Friday, October 9, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Stief and O'Boyle for Antietam School Board
John Fielding
It is once again time for the school board elections in Antietam. We have five candidates running for four seats.
I endorse Roger Stief and Larry O'Boyle.
I've known Roger Stief for a while while involved in the Antietam Youth Baseball Association. He is a young man with a family in the district, who will bring that perspective to the Board. While by no means poor, Roger is a man of modest means who can be expected to bring a dose of financial common sense to the board of the district with the highest tax millage in the county. The Antietam School Board seems determined to raise taxes at every opportunity. The administration's policy is to raise taxes to statutory limit every year whether it needs to or not. This year seems to be the only exception; after all the administration has to do what it can to make the election of its liberal-spending allies on the board more certain. Roger is not one of them. Vote for Roger Stief.
My other recommendation is Larry O'Boyle. Larry and I don't agree on everything and that's okay. But Larry has shown to me in two years that he has the taxpayers of the district at heart (even if he is a Democrat!) and, even when we don't agree, Larry is always looking for the cheapest way of getting the job done.
Of the remaining three, two (Ann Sellers and Dave Stauffer) are liberal spenders and toadies of the administration. I would not endorse them if they were the only ones running.
The remaining candidate, Beth Calabria, is a newcomer, taking the place of that other unreconstructed liberal, Joanne Just. I had great hopes for her, but then she justified a vote by speaking of "the children," as if every expenditure we don't make will vitally endanger our programs.
It used to be said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel; no, it isn't, it is children, animals, and trees. They are the only three unfortunates that cannot successfully fend off the liberals and all the "good things" liberals want to do for, and to, them.
Vote for Stief and O'Boyle for Antietam School Board on may 19th.
It is once again time for the school board elections in Antietam. We have five candidates running for four seats.
I endorse Roger Stief and Larry O'Boyle.
I've known Roger Stief for a while while involved in the Antietam Youth Baseball Association. He is a young man with a family in the district, who will bring that perspective to the Board. While by no means poor, Roger is a man of modest means who can be expected to bring a dose of financial common sense to the board of the district with the highest tax millage in the county. The Antietam School Board seems determined to raise taxes at every opportunity. The administration's policy is to raise taxes to statutory limit every year whether it needs to or not. This year seems to be the only exception; after all the administration has to do what it can to make the election of its liberal-spending allies on the board more certain. Roger is not one of them. Vote for Roger Stief.
My other recommendation is Larry O'Boyle. Larry and I don't agree on everything and that's okay. But Larry has shown to me in two years that he has the taxpayers of the district at heart (even if he is a Democrat!) and, even when we don't agree, Larry is always looking for the cheapest way of getting the job done.
Of the remaining three, two (Ann Sellers and Dave Stauffer) are liberal spenders and toadies of the administration. I would not endorse them if they were the only ones running.
The remaining candidate, Beth Calabria, is a newcomer, taking the place of that other unreconstructed liberal, Joanne Just. I had great hopes for her, but then she justified a vote by speaking of "the children," as if every expenditure we don't make will vitally endanger our programs.
It used to be said that patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel; no, it isn't, it is children, animals, and trees. They are the only three unfortunates that cannot successfully fend off the liberals and all the "good things" liberals want to do for, and to, them.
Vote for Stief and O'Boyle for Antietam School Board on may 19th.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Antietam School District 2009 Budget
John Fielding
On January 28, 2009, the Reading Eagle reported the following:
"Antietam's preliminary budget shows a 5.7 percent tax hike
The Antietam School Board Monday night approved a preliminary 2009-10 operating budget that, if unchanged, could require a 5.7 percent tax increase.
This means the real estate rate would rise to 33.4 mills, up from the current 31.6 mills. Property owners would pay $33.40 per $1,000 of assessed property value or $3,340 for a home assessed at $100,000.
The $14.5 million budget increases spending 2.1 percent over this school year.
The budget is expected to change significantly between now and final adoption in June, said Michele Zimmerman, business manager."
