Timothy Alexander: Top Priorities If Elected

We are less than two weeks away from the election on November 5th. The parents and citizens have a decision to make. Do we accept more of the same, or do we demand change?

Since the beginning of this year, addressing the District’s issues has been like peeling an onion. When we investigated taxes and return on investment, we revealed issues regarding labor costs, debt, and performance. We dug into the issue of debt; we found complacency toward enrollment and tax-base issues. Looking deep into performance issues, we exposed problems with subgroups and transparency. When we looked at the issue of transparency, we found neglect toward updating District polices… some over 10 years old and/or in conflict with current laws.

What should change look like? These are my Top Priorities if elected.

Promote true transparency by advocating all board business be in public, particularly dialogue among board members prior to each vote;

It is the right of the public to be present at all meetings of agencies and to witness the deliberation, policy formulation and decision making of government agencies. This right is vital to the enhancement and proper functioning of the democratic process. Secrecy in public affairs undermines the faith of the public in government, and the public’s effectiveness in fulfilling its role in a democratic society.

We must ensure the right of parents, citizens, and taxpayers to have notice of and the right to attend all meetings of the Octorara Area School District at which District business is discussed or acted upon.

Actively engage with citizens and taxpayers, not only providing information but actively soliciting public feedback to assess and improve.

Strengthening relations with parents, citizens, and taxpayers is a sound investment for better policy-making and a core element to good governance. It allows government to tap into new sources of policy-relevant ideas, information, and resources when making decisions. It contributes to building public trust in government, raises the quality of democracy, and strengthening civic capacity.

The Octorara Area School District must invest adequate time, resources and commitment in building robust frameworks, develop appropriate tools, and elevate their performance engaging parents and citizens in policy-making.

Balance educational excellence and fiscal restraint, ensuring efficient use of taxpayers’ dollars.

There is one great fact that Octorara Area voters should remember when they go to the polls on November 5th. The Preliminary 2014-2015 Budget, expected in January, will contain a built-in tax hike before one additional dollar is proposed.

The School Board punted the ball last June, using “savings account” money to pay for increases in spending. Expect the current $47.5 Million budget to jump to $48.7 Million when the Preliminary 2014-15 Budget is presented in January. It will potentially be a tax increase from 36.6 mills to 38.2 mills, but it could be even more.

The Octorara Area School District must make a serious effort to fix the problems of debt and labor costs. It must focus on a budget which provides a commitment to both fiscal discipline and educational excellence, and recognizing that organizations without maintaining the former we will not have the latter.

Promote excellence by fostering a true partnership between students, parents, teachers and community members.

Octorara tends to generally characterize parent involvement as volunteers assisting in the classroom, chaperoning students, and fundraising. This outdated model must be replaced with an expanded, all-inclusive school-family-community partnership approach, which stresses (1) parenting, (2) communicating, (3) volunteering, (4) learning at home, (5) decision making, and (6) collaborating with the community.

The District must…

1. Expand their understanding of family backgrounds, cultures, and goals for children;
2. Create two-way communication channels between school and home that are effective and reliable;
3. Improve volunteer recruitment, and provide work that is meaningful;
4. Involve families with their children’s academic learning at home, involving families in goal setting and curriculum-related activities;
5. Include families as active participants in school decisions and governance, and
6. Improve and expand the coordination of resources and services for families and students with local agencies, businesses, cultural and civic organizations and universities.

Make subgroup (special ed, economically disadvantaged, minority) performance a top priority.

Ask many parents where Octorara has been focusing school improvement efforts, and chances are they will say offering college-level curriculum, but at the cost of overall performance and subgroups… especially special education students and economically disadvantaged. Many parents also believe there exists an institutionalized bigotry of low expectation with subgroups. It’s not difficult to understand why. In addition to the District’s overall low academic achievement scores, Octorara also does worse than most other Chester County districts when it comes to subgroup performance.

Octorara must approached subgroups comprehensively, rather than taking a one-issue-at-a-time approach. The District must focus on issues of school culture, academic rigor, academic support, teacher preparedness and learning. Moreover, the District must have a goal to consistently outperformed the state averages on standardized tests, and accomplish this without “pushing out” any groups of students by allowing them to drop out or otherwise leave the District. Our graduation rate needs to be at or above state and county averages. Academic success cannot be accomplished at expense of subgroups.

