Earned Income Tax

Why are we putting on the earned income tax for the third time?  

When we sat down and looked at the options, here was my thought process.

Property Tax-15% of our property taxes are delinquent which is almost the entire amount of the earned income tax levy. To put on a comparable property tax, we would need to ask for 5 mills, but really we would need to ask for 7 mills to account for people not paying their property taxes and
foreclosures. The polling numbers for the 2007 and 2008 levies that were similar to these numbers, in my opinion, sent a clear message that this wasn’t the route for us to go.

Traditional Income Tax-The Ohio Department of Taxation estimated that a 1.25% traditional income tax would generate $1,098,947 and a 1.25% earned income tax would generate $953,720. What does these numbers say about our community? These are my thoughts and my thoughts only. I think that
 most people in this community are working, retiring late in life, or are drawing social security, which isn’t taxed under either income tax option. At other districts the traditional income tax would generate double the earned income tax and here it generates 15% more.  It may not be fair that our generation shoulders the bulk of the burden for educating kids, but upon looking at the list of registered voters that actually turned out to vote in this community in the May 2011 election, it isn’t our generation that is impacting the outcome of these votes. The Board of Education has to put on a levy that is winnable, and I believe that this is our best option to win, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fair or equitable.

Dr. Jamie Grime

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To Mr. Homer Hendricks, Treasurer MEVS

The Ohio Department of Taxation estimates that for calendar year 2012 Montpelier EVSD (Williams County) will generate more revenue under an earned income tax base than the traditional (all income) tax base for rates from 0.25% to 2.0%.

Regards,

Rose M Hallam Vidmar, Researcher
Ohio Department of Taxation, Tax Analysis Division
30 E Broad St, 22nd Floor, Columbus 43215
614/466-0091 (office)
614/752-0700 (fax)
http://tax.ohio.gov/channels/other/research.stm

Pay to Participate Information Sheet

The following information was presented at the
Special Board of Education Meeting

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

1.     Athletics cost the district $195,356.70 out of the general fund to operate during the 2011-12 school year.

2.     During the 2010-11 school year, there were 122 high school student-athletes and 118 junior high school student-athletes.

3.     Pay to participate at $150/high school sport and $75/junior high sport will generate $27,150, which is 13.9% of the total district athletic budget.

What are other schools doing with pay-to-participate.

Bryan-$50/sport-high school and junior high with a $200 family cap/year

Stryker-$25/sport

Patrick Henry-$250/sport-high school: $175/sport-junior high with $500 family cap/year

Why not just cut athletics altogether and save the $195,356.70

1.     Ohio High School Athletic Association Bylaw 4-7-2 Exception #11 states that students attending any school district that completely discontinues sports programs may open enroll to any school of their choice and maintain full athletic eligibility.

2.     For each student that open enrolls out of Montpelier Schools, a check for $5732 accompanies that student to the school they open enroll to.

3.     This means that if 34 of our 240 (14%) student-athletes open-enrolls out, we will then begin to lose funding as a result of eliminating athletics.

Standards Based Grade Cards

Why do we have Standard Based Grade Cards?

This has been a recommendation that the Ohio Department of Education has strongly suggested that we implement. When I came here in 2008, our 3-8 school was in School Improvement Year 8. The first meeting I attended was in Toledo and the only other schools there were Toledo Public Schools and Fostoria City Schools. This should fill you in on how serious this problem was. They gave me a packet of initiatives that needed to be implemented along with 2 ODE consultants that were going to come out every month until we fixed the problem.  We ultimately did fix the problem in 2009 after my first year here.

The rationale behind standards based grade cards is that teachers need to fully understand what concepts students have mastered and not mastered and communicate this with parents so that parents know what their students need help with.  When a student is given an arbitrary letter grade, it’s difficult to know what they did well and didn’t do well. 

Custodial Information

Why we aren’t cutting Custodial/Maintenance Staff?

1.     We currently have the following employees in our custodial/maintenance staff

a.     Don Schlosser-Supervisor-Full Time (Really works 55+ hours/week and does not claim overtime)

b.     Tim Pawlowicz-First Shift Custodial-Full Time

c.      Bret Weldon-First Shift Custodial-Full Time

d.     Jason Brandt-Second Shift Custodial-Full Time (Has carpentry and masonry skills that has already saved the district thousands of dollars)

e.     Cory Wilcox-Second Shift Custodial-Full Time

f.      Cody Walsh-Third Shift Custodial-Full Time

g.     Tracee Koch-Second Shift (Bathrooms-3 hours) and Fieldhouse (1 hour) Half-Time

h.     Doug Wolff-Groundskeeper-Full-Time

2.     We eliminated the student custodian at the November Board Meeting, which was a 3-hour minimum wage paid position.

3.     We have 116 toilets and 18 showers here that are currently used by 1300 people 5 days/week. By cleaning these daily, we have avoided major health concerns with our students and staff (MRSA and other diseases). The main bathrooms get cleaned with a Kaivac, which is the most thorough industrial bathroom cleaning system on the market.

4.     We have 171,068 first floor square footage at the new school that needs to be cleaned daily.

5.     Superior gets used daily for various athletic events and Doug Wolff is responsible for cleaning of this facility as part of his daily duties.

6.     District mows 41 acres of ground that needs mowed at 3 different sites which are 2 miles away from one another. In the peak season, he mows at least 7 hours/day, 5 days/week. Many times he mows on weekends due to the weather and he never complains about having to adjust his work schedule. Doug also maintains district equipment to ensure that unnecessary repairs aren’t needed. When I took this job in 2008, I received many phone calls about how poorly our yard and landscaping was being maintained. I no longer get those phone calls and I believe that our grounds are as properly maintained as any school district around.

7.     For the past three summers, we have added Su Clifton to the summer cleaning crew, which is much less than it was before I got here. 

Dr. Jamie Grime, Superintendent MEVS

Knowledge Works (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) released a report on March 1, 2011, that rank orders the non-instructional efficiency of school districts by typology. We are considered a typology 1, which is rural, high poverty. There are 97 districts in the state that fall into this category. The comprehensive report tells all the indicators that need to be met to be considered a highly efficient district. Montpelier Exempted Village Schools scored 3 out of 97 in our maintenance department.   The report mentions Montpelier Exempted Village Schools specifically as models of efficiency for maintenance.

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Mr. Hendricks created this graph that shows custodial staff spending. You will see that in 2008, our salaries decreased by $30,000 (11%) and have only risen due to steps and salary increases. This is due to the fact that past practice was to pay overtime to plow and for other duties that Maintenance Supervisor over 40 hours.   Current Maintenance Supervisor, Don Schlosser, does not claim any overtime and there has been a severe reduction in summer cleaning crew.