Because of Governor of Phildelphia, Ed Spendell's, Act 1 foolishness, our preliminary budgets now have to be developed far in advance of the date when we have solid information regarding revenues from the state. Thus, even if the budget were to remain the same from the previous year, for starters, we still might have a shortfall if the state's basic education subsidy is not at the same level as the previous year.
But more than that is the significance of what Michele Zimmerman was saying. An increase in a budget has a "millage impact" on the budget, meaning that for the budget to balance, the revenue has to increase, the expenditures have to decrease, or a mixture of the two.
The reason Ms. Zimmerman ended up talking about a tax increase instead of a millage impact is because the leadership in the Antietam School District has a settled philosophy that it must raise taxes to the limit permitted to not submit the tax increase to the voters of the district, a vote it would lose. Thus, Antietam raises taxes each year, whether it needs to or not, because it never wants to have to go to the taxpayers to ask to raise them more.
Poor Michele is not a politician and forgot that whatever one must do, one must never indicate publicly what the leadership of the district is doing.
There will be a tax increase this year: not because of what you want, nor what I want, but because of what the liberals in charge of the school district want.
On January 28, 2009, the Reading Eagle reported the following:
"Antietam's preliminary budget shows a 5.7 percent tax hike
The Antietam School Board Monday night approved a preliminary 2009-10 operating budget that, if unchanged, could require a 5.7 percent tax increase.
This means the real estate rate would rise to 33.4 mills, up from the current 31.6 mills. Property owners would pay $33.40 per $1,000 of assessed property value or $3,340 for a home assessed at $100,000.
The $14.5 million budget increases spending 2.1 percent over this school year.
The budget is expected to change significantly between now and final adoption in June, said Michele Zimmerman, business manager."
Because of Governor of Phildelphia, Ed Spendell's, Act 1 foolishness, our preliminary budgets now have to be developed far in advance of the date when we have solid information regarding revenues from the state. Thus, even if the budget were to remain the same from the previous year, for starters, we still might have a shortfall if the state's basic education subsidy is not at the same level as the previous year.
But more than that is the significance of what Michele Zimmerman was saying. An increase in a budget has a "millage impact" on the budget, meaning that for the budget to balance, the revenue has to increase, the expenditures have to decrease, or a mixture of the two.
The reason Ms. Zimmerman ended up talking about a tax increase instead of a millage impact is because the leadership in the Antietam School District has a settled philosophy that it must raise taxes to the limit permitted to not submit the tax increase to the voters of the district, a vote it would lose. Thus, Antietam raises taxes each year, whether it needs to or not, because it never wants to have to go to the taxpayers to ask to raise them more.
Poor Michele is not a politician and forgot that whatever one must do, one must never indicate publicly what the leadership of the district is doing.
There will be a tax increase this year: not because of what you want, nor what I want, but because of what the liberals in charge of the school district want.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Reading School Board Fracas: It Is Amazing That It Doesn't Happen More Often
John Fielding
So I'm driving in my car, and I put on WEEU.
So the news comes on, and I hear about Pierre Cooper attacking Keith Stamm during the executive session of a Human Resources committee meeting (at Antietam, it is Personnel).
I can understand.
You can be pushed to the edge during some of these meetings, although I have to say that Keith is one of the more mild-mannered individuals I've met.
But I digress.
At Antietam, when you hear that there is a artificially fixed metric for determining what the administrative team gets paid based on the top of the bottom quartile of the school districts in Berks, and when you hear that despite a bunch of happy talk about Antietam's special ed directors, you discover that, instead, they haven't been getting the job done despite being recommended for bonuses, and whn you hear that for the umpteenth time, Antietam will have a raise in millage "just because," there is plenty to fight about around here, too.
So I'm driving in my car, and I put on WEEU.
So the news comes on, and I hear about Pierre Cooper attacking Keith Stamm during the executive session of a Human Resources committee meeting (at Antietam, it is Personnel).
I can understand.
You can be pushed to the edge during some of these meetings, although I have to say that Keith is one of the more mild-mannered individuals I've met.
But I digress.
