t put it in e-mail. If you’re sending an e-mail, envision it on letterhead.”
Access advocates hope the new law will open records like PennDOT’s hazardous-sites list to public scrutiny.
PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said the lists are kept confidential because the rankings can be misleading and state law bars such information from being used in legal claims against the state.
Asked if PennDOT plans to withhold the information after the new law takes effect, he said, “I can’t speculate.”
Who are the Morrisville contacts?
For the borough: George Mount, borough manager
For the school district: Paul DeAngelo, business administrator
Considering the secrecy that the Emperor and the board of chosen accomplices has employed over the past year of amazing cosmic power, I'm expecting Mr. DeAngelo's waiting room to be a bit too small to accommodate the number of people wanting answers.
The school district has a link right on the home page. I did not see one on the borough webpage.
New law makes secrecy more difficult
Seeking records used to mean proving why they should be released; now the government must prove why they shouldn’t.
By PETER JACKSON
HARRISBURG — PennDOT’s list of dangerous roads and intersections is an official secret, shielded from the public because of loopholes in the state’s Right-to-Know Law.
In 2006, a Commonwealth Court panel upheld PennDOT’s refusal to turn over a partial list to a Pittsburgh television station. The court said the station had failed to prove the information was sufficiently connected to an account, contract, voucher or decision — categories in the law that define what is a public record.
“The situation is a Catch-22 for requesters, in that the agencies and courts hold them to an impossible standard — prove there is a connection, but you cannot have the records that will enable you to do so,” said Gayle Sproul, a media lawyer who represented Hearst-Argyle Television Stations, WTAE’s owner, in the case.
Public-access advocates hope that widely shared frustration will subside after Jan. 1, when an overhaul of the state’s Right-to-Know Law takes effect. The changes are expected to dramatically expand what people can find out about what goes on behind the scenes of the state and local governments.
The new Right-to-Know Law will repeal the 52-year-old original, long regarded as one of the nation’s weakest.
No longer will you, journalists or activists interested in mining government records have to cross their fingers and hope the document they want fits into one of a half-dozen narrow categories. Nor will they have to hire a lawyer and go to court to challenge an agency’s refusal to turn over a record.
The new law is built on the presumption that most government records are open — the opposite presumption of the current law. It also places on public agencies — from state bureaucracies to county governments and local school districts — the legal burden of showing why a record should be withheld, instead of forcing requesters to establish why it should be made public.
“This is really a change in the culture of governance in Pennsylvania,” said Barry Kauffman, director of Pennsylvania Common Cause. “In too many cases, employees and officials of government agencies had an attitude that they own the government records instead of just being the caretakers of the government records.”
In most case, those whose requests are denied will be able to appeal directly to a new, nonjudicial agency — the Office of Open Records — whose director has a track record as an advocate of public access.
Teri Henning, general counsel for the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association, which spearheaded lobbying for the new law, said the hope “is that, over time, these fundamental changes will create a culture of openness in Pennsylvania government.”
That spirit of openness is tempered in the law by a list of 30 wide-ranging exceptions that are tailored to respond to such concerns as personal privacy, public safety and internal deliberations by public officials.
The exceptions, which make up about one-fifth of the law, are “very wordy, very detailed and dense, filled with what I will call, kindly, mumbo jumbo,” said Sproul, who’s also president of the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition. “That in itself is an impediment to getting public records.”
The law also expands access to government contracts: Private businesses that do business with state and local governments are required to make some records available to the public. It covers all of state government, including — to a limited extent — the Legislature and the state’s judicial system, both previously exempt.
It covers an array of state affiliated entities including community colleges, the 14 state owned universities in the State System of Higher Education and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association. The state related universities — Penn State, Pittsburgh, Temple and Lincoln — are generally exempt, but required to issue annual financial reports that include their highest 25 employee salaries.
Local agencies covered by the law include counties, boroughs, townships and school districts, as well as charter schools, vocational schools and intermediate units.
