ANTIETAM TAX WATCH

Vote for Me (and Judy)

2011-11-08T00:34:00.001-08:00

John Fielding

Well, Election Day is here at last. Finally the end to people harrumphing through campaign speeches, pointing with pride and viewing with alarm.

I realize that the voters of the Antietam School District have about had it with the high taxes and dubious expenditures. I realize also that it is tempting to turn out all incumbents and start fresh. However, a few words with you first.

New people are, yes, new. As such they are untried and, frankly, unpredictable. After all, in 2008, America thought it wanted change and look how well that turned out. With incumbency, you have the advantage of examining records.

I would urge you to consider mine. I have voted against every single budget containing a tax increase. There has only been one that has not had one. There is a tendency in government to spend every dime because it is there. Because there is no end of "wish lists." And as it is in our own personal economies, at some point we must all say that we can't have it all.

Antietam has spent money for positions it did not really need because of artificial "requirements" placed on itself. Some board in the past established some policy that said that our administrative staff salaries needed to be pegged at a certain amount relative to the rest of the county and many on the board have just gone along with it. I have complained about it since I was elected. You don't hear a lot about it because the discussion is in executive session because it comes under the heading of personnel.

We have decided that we "need" a certain student to teacher ratio, and, as a result, we must hire more professional staff to reach, once again, an artificial requirement.

I must say, this talk of executive sessions causes me to reminisce fondly regarding my first executive session on the board. It was actually called for the express purpose of yelling at me.

I won in 2003, but did not take my seat until December, 2003. The board had negotiated a new teachers' contract that called for an 18.4 percent salary increase over five years (not counting step increases). However, the way the law is written, the public does not know anything or get to comment until the board votes to ratify the deal. I didn't like that so after the teachers ratified the contract but before the board could vote, I leaked the summary of the contract to the Eagle. Hoo boy. Charlie Gerhart told me in the executive session that "we don't know if we can trust you." I replied, "That's easy, Charlie; you've known me since 1997. Of course you can't'"

They still can't, a fact of which I am proud.

Because I am not elected to get along with people or to be a team player. I am elected to represent the interests of those that elect me as I see them. The day that I don't do that the people have every right to throw me out.

But I believe have represented those interests and wish to continue doing so.

In my time on the board, I have always had an ally. In my first term it was Lisa Iezzi and, for a brief period, Cliff DeFrees. In this term, it has been Judy Swartz. We don't always agree, but we do more often than not. If you wish to return me to office, I would appreciate your vote for Judy as well.

Well, that's about it. Oh, about those signs. Yeah, they're ugly. But they fit my unofficial campaign slogan, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am that cheap."

And, as it turns out, they are the perfect signs to represent me (and Judy).

Please vote for us, John Fielding and Judy Swartz, for Antietam School Board.

Eat the Rich

2011-06-29T13:37:00.001-07:00

Vote for Fielding and Schwartz on May 17, 2011

2011-05-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

John Fielding

It is with as much modesty as I can muster that I ask the electors of the Antietam School District to vote for me and Judith Schwartz in the Antietam School Board primary election on May 17, 2011.

Judy and I ran together four years ago, and, while we don't always see eye to eye and vote together, I can say that Judy is with me more than she's against me, and is almost as hard with a dollar as me.

I have never voted for a budget with a tax increase in eight years on the board, and Judy is pretty fiscally responsible as well. At this time, when everyone must tighten their belts, the school district is no exception. Please return us: we have tried to hold down taxes and spending to the best of our ability.

On the other hand, one other candidate needs to be mentioned. Christopher Faro is running for a seat on the board as well. He is a teacher in Twin Valley, is the head of their teachers' union, and is the husband of Melissa Faro, a teacher in the Antietam School District. His website claims of the incumbents: "Their policies have resulted in annual tax increases and consistently lower student achievement. As parents and taxpayers, we are not getting our money's worth. There needs to be a change right now."

The tax increases belong to those who voted for them. Since I have never voted for one, I refuse to take ownership of them. Regarding the lower student achievement, I would point out to Mr. Faro that the composition of the present Antietam student body is not that of Twin Valley. This is pretty bold talk from someone who has no experience administering a school district that comes from more modest family means. Mr. Faro's antidote for the problem is the antidote that all liberals propose: more money. As we have discovered with Mr. Obama, this is not change we can believe in.