At Antietam, when you hear that there is a artificially fixed metric for determining what the administrative team gets paid based on the top of the bottom quartile of the school districts in Berks, and when you hear that despite a bunch of happy talk about Antietam's special ed directors, you discover that, instead, they haven't been getting the job done despite being recommended for bonuses, and whn you hear that for the umpteenth time, Antietam will have a raise in millage "just because," there is plenty to fight about around here, too.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Once Again, a Tax Increase
Once again, the Antietam School Board has voted 8-1 to propose a Final Budget including a tax increase for the 2008-2009 budget. The .80 mil tax increase comes at a time of rising costs and a tanking economy for everyone in the Antietam School District.
Once again, Antietam can lay claim to the championship for the highest millage rate in the county.
The only board member voting against the proposed budget requiring a millage increase to balance it, was John Fielding.
Why did the Board pass a budget that requires a .80 revenue increase to balance it? Because they could.
First, because of the backend referendum requiring public approval of a tax increase over a certain limit (specified year to year, by a relatively complex formula), school boards do everything possible to avoid having to go directly to the public to raise taxes over the limit. One of the strategies to avoid doing this is to, first, use the exceptions written into the law, which are fairly generous. A second strategy is to raise taxes every year whether you need it or not under the theory that if you really need the money in the future, you will have passed up an opportunity to get it now and "sock it away." So the current board has bought into the theory that it is better to increase taxes every year by small increments than to require it all at once and risk the taxpayers turning it down in a referendum.
Second, this year, the taxpayers are realizing for the first time property tax reductions as a result of gaming revenue. Since all approved homestead/farmstead om school districts across the commonwealth will experience property tax reductions based on this revenue, the Antietam School Board has apparently reasoned that what better way to disguise a tax increase than to bury it in a larger reduction based on revenue. That way, the voters experience a real dollar decrease (although not as much as they might have without the tax increase by the district), and Antietam gets to raise taxes, unaccompanied by the usual "bellyaching" by those who pay the freight.
If the taxpayers of Antietam wish to do anything about tax increases for the foreseeable future, they might want to consider running for school board in January 2009, not June 2009 when the next tax increase will be passed.
Once again, Antietam can lay claim to the championship for the highest millage rate in the county.
The only board member voting against the proposed budget requiring a millage increase to balance it, was John Fielding.
Why did the Board pass a budget that requires a .80 revenue increase to balance it? Because they could.
First, because of the backend referendum requiring public approval of a tax increase over a certain limit (specified year to year, by a relatively complex formula), school boards do everything possible to avoid having to go directly to the public to raise taxes over the limit. One of the strategies to avoid doing this is to, first, use the exceptions written into the law, which are fairly generous. A second strategy is to raise taxes every year whether you need it or not under the theory that if you really need the money in the future, you will have passed up an opportunity to get it now and "sock it away." So the current board has bought into the theory that it is better to increase taxes every year by small increments than to require it all at once and risk the taxpayers turning it down in a referendum.
Second, this year, the taxpayers are realizing for the first time property tax reductions as a result of gaming revenue. Since all approved homestead/farmstead om school districts across the commonwealth will experience property tax reductions based on this revenue, the Antietam School Board has apparently reasoned that what better way to disguise a tax increase than to bury it in a larger reduction based on revenue. That way, the voters experience a real dollar decrease (although not as much as they might have without the tax increase by the district), and Antietam gets to raise taxes, unaccompanied by the usual "bellyaching" by those who pay the freight.
If the taxpayers of Antietam wish to do anything about tax increases for the foreseeable future, they might want to consider running for school board in January 2009, not June 2009 when the next tax increase will be passed.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Staron Should Put His Foot Where It Counts
May 7, 2008
Letters to the Editor
Reading Eagle
P.O. Box 582
Reading, PA 19603-0582
To the Editor:
In the April 30, 2008 Reading Eagle, Tom Staron, President of Mount Penn Borough Council stated that “We need to get together with the supervisors of Lower Alsace Township and go directly to the school board and put our foot down. We have to tell them they can’t keep raising taxes. Otherwise we will continue to see more and more vacant properties.” Since 1997, as chairman of the Antietam Tax Watch and now as a member of the school board, I have been waiting for Mr. Staron and his friends to help. Unfortunately, when I need help during elections to affect the taxing and spending policies of the school board, Mr. Staron’s “foot” is always elsewhere.