By now, every agency should have designated an open-records officer to oversee compliance, adopted a policy for managing its records and briefed employees on how to handle records requests.
No one is predicting a flawless implementation.
“There’s going to be confusion at the beginning ... from citizens, from public officials and from members of the media,” said Terry Mutchler, the lawyer and former reporter that Gov. Ed Rendell appointed to a six-year term as director of the openrecords office.
Many observers predict a spike in records requests — and appeals to Mutchler’s office — in early 2009 as Pennsylvanians test their access under the new law. That will likely be followed by a gradual return to a more normal pace.
“After five years, we’ll forget it was ever such a big deal,” said Emily Leader, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which speaks for the state’s 501 school districts.
Mutchler, who’s hiring six staff lawyers to help her handle the expected deluge of appeals, has been working with associations representing county commissioners, township supervisors and school boards — as well as newspapers. At some sessions, concerns were expressed about the status of e-mails.
The new law defines a record as “information, regardless of physical form or characteristics, that documents a transaction or activity of an agency.” That includes not only e-mails, but audio recordings, photos and even films.
“Here’s the e-mail training,” Mutchler told a Pennsylvania School Boards Association workshop in October. “If you don’t want to read it on Page One, don’t put it in e-mail. If you’re sending an e-mail, envision it on letterhead.”
Access advocates hope the new law will open records like PennDOT’s hazardous-sites list to public scrutiny.
PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said the lists are kept confidential because the rankings can be misleading and state law bars such information from being used in legal claims against the state.
Asked if PennDOT plans to withhold the information after the new law takes effect, he said, “I can’t speculate.”
Property Tax Hit for Taxpayers
From the BCCT.
I remember former business manager Reba Dunford warning about some of these items. Does anyone remember how the President Emperor responded?
A big hit expected for taxpayers
Early this month, the state increased its projections for how much school districts will have to pay into the employee pension fund in coming years.
By GARY WECKSELBLATT
The next decade is not expected to be kind to those who pay property taxes.
After hearing the numbers released Dec. 12 by the people running the public school pension system, Bob Reinhart did some calculations.
The business administrator for the Pennridge School District looked at the 2012-13 school year, when figures show the current contribution residents will have to fork over rises from next year’s 4.78 to 16.4 percent. The 16.4 was adjusted up from 11.23 after the Pennsylvania Public School Employee Retirement System fund fell 2.8 percent.
Reinhart’s math shows Pennridge’s cost rising by $6 million. A hefty number for a district that finds itself in a $900,000 hole for the 2009-10 school year.
“It’s going to be a big concern for us,” he said.
Probably worse than Reinhart and his fellow business managers across the state realize. The projections released earlier this month by PSERS’ actuarial firm, Buck Consultants, are based on the pension fund’s performance through June 30 — well before the fall’s carnage to the stock market.
If the fund fell 12.8 percent from $62.7 billion to $54.7 billion by Sept. 30 — as PSERS reported — a period when the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped 9 percent and the Dow Jones dropped 4 percent — what might the fund look like now?
Since Oct. 1, those wellknown investment indicators are down significantly. The Dow has been the best performer, losing 26.5 percent; the S&P is down 31 percent, the Nasdaq 34 percent.
It’s conceivable the fund, with a membership of more than 272,000 active school employees and more than 173,000 retirees, might have fallen to $40 billion.
If a 2.8 percent setback pushes future employer contributions up more than 5 percent a year from 2012-13 to 2017-18, what would a decline 10 times greater mean to the pocketbooks of area homeowners who are watching their own retirement savings dwindle?
Central Bucks, the area’s largest school district, could feel a significant hit. Even before the PSERS’ projected rates rose, CB business manager Dave Matyas expected his district’s costs to double in three years from $10 to $20 million.
