Mrs Buntain & Mrs Clum,Dear Liz,
I have included a letter to you that I have been working on for quite some time. It covers my opinions of the School changes and the School Tax Levy. I was going to send it to all board members, but did not want to go overboard. I just wanted to voice my opinion. The following is the letter that I have prepared.
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I would like to address issues that have to do with the again failed school tax levy. I do not work for the school, but live within the village limits, so I am one that pays school taxes on what I earn. I do volunteer at the school and would volunteer more, if my husband’s health would allow.
The first issue that I have with increasing the tax levy is that I have seen the teachers take multiple financial hits to their income and benefits. Each time it has been portrayed as the fault of the voters and parents of the very children they teach. This may be only a partially true representation. Not every voter has children in the school system. Many of the registered voters no longer have children who are of school age. It is possible that many of them do not want to keep funding the school while they struggle to make ends meet with no children at home.
This brings me to the second issue. Where are the cuts for administration? I have read and re-read every posting that I can find on this subject. I have seen where the books were cleaned up by eliminating positions that were not being used or not utilized to their fullest potential. I believe that this is mostly just moving around money on paper. This was not as much of a cut because the money was already allocated for use for those classes or positions. Then, since almost all were not actually filled it became more of a change in the budget rather than an increase in the budget. I do that with my own budget. It is still the same amount of income, just disbursed differently. I have also seen where the teachers have taken financial cuts in their pay and benefits in order to continue to teach the children. I have yet to see anywhere that the administration has led by the example that the teachers have demonstrated. Do you believe this is as it should be? I do not. I, as a parent, have done without many things for my children, and even gotten a part-time job to help my adult children. Not because I am required to anymore, but because it is the right thing to do until they get back on their feet.
My third issue is with bullying. If a child, who has had his lunch, goes to another child daily, and says I didn’t get enough to eat, so I am taking your sandwich because you don’t exercise as much as me. Any adult would stop this behavior and call the first child a bully. Just because the administration is doing things for the school, does not lessen the fact that the teachers are also doing things for the school. They just are not the same things. If the teachers have taken a cut, then I think that the administration should have taken a cut of the same percentage.
On that same note, I realize that, the busses are going to stop in January, but I see this as a bullying tactic as well. It does not effectively deal with the fact that the voters have not approved the tax levy. This act punishes the parents and especially the children for something that they have no control over, (see paragraph #2). Maybe the voters believe that there needs to be an individual financial cut at the administration level as each of the teachers have done, and maybe even a re-thinking of the amount of the levy. If the levy is not passing as is, then possibly bringing a slightly smaller amount to the table with the addition of an administration cut could bring about the passing of the levy. That may be the olive branch that the voters are waiting for. I don’t know all of the options that have been discussed, nor am I saying that this is the way to go. What I do know is that a simple thing like even just reducing the proposal by 10% can be visually stimulating to voters looking to save money. It wouldn’t be an easy budget, but it is better than the options given if the levy does not pass. I didn’t think my family and I could live off of Social Security Disability either, but it can be done. I didn’t have to make the children drop out of sports to make ends meet either. I have even allowed two adult children, at different times, to return home when their worlds turned upside down. We made it because we ALL made sacrifices. We made it because we ALL made sacrifices.
Thank you for listening,
Liz Sisco
I will try to answer each of your issues.
1. The administration does not blame the voters and, especially, not the children for our situation and the situation of all Ohio schools. Ohio’s school funding program has not been effective for over 40 years. Our congressmen will not change it because it would make some people mad, and it would take thinking outside the box. With that said, Montpelier School Board’s choices were between a property tax, a regular income tax, and an earned income tax. We decided on the earned income tax so it would not put pressure on the people who are trying to make ends meet on Social Security. Montpelier doesn’t have a lot of people who are on any other kind of pension plan, unless, it is the Railroad Pension Plan. It has always been exempt from the school tax.