I continue to welcome any substantive help to address the situation. What I do not need is empty rhetoric and political grandstanding from the cheap seats.
Very truly yours,
John A. Fielding III
Mount Penn
Letters to the Editor
Reading Eagle
P.O. Box 582
Reading, PA 19603-0582
To the Editor:
In the April 30, 2008 Reading Eagle, Tom Staron, President of Mount Penn Borough Council stated that “We need to get together with the supervisors of Lower Alsace Township and go directly to the school board and put our foot down. We have to tell them they can’t keep raising taxes. Otherwise we will continue to see more and more vacant properties.” Since 1997, as chairman of the Antietam Tax Watch and now as a member of the school board, I have been waiting for Mr. Staron and his friends to help. Unfortunately, when I need help during elections to affect the taxing and spending policies of the school board, Mr. Staron’s “foot” is always elsewhere.
I continue to welcome any substantive help to address the situation. What I do not need is empty rhetoric and political grandstanding from the cheap seats.
Very truly yours,
John A. Fielding III
Mount Penn
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Free Lunch: Title I's formula for determining aid -- and its recipe for fraud.
Lisa Snell | August/September 2001 Print Edition
Individual schools receive Title I funding based on the percentage of students that are eligible for the federally subsidized free-lunch program. Though the lunch program is designed to provide food to low-income students who might otherwise go hungry, its guidelines do not require schools to verify the parental income of students who enroll. The process to qualify for a free lunch comes down to parents self-reporting their income on a form that is turned in to their local school. Federal free-lunch program administrators argue that the program has little potential for abuse because "the worst that happens is a kid gets a free lunch."
Federal free-lunch data, however, are used as one of the main poverty indicators for school districts and are linked to many other local, state, and federal funding streams. So any fraud in the free-lunch program is quickly multiplied. And rest assured that school districts recognize the program's multiplier effect and work hard to sign up students. Consider this typical account from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times last summer: "When Gulf High School assistant principal Pat Haynes sees needy children lunching on cookies or a bag of chips, she knows the kids are jeopardizing more than just good nutrition. Those kids are also cutting into their school's ability to cash in on its share of millions of dollars in grants and government rebates designed to benefit low-income schools."
The result of such incentives is both soft and hard abuse of the free-lunch program and, by extension, many other programs designed for students from low-income households. Many school districts offer free ice cream and other tokens to kids who return their forms, even if the students aren't eligible for the program. Schools have mailed multiple enrollment forms to parents and some have even taken to calling families at home to ask them to enroll.
For example, in October 1999 The Baltimore Sun reported that the principal of Patterson High School took to the intercom and announced: "Guess what is coming? Pizza Party! Everyone connected with the school from parents to staff members will eat pizza, get a free T-shirt, and listen to a disc jockey if poor students can get their parents to fill out an application for free and reduced-price school lunches." In 1999 about 50 percent of Patterson High School's 2,200 students qualified for free meals. By using the pizza party strategy, school principal Laura D'Anna increased that to more than 70 percent of students in 2000.
While fraud from the federal free-lunch program may have small consequences for the program itself, the cost of fraud to other education programs such as Title I may be much greater. Districts that have tried more strictly to verify parental income have met with resistance.
When the Bergenfield school district in New Jersey required parents to submit more extensive income documentation after the number of students in the free-lunch program doubled in one year, the New Jersey state nutrition program forced the district to reinstate all students who were disqualified from the program. Bergenfield district business administrator Tom Egan argued that there were inconsistencies in some of the applications, including applications from students whose parents had homes valued at $350,000.
In some cases, however, school boards openly overreport their school lunch data. In 1999, the Clifton school board in Bergen, New Jersey, voted 5-4 to report that exactly 20.16 percent of public school students were poor enough to qualify for free lunches, instead of the actual number, which was 19.19 percent. The difference was significant: If the number dropped below 20 percent the district would lose $4 million in aid. As the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record reported in November 1999, board president Wayne Demikoff said while casting his vote for the higher number, "I cannot, in good conscience, vote for something that is going to devastate the budget."