“It is unrealistic to predict the fund will be able to earn its way out of the projected rate spike given the current investment market conditions and the precarious state of the economy,” PSERS Executive Director Jeffrey B. Clay said in a statement. “Previously PSERS made significant progress dropping the projected rate spike by earning outstanding investment returns for four years. It is highly unlikely, given the current recession taking place in the U.S., that the fund will be able to re-create those outstanding returns in the short-term.”
PSERS, which assumes an annual return of 8.5 percent for its pension fund, is the 14th largest defined benefit pension fund in the country. Members contribute between 5.25 and 7.5 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement.
During this past year, school districts budgeted 4.76 percent of teacher salaries for the pension fund. That was down from 7.13 percent in 2007-08.
In a letter to school districts last December, John Godlewski, the state department of education’s former director of budget and fiscal management, recommended that districts disregard the lower number and set aside money at the 7.13 percent rate in preparation for future increases.
Clay agrees with creating a reserve in anticipation of the large projected rate increase.
“It would be very prudent for school employers to do so,” he said.
Like some other local districts, Pennridge has taken that approach and is budgeting 7.13 percent rather than next year’s 4.78 figure. Had Reinhart budgeted the lower number, the district’s current $900,000 budget hole would shrink to about $265,000.
“The board and myself want to be prudent,” he said.
I remember former business manager Reba Dunford warning about some of these items. Does anyone remember how the President Emperor responded?
A big hit expected for taxpayers
Early this month, the state increased its projections for how much school districts will have to pay into the employee pension fund in coming years.
By GARY WECKSELBLATT
The next decade is not expected to be kind to those who pay property taxes.
After hearing the numbers released Dec. 12 by the people running the public school pension system, Bob Reinhart did some calculations.
The business administrator for the Pennridge School District looked at the 2012-13 school year, when figures show the current contribution residents will have to fork over rises from next year’s 4.78 to 16.4 percent. The 16.4 was adjusted up from 11.23 after the Pennsylvania Public School Employee Retirement System fund fell 2.8 percent.
Reinhart’s math shows Pennridge’s cost rising by $6 million. A hefty number for a district that finds itself in a $900,000 hole for the 2009-10 school year.
“It’s going to be a big concern for us,” he said.
Probably worse than Reinhart and his fellow business managers across the state realize. The projections released earlier this month by PSERS’ actuarial firm, Buck Consultants, are based on the pension fund’s performance through June 30 — well before the fall’s carnage to the stock market.
If the fund fell 12.8 percent from $62.7 billion to $54.7 billion by Sept. 30 — as PSERS reported — a period when the S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped 9 percent and the Dow Jones dropped 4 percent — what might the fund look like now?
Since Oct. 1, those wellknown investment indicators are down significantly. The Dow has been the best performer, losing 26.5 percent; the S&P is down 31 percent, the Nasdaq 34 percent.
It’s conceivable the fund, with a membership of more than 272,000 active school employees and more than 173,000 retirees, might have fallen to $40 billion.
If a 2.8 percent setback pushes future employer contributions up more than 5 percent a year from 2012-13 to 2017-18, what would a decline 10 times greater mean to the pocketbooks of area homeowners who are watching their own retirement savings dwindle?
Central Bucks, the area’s largest school district, could feel a significant hit. Even before the PSERS’ projected rates rose, CB business manager Dave Matyas expected his district’s costs to double in three years from $10 to $20 million.
“It is unrealistic to predict the fund will be able to earn its way out of the projected rate spike given the current investment market conditions and the precarious state of the economy,” PSERS Executive Director Jeffrey B. Clay said in a statement. “Previously PSERS made significant progress dropping the projected rate spike by earning outstanding investment returns for four years. It is highly unlikely, given the current recession taking place in the U.S., that the fund will be able to re-create those outstanding returns in the short-term.”
PSERS, which assumes an annual return of 8.5 percent for its pension fund, is the 14th largest defined benefit pension fund in the country. Members contribute between 5.25 and 7.5 percent of their salary to help fund their retirement.
During this past year, school districts budgeted 4.76 percent of teacher salaries for the pension fund. That was down from 7.13 percent in 2007-08.