2. In regards to your issue with the lack of cuts to the administration, earlier this year, Montpelier School’s Administration won an award from Bill and Linda Gates for our ability to run our school effectively on the fewest amount of financial resources. There is not fluff to cut from the administration. The administration has not received raises in their wages. By hiring a retired administrator for the middle school, and a new high school principal, we have saved money. I would have to say that we are getting a lot for our dollars with the high school principal. She is required to attend after school programs. She probably doesn’t make $3.00 an hour if you divide her salary among the hours she works. We will not be rehiring the middle school administrator. That will save the school $80,000 in wages and benefits. Our superintendent will take up the slack when this person is gone. This is unheard of in other school districts. Our administrators do not make much more than our teachers with the same number of years of experience. I was a teacher and thought about going into administration. I decided that I didn’t want to deal with all of the things a principal deals with, and I didn’t want to work that many hours.
F.Y.I. Did you know our superintendent attends most sporting and musical events? Did you know he is there to keep discipline. He is called names and insulted not by the children, but by the adults. He has also gotten voicemail and letters that are threatening. We don’t pay anyone enough money to deal with that.
Since Dr. Grime has been superintendent, we have cut our staff from 85 teachers to 72 teachers. In the beginning, most were classes that were not filled. Now, unfortunately, we have cut teachers in the elementary and middle school so our classes have 30 students. That breaks my heart. I don’t feel this is the best for our children. I feel awful for the teachers, also. Our teaching staff makes about $9,000 less than the state average. Not only does that affect their style of living now, but it will affect their living when they retire. STRS is based on your last 3 years of teaching.
As far as the busing issue is concerned, we had meetings. No one attended our board meetings before the levy, and very few attended the special meetings. We asked people what should we do. We have to balance our budget. If we don’t, then the state comes in, and they will cut more teachers and programs. They probably won’t cut administrators, because like I stated, we are down to the bare bones. They will cut things that will really hurt our children. I have seen it done. It is horrible.
We chose busing to cut because no one from the community said anything different. I do have to interject here that not everyone is against cutting busing. I have heard from just as many for cutting busing as against. Thoughts are, “The school can provide children with an education and after school events, and parents can provide their children with a ride.” One thing I noticed at our last meeting was that none of the parents were trying to make arrangements for their children to get to school. There are neighbors and relatives that can help out. There are groups of children who can walk together. There is a before school program that children can attend starting a 6:00AM. I didn’t hear anyone at the meeting considering or actively arranging these solutions. Our society is very use to letting government agencies provide for them. We don’t have the funds anymore. We will be having a brainstorming meeting on December 13th at 5:00 for people to come with ideas on what should be done.
Addressing why we are asking for 1.25 earned income tax, the state said this is what we need to balance our budget. We know that we cannot pass a property tax. We can make more from 1.25 earned income tax than we can from a 1.00 regular tax. The regular income tax will tax people who are not working. The earned will only tax the working. If God be willing, everyone in their life will be able to take advantage of this tax.
Montpelier Schools have cut their budget since Dr. Grime has arrived. Maybe we should have listed the cuts as they were being made. In the school’s defense, they were list in the board news. We are at a lost where to go next. The next cuts are going to hurt almost everyone, because we have made all the cuts that didn’t hurt the public. There is not 10% to cut anywhere. Unlike businesses, we can’t charge more for our products. We can’t reduce the size of our products.
Thank you for your letter. You made me put into words all my thoughts that have been whirling in my head. I hope I made sense, and that you can see that decisions are not made lightly. I have shed many tears over the cuts that we have made.
Please attend our meeting on Dec.13th. Again, thank you for your questions and concerns.
Deb
Deb,
Thank you for your reply and for all of this information. I believe this is the type of information that the public needs to hear. This is how voters can get the information needed to make a truly informed decision rather than just an emotional response. I realize when making the final decisions, everyone cannot be pleased. I do believe that the board is making the decisions to the best of their ability. I also believe that getting all of this information out there for the public to know will make a tremendous change in the spring. I would have love to have seen this much detail prior to the November vote. I think it would have made a huge difference.
Liz
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