Strangely, the board did not necessarily break the law by reporting the higher number. The lower figure was arrived at by verifying the income of 80 percent of the families that applied for a free lunch. The federal government requires districts to verify only 3 percent.
The free lunches bring the district both short-term fiscal benefits and long-term financial consequences. Each year, Clifton receives millions of dollars in aid for needy students. At the same time, New Jersey districts that have more than 20 percent of their students on free lunches are supposed to begin providing full-day kindergarten and half-day preschool.
Individual schools receive Title I funding based on the percentage of students that are eligible for the federally subsidized free-lunch program. Though the lunch program is designed to provide food to low-income students who might otherwise go hungry, its guidelines do not require schools to verify the parental income of students who enroll. The process to qualify for a free lunch comes down to parents self-reporting their income on a form that is turned in to their local school. Federal free-lunch program administrators argue that the program has little potential for abuse because "the worst that happens is a kid gets a free lunch."
Federal free-lunch data, however, are used as one of the main poverty indicators for school districts and are linked to many other local, state, and federal funding streams. So any fraud in the free-lunch program is quickly multiplied. And rest assured that school districts recognize the program's multiplier effect and work hard to sign up students. Consider this typical account from the St. Petersburg (Florida) Times last summer: "When Gulf High School assistant principal Pat Haynes sees needy children lunching on cookies or a bag of chips, she knows the kids are jeopardizing more than just good nutrition. Those kids are also cutting into their school's ability to cash in on its share of millions of dollars in grants and government rebates designed to benefit low-income schools."
The result of such incentives is both soft and hard abuse of the free-lunch program and, by extension, many other programs designed for students from low-income households. Many school districts offer free ice cream and other tokens to kids who return their forms, even if the students aren't eligible for the program. Schools have mailed multiple enrollment forms to parents and some have even taken to calling families at home to ask them to enroll.
For example, in October 1999 The Baltimore Sun reported that the principal of Patterson High School took to the intercom and announced: "Guess what is coming? Pizza Party! Everyone connected with the school from parents to staff members will eat pizza, get a free T-shirt, and listen to a disc jockey if poor students can get their parents to fill out an application for free and reduced-price school lunches." In 1999 about 50 percent of Patterson High School's 2,200 students qualified for free meals. By using the pizza party strategy, school principal Laura D'Anna increased that to more than 70 percent of students in 2000.
While fraud from the federal free-lunch program may have small consequences for the program itself, the cost of fraud to other education programs such as Title I may be much greater. Districts that have tried more strictly to verify parental income have met with resistance.
When the Bergenfield school district in New Jersey required parents to submit more extensive income documentation after the number of students in the free-lunch program doubled in one year, the New Jersey state nutrition program forced the district to reinstate all students who were disqualified from the program. Bergenfield district business administrator Tom Egan argued that there were inconsistencies in some of the applications, including applications from students whose parents had homes valued at $350,000.
In some cases, however, school boards openly overreport their school lunch data. In 1999, the Clifton school board in Bergen, New Jersey, voted 5-4 to report that exactly 20.16 percent of public school students were poor enough to qualify for free lunches, instead of the actual number, which was 19.19 percent. The difference was significant: If the number dropped below 20 percent the district would lose $4 million in aid. As the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record reported in November 1999, board president Wayne Demikoff said while casting his vote for the higher number, "I cannot, in good conscience, vote for something that is going to devastate the budget."
Strangely, the board did not necessarily break the law by reporting the higher number. The lower figure was arrived at by verifying the income of 80 percent of the families that applied for a free lunch. The federal government requires districts to verify only 3 percent.
The free lunches bring the district both short-term fiscal benefits and long-term financial consequences. Each year, Clifton receives millions of dollars in aid for needy students. At the same time, New Jersey districts that have more than 20 percent of their students on free lunches are supposed to begin providing full-day kindergarten and half-day preschool.
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