| From: | Bill Matthews |
| To: | schoolboard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net> |
| Subject: | Board Meeting Comments |
| Date: | Sun, Mar 26, 2017 8:36 pm |
| Attachments: | MTLSD-Budget-Comments-03-26-17.pdf (2050K) |
Members of the MTLSD School Board:
Please find attached a summary (with documentation) of my remarks during last week's Board meeting.
As I indicated at the meeting, the issues continue to fall into one of three buckets: Transparency, Accuracy and Employing the Best Available Information.
Ever since Superintendent Allison left the District, we have taken steps backwards in each of these areas.
Best,
Bill Matthews
cc: Mt. Lebanon Residents
What tipped me off that something wasn't right was when Cappucci, Birks, and Remely chose not to run with other school board members. The Timmy ticket seems to be more of "one lies and the other swears to it."
ReplyDeleteElaine
The problem for this taxpayer is that I have great difficulty trying to figure out what these 3 Timmy Team members have done that justifies their re-election.
ReplyDeleteRemely promised with his vast property management experience to hold the cost of the high school project under $100 million. That boat sailed long ago.
Cappucci saw fit to ignore the advice of the CAC and 4,000 petitioners on the project.
Does anyone remember the battle the district waged with the municipality on zoning parking requirements at the high school?
Where are we today with student parking overflowing onto residential streets.
Now a solution to the rifle range has managed to work its way off the HS budget and the practice field will get a million dollar turfing off the HS project budget.
All done to circumvent the state mandated cap.
As for Mary, well what can we say about Mary's tenure.
We still have no accounting on the $6 million/ 5 year Capital Campaign.
Property taxes are skyrocketing and performance indicators are flat.
So why retain these three?
Someone please explain this to me and why we're so complacent as taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteIn a Post Gazette article from January on the district's budget it reads:
"The Mt. Lebanon School District has proposed a preliminary budget that would raise the school property tax rate next year to 24.76 mills, an increase of 0.83 mills, if approvee.
The proposed spending plan includes $98.9 million in expenditures, up about 3.9 percent over last year.
About 0.30 mills — or $15 million — of the increase is earmarked for increases in state pension funding. Those costs are expected to spike next year by 8.5 percent.
The state’s Act 1 index limits the district to a tax increase of no more than 2.5 percent — or a new tax rate of 24.5282 mills.
Because the proposed budget is 0.2318 mills over that cap, the district is expected to seek exemptions from the state Department of Education for pension and special education costs."
Recently, this article appeared:
"Mission for Mt. Lebanon schools: Lower property tax increases - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette"
http://www.post-gazette.com/local/south/2017/03/17/Mission-for-Mt-Lebanon-schools-Lower-property-tax-increases/stories/201703170028
Are we buying that pablum?
If they need to exceed the Act 1 cap and truly are looking for ways to lower property tax increases why are they considering turfing a practice field for $1,000,000?
Have Celli/Dick level it when they are done using it as a staging area for the HS renovation and reseed it.
If you turf, we're looking at a million dollar replacement in 8-10 years. Hardly a path to lower property taxes, right.
But, remember Timmy Tim member Birks' husband is a big soccer supporter so lowering taxes may not be number one.
Bloomberg News---
ReplyDelete"U.S. College Grads See Slim-to-Nothing Wage Gains Since Recession"
But administrators and teachers continue with their 3 to 6% increases every year.