The problems that Antietam faces are many, and may prove intractable with Antietam going it alone. I can pledge to the taxpayers of Antietam School District that I stand ready to explore all possible solutions to the financial and educational bind in which the taxpayers and the school district find themselves.

Please vote for me, John Fielding, and Judy Schwartz in the primary election on May 17, 2011.

Interesting Candidacy in the Antietam School Board Race

2011-03-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

John Fielding

At the latest count there are eight candidates running for five spots on the Antietam School Board. Incumbent Greg Burdan is not running for re-election. Myself, Judy Swartz, Julia Kleiman-Baer,and Bev Daniels are the incumbents running for re-election. Then there are four non-incumbents running. One of them is Christopher Faro.

Husband of Melissa Faro, a teacher in the Antietam School District, Mr. Faro is a teacher in the Twin Valley School District. More importantly, he is the head of the teacher's union at Twin Valley.

Antietam faces some tough choices. Already the highest taxed school district in the county, Antietam faces a $700,000 deficit in its budget even if it were to raise taxes by the .61 mils permitted under Act 1 without referendum. I will not vote to raise taxes. In fact the only budget for which I have ever voted was a zero tax increase budget proposal of 2009 for the 2009-2010 year. All of those years of spending and taxing, however, are about to come home to roost.

With labor costs comprising 60-70% of Antietam's budget, I'm not certain that having the head of the Twin Valley teacher's union on the Antietam School Board is going to help much.

School Choice: Waaaaaay Overdue

2009-10-09T04:40:00.000-07:00

Stief and O'Boyle for Antietam School Board

2009-05-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

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.

The Antietam School District 2009 Budget

2009-02-09T12:52:00.001-08:00

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.

Reading School Board Fracas: It Is Amazing That It Doesn't Happen More Often

2009-01-24T09:11:00.000-08:00

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.

Once Again, a Tax Increase

2008-05-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Staron Should Put His Foot Where It Counts

2008-05-09T10:03:00.000-07:00

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

Free Lunch: Title I's formula for determining aid -- and its recipe for fraud.

2008-04-15T12:38:00.000-07:00

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.

Inner City Kids Benefiting From School Choice

2008-03-05T08:47:00.000-08:00

By Dr. Matthew Ladner
Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Democratic activist Steve Barr, founder of the Rock the Vote campaign, has dived into school reform in Los Angeles. Predictably, this has run him straight into the teeth of opposition from the education union. Barr has been busily kicking out those teeth.

Barr’s Green Dot is a group of charter schools with a strong record of accomplishment with very disadvantaged students. Public school teachers in Watts have been using a California law to secede from the dysfunctional Los Angeles district to join Green Dot as charter schools. The education establishment in the city, led by the education unions, has fought Barr every step of the way. But so far, Green Dot is winning.

Barr is no union buster; his schools have school-level associations. Barr’s take-no-prisoners style, however, includes no patience for urban schools that systematically fail kids. Barr will not tolerate tenure or other impediments to quality learning.

Barr makes it clear, in sometimes colorful language, that the purpose of state education spending is to educate children, not to provide job security to underperforming adults. He told LA Weekly, “Where are these … (expletive) teachers going to go? Where are these lifetime benefits going to go? What will happen to all of these groups protecting their interests and their jobs and their construction contracts? The political puzzle of this is really fascinating. But I have no doubt that within five years, you’re going to see our impact. And it’s going to be huge.”

Green Dot Schools in the toughest neighborhoods in Los Angeles have an average high school graduation rate of 80 percent. The first two Green Dot schools also had high percentages of graduates attending four-year accredited colleges and universities. The school model focuses on getting resources away from bureaucracy and into the classroom and an unflinching commitment to academic achievement.

Susan Estrich, manager of the 1988 Dukakis presidential campaign, blasted the Los Angeles school board for trying to stop Green Dot. Estrich describes the dire need:

The graduation rate at the local high school, one of the absolute worst in Los Angeles, is 3 percent…Green Dot was ready to go in Watts. It had the money to open the schools. It had the support of the community. It met all of the legal requirements for its charters to be approved. Indeed, the School Board staff advised the members that their only legal option was to approve the charters... But who cares about the rule of law when the teachers’ union is saying no?