In a letter to school districts last December, John Godlewski, the state department of education’s former director of budget and fiscal management, recommended that districts disregard the lower number and set aside money at the 7.13 percent rate in preparation for future increases.
Clay agrees with creating a reserve in anticipation of the large projected rate increase.
“It would be very prudent for school employers to do so,” he said.
Like some other local districts, Pennridge has taken that approach and is budgeting 7.13 percent rather than next year’s 4.78 figure. Had Reinhart budgeted the lower number, the district’s current $900,000 budget hole would shrink to about $265,000.
“The board and myself want to be prudent,” he said.
Wanted: Generous souls in tough times
From the BCCT.
Yes, times are tight. You can still do some good. Give at that office collection, the Salvation Army bell ringer, your church, the local food bank, or even your neighbor you know is having a hard time. This is not a specific endorsement of any specific way to help: There's plenty of outlets where your generosity can be used.
Maybe this year, the tables are turned. You've always been the generous giver. This year, you need to be the receiver. Reach out. It's hard to extend a helping hand when only one is reaching.
Wanted: Generous souls in tough times
The faces of the unemployed, the foreclosed upon and those in poverty in Bucks County demonstrate how much your help is needed.
By CARL LAVO
STAFF WRITER
The economy sputters on Wall Street and Main Street. Fortunately, the spirit of giving continues to burn bright in Lower Bucks County.
For 50 years and counting, you and your neighbors have contributed everything you can to the annual Give-A-Christmas fund sponsored by the Levittown-Bristol Kiwanis Club and the Bucks County Courier Times. Your generosity has made a difference to those who are crushed by circumstances during the holiday season.
This year, the heartbreak of families in trouble continues and is all around us.
Here’s just a sampling:
“I am a single mother with breast cancer. I have 2 daughters, ages 4 and 6. I am not working due to my illness and have no way to provide Christmas to my girls. If there is any way you could help, it would be greatly appreciated.” — Northampton
“This family has always donated to the needy but now finds themselves in desperate need. The husband and wife, both injured, are barely surviving on a fraction of their original income while trying to support their children, as well as their 20-year-old daughter who had to drop out of college when they couldn’t afford her tuition. They’re struggling to just keep a roof over their heads.” —
Levittown
“I have two children and receive $650 a month to live on from Social Security. God bless what you’re doing.” — Langhorne
“I am writing to you about a family in great need. They just lost their apartment and they have two children, ages 3 and 2, and the mother is expecting any day. The father was working 2 jobs when he lost one of them. … They aren’t having Christmas this year due to no money. They have no tree, no gifts for the children. Please help.” —
Northampton
“Mom and 4 boys — She has cancer and no money to get the boys anything for Christmas. Please help.” —
Levittown
“I work so hard to take care of my son and I. One of the Grey Nuns in Yardley gives me her old things and I sell them at flea markets to make ends meet. Please help make Christmas possible.” —
Bensalem
“I am writing for a friend who could use some holiday cheer and a touch of kindness this Christmas season. … He has been laid off several weeks ago, cannot collect unemployment or find a fulltime job. He has worked for some temp services but only gets two to three days a week. I know he could use a little help but would never ask.” —
Morrisville
These are just some of the faces behind sobering statistics in Bucks, where poverty is mostly hidden behind an aura of affluence. Here, where the average household income is a comfortable $88,888, others struggle just to get by:
Nearly 5 percent of workingage adults in Bucks are unemployed, up 1.5 percent from last year. That translates into more than 31,000 county residents out of work — from Morrisville to Quakertown, Bensalem to Riegelsville.
More than 5 percent of county residents live below the poverty line. That’s at least 32,000 people earning less than $22,200 a year, the federal poverty threshold. One county official estimates the number is far higher in Bucks because it requires $33,000 to $37,000 a year for a family of three just to afford basic necessities here.
One house out of every 1,868 homes in Bucks County is in foreclosure. People also are being evicted from apartments for failure to pay their rent.