Related articles

• “Insiders Are Wanted” – September 16, 2013 Regular Meeting (octorarataxes.wordpress.com)
• Timothy Alexander – School Board Candidate Questionnaire (octorarataxes.wordpress.com)
• Octorara Area Schools Share Pennsylvania School Performance Profile (parkesburggazette.wordpress.com)
• Octorara Intentionally Blocking Parents from Emailing Teachers (octorarataxes.wordpress.com)
• SPP Scores: Has a new day dawned? (octorarataxes.wordpress.com)

Lancaster Newspaper Reports On Octorara’s Budget Cuts

LancasterOnline’s Debbie Wygent, once again, seems to be the only reporter willing to give traditional coverage to the Octorara Area School District.

The current budget represents an increase of $903,844 — or two percent — from the current year’s spending plan. It would raise real estate taxes for Lancaster County taxpayers by 1.09 percent to 27.79 mills while Chester County taxpayers would pay 36.8 mills, a .38-percent increase.

Board members approved the plan 7-1, with Bob Hume voting against it. Henry Oleyniczak was absent from the meeting. (Read more…)

In addition to the current proposed budget, and potential cuts, Wygent also highlighted an IRS audit…

Additionally Business Manager Dan Carsley reported that the district is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service, which is looking into the 2009 bond financing of the high school renovation project. Carsley said the district will formally answer questions about how long the district has had the money, what it was used for, and what procedures the district has in place for continued reporting on active bonds.

In a related matter the board approved a post-issuance tax compliance procedure for tax-exempt and tax-advantage bonds, as recommended by bond counsel.

…and how teachers get special benefits from Pennsylvania law.

Reviewed personnel items, including one that prompted disgruntled comments from a school board member. Leon Lapp was incredulous that a teacher could be granted a sabbatical leave for a year at half pay and with full benefits.

Superintendent Tom Newcome said teacher sabbaticals are allowed under the federal Public School Code and are part of the current teacher’s contract.

“I’m trying to think how I can do this in my business,” said Lapp.

Teacher sabbaticals is one of those laws which had good intentions when enacted, but today places undue burdens on school districts.

An Octorara teacher can take the year off, get paid $33,000 plus benefits, while the district must pay the additional cost of a replacement. If the teacher is using this time to complete their Master’s degree or Doctorate, they return with a healthy pay raise and tuition reimbursement. Mr Lapp is right upset that the law gives this special privilege.

Of course, what school district will spend millions to fight this in court, which would have to be taken all the way to Supreme Court of Pennsylvania?

Octorara’s Over-Building & Enrollment Projections

Over this process, we have talked about the $6.1 Million annual debt service as being a major factor in why we are facing a 37.5 mill tax rate, and not a rate less than 30 mills. There was a 2003 feasibility report, which is repeatedly referenced to defend the debt and building of the large Octorara campus. That feasibility report stated the district would add 500 new students over 10 years, and is now 10 years old.

By 2006, the district had created the Octorara Regional Planning Commission because projections were falling short.

Throughout the process, taxpayers were worried about the dramatic increases in taxes, as well as the size and scope to the building initiative.

As the economy started to decline in late 2006, and then collapsed in 2008, the district continued with their vision.

We can now see, enrollment has not only fallen short of expected growth, it began to recede, and is expected to continue to fall. The PA Department of Education has historic enrollment, on their site, going back to 04-05.

Enrollment

• 2004-05: 2,650
• 2005-06: 2,581
• 2006-07: 2,660
• 2007-08: 2,657
• 2008-09: 2,714
• 2009-10: 2,616
• 2010-11: 2,581
• 2011-12: 2,583
• 2020-21: 2,459 (Dept of Ed projection)

The numbers never materialized from the feasibility report, with only annual fluctuations, up and down, over the period. Is it finally time the district admits the campus, with 3 elementary schools, was too much, too fast?

Is it time to consider a consolidation plan to save tax payers money, and generate revenue from the unused space to help pay off the debt?

Links

• PA Department of Education Historical Public School Enrollment Reports
• PA Department of Education Enrollment Projections

Smoke And Mirrors From The Great And Powerful Oz

Ken Knickerbocker (former school board member, former Parkesburg borough council member, and owner of the ParkesburgToday blog) is upset. I believe there is more to it, but he accuses me of “[having] bluntly accused the nine-member all-volunteer Octorara school board of 1) having “narrow, rigid vision,” 2) spending “like drunken sailors,” 3) intentionally deceiving Octorara tax payers, 4) ignoring events leading up to 2008 epic economic collapse and intentionally deceiving Octorara tax payers and 5) misrepresenting academic achievement.” (link)

This is what happens when people pull back the curtain. Most school board apologists don’t have answers. They just want to take the focus off spending, and silence dissenting opinions. They vigorously avoid discussing why controllable costs have not been better controlled. They avoid discussions about Octorara’s high labor cost issue. They avoid discussions about why the High School renovation was not at least delayed when the economic climate became harsh, and taxpayers asked them to reconsider timing and cost. They avoid talking about academic achievement data.