TV personality Drew Carey recently filmed an internet program on Green Dot’s takeover of Locke High School in Watts for the Reason Foundation. Approximately 75 percent of 9th graders entering Locke do not graduate in four years, and less than five percent of Locke students go on to four-year colleges. In the 2003-2004 school year, there were three sex offenses, 17 robberies, 25 batteries, and 11 assaults with a deadly weapon at Locke. In the “no good deed goes unpunished” world of dysfunctional public school districts, the principal who tried to turn the school around was hounded by the unions.

Barr is not alone as a Democrat defying the prerogatives of the education unions. Democrats for Education Reform is a new group that is making a big splash. In 2007, the group held an event in which U.S. Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) stressed the importance of parental choice and innovation in education. Clyburn, the House Majority Whip and the highest-ranking African-American in Congress, supports both charter schools and private school tuition tax credits for middle-class families.

At an earlier event held by the group, Representative Jesse Jackson Jr. discussed “alarming dropout rates” and the dangers of a “monopoly” filled with failing schools. “We must explore options,” he said. “Every option for every American child so that every child might have the high-quality education they deserve in their lifetime…We need more competition in the system.”

Jackson Jr. mentioned that his parents sent him to the elite St. Albans Episcopal School in D.C. when he was a child. He said he plans to push the envelope to make Democrats approach education with a more open mind.

The big tent of education reform keeps getting bigger. The relationship between liberals and education reactionaries is under obvious strain. As Churchill once said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Dr. Matthew Ladner is vice president of research for the Goldwater Institute and an expert on educational reform and school choice. Dr. Ladner holds a Ph.D. from the University of Houston.

Thanks to Dimocrats, Bev Daniels survives

2007-07-27T01:07:00.000-07:00

Once again, through no fault of the Tax Watch, Bev Daniels has managed to maintain her place on the Democratic ballot for the Antietam School Board general election. The Republicans nominated Parents & Taxpayers United candidate, Jerry Palamara.

In the years that Bev has been on the board, taxes in the Antietam School district have soared. And no wonder. Bev Daniels has never met a tax increase she didn't like. I remember an exchange during a Finance committee meeting in 2004. Bev was musing over an extra part time math instructor position. Don Smith pointed out that the increase in taxes to pay for all of Bev's goodies already was substantial, up to 2.41 mills. Bev said to Don, "I thought you told me I could have 2.5 mills." I said, "What are you talking about? What are you doing. Don, giving her an allowance?" Such is life on the Antietam School Board unless the taxpayers of this district do something about it in the 2007 elections and beyond.

Obviously, the Democrats in the district must like being taxed within an inch of their life. Not only does Bev vote for every increase in the budget, which must be paid for by an increase in taxes, but she doesn't pay them herself. She has been egregiously behind in her taxes since at least the mid-1990's. So why should she mind tax increases? She doesn't pay them herself.

I know a lot of good conservative Democrats in the District. I have run with some of them for school board. But they are going to have to wake up and smell the coffee. Bev Daniels needs to go. Now.

John Fielding

The View Is Always Clearer From The Cheap Seats

2007-07-24T21:35:00.000-07:00

The following was a letter to the editor of the Reading Eagle as submitted:

Editor:

Don Smith’s letter of July 5, 2007 finds “thoughtless” my reported comments regarding Antietam, “We’re the poor district that keeps up with the Joneses.” Mr. Smith confuses academic quality with the labor costs necessary to achieve it. A school board is obligated to maintain the quality of education, but is not obligated to pay what other districts think necessary to achieve it, as has been the policy of the Antietam board, i.e., “keeping up with the Joneses.” Competing “academically at the same level as those of Wyomissing” does not require Antietam to pay what Wyomissing pays.

He also finds your story, “Exeter leads school districts with tax hike,” (Reading Eagle, July 1) superficial for reporting that Antietam has the highest millage rate. He states “a more interesting study would be to show the average home value in each district and what the average homeowner pays.” I’d like to see a survey of those discouraged from buying houses in Antietam because no one wants to shoulder the Antietam tax burden when they can own more house elsewhere and pay lower relative tax. Mr. Smith’s argument simply attempts to justify continual tax increases to fund bloated labor costs, which in Antietam constitute approximately 70% of the budget.

I’ve supported the idea of merger of school districts for about 10 years and supported the Commonwealth Caucus plan from its inception. Mr. Smith was silent on this while I served on the board with him. Now that he is no longer on the board, the view must be clearer from the cheap seats. I guess “where you stand depends on where you sit” after all.

John A. Fielding III
Mount Penn Borough