So here’s your chance to help.
Give these families a little hope in these final days leading to Christmas. Give them something to smile about. Give them something to be thankful for — a reminder that there are neighbors like you out there who care.
Contribute what you can to Give-A-Christmas. Every penny, every nickel, every dime, quarter and dollar will mean a lot.
Yes, times are tight. You can still do some good. Give at that office collection, the Salvation Army bell ringer, your church, the local food bank, or even your neighbor you know is having a hard time. This is not a specific endorsement of any specific way to help: There's plenty of outlets where your generosity can be used.
Maybe this year, the tables are turned. You've always been the generous giver. This year, you need to be the receiver. Reach out. It's hard to extend a helping hand when only one is reaching.
Wanted: Generous souls in tough times
The faces of the unemployed, the foreclosed upon and those in poverty in Bucks County demonstrate how much your help is needed.
By CARL LAVO
STAFF WRITER
The economy sputters on Wall Street and Main Street. Fortunately, the spirit of giving continues to burn bright in Lower Bucks County.
For 50 years and counting, you and your neighbors have contributed everything you can to the annual Give-A-Christmas fund sponsored by the Levittown-Bristol Kiwanis Club and the Bucks County Courier Times. Your generosity has made a difference to those who are crushed by circumstances during the holiday season.
This year, the heartbreak of families in trouble continues and is all around us.
Here’s just a sampling:
“I am a single mother with breast cancer. I have 2 daughters, ages 4 and 6. I am not working due to my illness and have no way to provide Christmas to my girls. If there is any way you could help, it would be greatly appreciated.” — Northampton
“This family has always donated to the needy but now finds themselves in desperate need. The husband and wife, both injured, are barely surviving on a fraction of their original income while trying to support their children, as well as their 20-year-old daughter who had to drop out of college when they couldn’t afford her tuition. They’re struggling to just keep a roof over their heads.” —
Levittown
“I have two children and receive $650 a month to live on from Social Security. God bless what you’re doing.” — Langhorne
“I am writing to you about a family in great need. They just lost their apartment and they have two children, ages 3 and 2, and the mother is expecting any day. The father was working 2 jobs when he lost one of them. … They aren’t having Christmas this year due to no money. They have no tree, no gifts for the children. Please help.” —
Northampton
“Mom and 4 boys — She has cancer and no money to get the boys anything for Christmas. Please help.” —
Levittown
“I work so hard to take care of my son and I. One of the Grey Nuns in Yardley gives me her old things and I sell them at flea markets to make ends meet. Please help make Christmas possible.” —
Bensalem
“I am writing for a friend who could use some holiday cheer and a touch of kindness this Christmas season. … He has been laid off several weeks ago, cannot collect unemployment or find a fulltime job. He has worked for some temp services but only gets two to three days a week. I know he could use a little help but would never ask.” —
Morrisville
These are just some of the faces behind sobering statistics in Bucks, where poverty is mostly hidden behind an aura of affluence. Here, where the average household income is a comfortable $88,888, others struggle just to get by:
Nearly 5 percent of workingage adults in Bucks are unemployed, up 1.5 percent from last year. That translates into more than 31,000 county residents out of work — from Morrisville to Quakertown, Bensalem to Riegelsville.
More than 5 percent of county residents live below the poverty line. That’s at least 32,000 people earning less than $22,200 a year, the federal poverty threshold. One county official estimates the number is far higher in Bucks because it requires $33,000 to $37,000 a year for a family of three just to afford basic necessities here.
One house out of every 1,868 homes in Bucks County is in foreclosure. People also are being evicted from apartments for failure to pay their rent.
So here’s your chance to help.
Give these families a little hope in these final days leading to Christmas. Give them something to smile about. Give them something to be thankful for — a reminder that there are neighbors like you out there who care.
Contribute what you can to Give-A-Christmas. Every penny, every nickel, every dime, quarter and dollar will mean a lot.
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