I’ve tried to ignore Mr Knickerbocker’s ad hominem attacks and logical fallacies, but things can only go so far before something needs to be said.

1. While I do talk about the board as a whole political body, I’m not accusing every member of the board of anything. The Board is responsible for this situation, just like Congress is responsible for our national budget crisis. The Board is responsible for governing the school district.
2. That the board is “all-volunteer” is irrelevant to any argument about cause and effect. It is also an insult to taxpayers to try and assert being a board member has no personal value, and is always done with selfless motives. I’m not questioning motives. I am questioning decisions.
3. The vision of the board being rigid is my opinion, based on my analysis of the facts and data. It was only when the well started to run dry that there any attempts to make real cuts to the budget.
4. Saying the school district spent like drunken sailors was insulting… to drunken sailors, who are spending their own money.
5. Was there an attempt to intentionally deceive taxpayers? I don’t think I specifically made the accusation of deliberate lies, and I think the facts speak for themselves.
6. Where there misrepresentations of the school’s academic achievement? Misrepresentation may be too harsh a word. I would say there was a concerted attempt to downplay or take focus off things like achievement scores, graduation rates, and college readiness.
7. Did the board ignore events leading up to 2008 epic economic collapse? The foreclosure and credit crisis existed long before final approval to proceed occurred, and the major collapse was happening and ignored while contracts were being awarded and the vote to proceed happened. This is fact. They either ignored what was going on, or… what?

The school district leadership does not want to be held accountable for past decisions. They instead want to switch the subject, and make it a conversation about shrinking State and Federal contributions, about farming tax waivers, and about the community rejecting vigorous development. They want the blame to be on people who send their kids to charter schools, taking funds out of the budget, not the school district.

They don’t want us talking about…

• When faced with a global financial crisis, considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the school district chose to move forward with the High School Renovation schedule.
• When people spoke up about taxes, and wanting them to take pause and re-evaluate the possibility, extent and financing of renovating the high school, they were told it was too late to voice their objections.
• The fact Ocotrara has had a labor cost issue, going back before 1999 that only escalated.
• The budget increase and tax hike of $1.2 Million, after other debits and credits, is almost completely labor costs of $1.1 Million.
• Labor costs (salaries and benefits) represents $27.6 Million of the total $47.8 Million 2013-14 budget.
• Salaries representing $19.2 Million of the $27.6 Million labor cost.

The Complexity Conundrum

The argument that the school budget is too complex for the average voter or “novice activist” to grasp, and even comment on, is a false argument. It is merely an attempt to keep taxpayers and voters from peeking around the curtain, and invalidate the opinions of those who have the audacity. Information seems often presented in a way to have people looking away from cost that are/were controllable, and upset with uncontrollable costs and funding issues.

It is true that the issue is complex, but the complexity comes from large amounts of information being disjointed, and presented in an incomprehensible way. It is done in a way that keeps many from even attempting to pull all the information together, and making comparisons.

The Personal Attacks and Name-Calling

From feedback, I feel confident most people recognize Mr Knickerbocker’s ad hominem attacks. I have no idea what his thought process is other than since he can’t prove the facts I post wrong, or my assertions invalid, he must attack me personally. He’s a veteran of the school board, and has a vested interest in trying to not have people digging too deep.

The ParkesburgToday blog is commentary packaged as news. It is not true coverage of the area. For all the saber-rattling, there has not been any substantive analysis. He just sits there screaming it is too complex for the average taxpayer to understand.

When we compare mill value, tax rate, and total student body, we see our tax rate should probably be around 31 mills, not a projected 37. Our spending should look more like Oxford and Solanco, not West Chester and Great Valley. Even then, West Chester’s spending is much more controlled… remember, they have almost 12,000 students compared to our 2,600.

The reason one would resort to attacking the messenger is because they can’t refute the message. Mr Knickerbocker has not provided his own analysis. He has not provided any information or data that refutes the facts I have posted, or invalids my point of view. He is not trying to solve the problems facing our community. The ranting is just an attempt to silence opinions which he does not share, nothing more.

Notes from March 11, 2013 Board Meeting

Speaking at these meetings, I pay very close attention to who is listening and who is not. I can see who is receptive to the fact many taxpayers are being harmed by Octorara’s high taxes, and those who seem to dismiss the notion as background noise.

I truly believe all have good intentions, but each interpret the issues from their own unique perspective. I’m am completely certain there are those who believe the tax issue should not be an issue.

At the open of the meeting, before visitor comments, there was a budget discussion. During this time Dr Newcome discussed wage costs. He explained, we cannot just look at the average wage because it is a too simplistic view. He had provided the board with a memo explaining the income of a teacher over the life of their employment.

His assertion is, viewed in this way, Octorara teachers make considerably less than their Chester County counterparts, but considerably more than teachers in Lancaster County. He made no judgement if this was good or bad, only that this data needs to be considered when talking about wages.

My Comments

If you follow this blog, you may already know my response. No matter how complex the contract is, and no matter what the individual lifetime income is, it is the average salary which affects the bottom-line and what taxpayers have to pay. It is hard to argue “over the life of employment” when it does not seem to be reflected in average salaries. This is where simple, basic math will take precedence.

Here is the example (not mentioned at meeting):

• 197 teachers making on average of $66,523 costs $13,105,031 (straight pay)
• 197 teachers making on average of $54,843 costs $10,80,4071 (straight pay)

The difference is roughly $3 Million a year, or about 4 Mills.

My opinion is the board should not believe people are not upset, and not talking about taxes, just because limited numbers show up to meetings. Citizens have been trained to stay away from budget discussions. I have read the minutes of many board meeting. There have been incidents where large number have showed up, asking the board to address the tax issue. The response from the board was to explain them away. Why would people continue trying to interact?

It was decisions over the last 5, 10, and 15 years placing school district in the position we are in today: causing a heavy burden on taxpayers, without providing a world-class education to students. It is my belief many choices (including construction, wages, attempts at area development, and even some courses) were made for those the may move here from wealthier areas to the east, at the cost of the citizens and students who are here now.

For all the money spent, the Return On Investment is low. In every area we look, Octorara is not performing: achievement scores, graduation rates, and college readiness. These numbers get ever worse when we look at subgroups. The investment has not provided tangible, measurable  results.

I stated to the board, we are not the only option for people wanting to move west. We are not in a vacuum, and will not attract people having both high taxes and low performance. We cannot have our motto be, “We are better than Coatesville.”

The ever growing tax burden, paying for failed ideas, is causing real harm to taxpayers, and has the potential to create long term damage to the local economy. I believe in the axiom, “The greatest good to the greatest number of people, is the measure of right or wrong.” I do not believe that the policies and procedures of the school district has provided the greatest good. This has become a moral issue for me, and this is why I am running for Octorara Area School District Board, Region 3.

Dr Newcome’s Responce

Overall, Dr Newcome did not refute that the school district is falling short for many students. He did, however, try to explain the graduation rates at the center of the Return On Investment discussion. He referred the board to a memo from last year.

Dr Newcome explained the extremely low graduation rate was not a true representation, and caused by the way they had been collecting data on students. He believe that the correct rate is probably closer to 92%. Without the supporting data there is not way to know how true the belief is in actuality.

The graduation rate for the next reporting will be 84.62%. Again, he stated this is because the school district failed to collect the proper data on students transferring. As a result, these students appear as dropouts and are included in the cohort. It will take several more years until correct data catches up with reporting in order to verify if this is correct.

Mr Norris, Vice-President

Mr Norris’ specific comments to me were that since I believe this is a moral issue, then I must be implying the board is immoral, and he took offense to the perceived accusation. I made no such statement.

The moral issue is refocusing the district on the mission of educating students and creating a responsible budget. The taxes are causing harm to citizens, and the district has not been providing many students with the needed education. He may believe the board has been trying. Unfortunately, the things that some of them may see as great accomplishments have not provided the returns.

Mrs Bowman, President

Mrs Bowman believes the board has been tasked with “solving the impossible.” It then, once again, turned into a blame game. The School Board President indicated many of the projects, having cost taxpayers money, were set in motion 10, 15, and 20 years ago, by past school boards. Her opinion is that the current board should not be held accountable for past decisions, whether the changes and costs occurred on their watch or not.

Once again, she focused a shot at charter schools, desperately wanting people to blame charter schools for our tax problems. However, we all know it is only a small part of big picture.

She disputes the idea decisions were being made to favor those who could potentially move into the area, at the expense of current citizens. The problem of taxes is, in her opinion, “too difficult” to fix. She wants to know where people want the cuts. What programs should the district do without. Her opinion is, they have cut all there is to cut.

Conclusion

For the most part, with the exception of Mrs Bowman and Mr Norris, the tone was very different than past board meetings. There was not as much negativity in the air about tax concerns, or Octorara’s student performance. It doesn’t at all mean we’ve changed the hearts and minds of those who disagreed with us in the past. It means we are making their voices heard, and members know even if they don’t think the spotlight should be on them, it is. They know they are being held accountable. Some even seem up to the challenge. However, we need to continue to persuade others.