What started out to be a post about the budget...

It all started with this article in the Post Gazette, Nice surprise: No tax increase in Mt. Lebanon after all. Thanks to some refinancing of bonds, and trouble in the world, taxpayers in Mt. Lebanon will not see a tax increase.

That’s because the district was the unexpected benefactor of a fortuitous dip in interest rates due to recent world events, such as the conflict in Afghanistan, tensions in North Korea and an upcoming election in France, according to the district’s financial adviser.

The article continues with

The board is expected to approve the final budget May 22. Until then, it will be available for public inspection online at www.mtlsd.org. (Go to http://www.mtlsd.org/page.cfm?p=1415 for the budget.)

And that is when my research took an ugly turn. Looking at the budget, I don't see anything about the Capital Campaign originally suggested by Pursuant Ketchum in 2013.

We are now in Year Four of the "Quiet Phase." The longest quiet phase E V E R 

District spokeswoman Cissy Bowman [What the hell does that woman actually do???] said the campaign remains in its “quiet phase,” with organizers planning “awareness events” for potential donors during the summer and into the next school year. 

That was two years ago. Still nothing. Nothing is in the budget. No totals are mentioned ANYWHERE. We have been given crumbs, like the current brochure and the webpage showing the Campaign Cabinet. OMG!   Look who is on the committee? Two members of the Timmy Ticket! Hey Ladies, how about coming clean with some amounts in the Capital Campaign, now known as the Century of Excellence Campaign? How about a spreadsheet showing what your expenses are and what you have taken in? This is starting to sound like Mary Birks being executive director of Outreach!

How about you, Jan Klein? What can you tell us about the Capital Campaign? Exactly how many more years will we be in the Quiet Phase? I guess Mark Cuban is finding better ways to invest his money on Shark Tank.

Yet, Lebo Larry is more offended by Dan Remely's comment. (See PG article above.) I never run out of things to blog about here. The Timmy ticket has really made a mess of things in Mt. Lebanon.

"We deserve better."

Elaine:

This morning’s PG includes an article on the upgraded High School. A $110 million upgrade at Mt. Lebanon High School

An issue that caught my eye is the continued cadence from the District that this year’s anticipated tax increase is to due solely to rising contributions to the retirement system (PSERS). 

 
In the article, the District is attributed with the following: “…this year all of the projected tax hike will go to pension increases…”

Simple math demonstrates this mantra is disingenuous, at best. The local burden for PSERS is only approximately 40% of the total expenditures increase projected to fall on Mt. Lebanon taxpayers*. 

 
In fact, if all other increasing expenses (excluding debt service) remained flat, we would not require a tax increase, in spite of the mandatory PSERS increase. I fully recognize this not reality, but neither is the District’s characterization.

We deserve better.

Bill Matthews

*The State’s PSERS contribution and related expense is excluded from this calculation.

A Community With Character[s] Part 1

People generally reflect, while preparing for the new year. At least I do. 2014 was a record year for this blog. Thanks to Mt. Lebanon's own Genius Bar, the School District and Municipality,  Lebo Citizens readership is at an all-time high. New readers often tell me that they need a lesson in Who's Who so that they can follow along. While the Municipal website calls Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania "A Community With Character," I thought that I would provide a quick tutorial of Mt. Lebanon, A Community With Characters.

Starting with the Mt. Lebanon School District, here is a brief synopsis of each character, starting at the top.

Dr. Timothy Steinhauer a.k.a. Timmy, Super Tim, or super Super, is Mt. Lebanon's superintendent. He is fixated on construction, pizza lunches, tweeting photos of covers of concert and play programs, bathrooms, and shiny water fountains.

Janice Klein is the financial director for Mt. Lebanon School District. Jan Klein is famous for her fake budgets, double counting, manipulation of change order amounts, an advocate for keeping the same outside auditing firm for over twenty five years and winner of the prestigious Association of School Business Officials International's Certificate of Excellence in Financial Reporting Award for the thirtieth year. This award costs taxpayers around $900. We pay for this award. As long as all the parts of the report are submitted, you win the award. Table of contents? Check. Meet the criteria and you win! So double counting and fake budgets are permitted.

Tom Peterson, an attorney with Tucker Arensberg, is our school district solicitor.  Enough said.

Jeanine Szalinski is Timmy's administrative assistant and the Open Records Officer who handles Right To Know Requests. Jeanine works hard at making Timmy look good. The school board directors would make her job so much easier if they were more transparent with the community. I feel sorry for Jeanine.

Our school board consists of nine school board directors. Each one brings a uniqueness to the board.

Larry Lebowitz is our new school board president. Larry is our in-house cheerleader. He is always excited about something. Whether it is about our fundraising efforts, excited about Tom Celli being excited during a Construction Update, Pay for Participation fees online, or excited to be the new president, we can count on Larry being excited. Larry's expertise is in outsourcing and how to skirt the law. He was a youtube phenomenon. Almost 500,000 hits on YouTube! Larry's term ends in 2015, but will most likely seek re-election.

Mary Birks is our newly elected school board vice-president. Mary has been known to roll her eyes at residents and make snarky remarks during public comment. It will be interesting to see if Mary continues to blame Harrisburg for everything, now that Tom Wolf is our newly elected governor. Mary, our resident Harrisburg aficionado blamed Corbett for everything. Mary's term ends in 2017.

Elaine Cappucci just completed her second term as school board president. As co-chair of the high school renovation project, Elaine would answer any questions about the renovation by snarling at residents.  An excellent time keeper, Elaine would watch the clock instead of listening to constituents speak. Elaine's term ends in 2015, and will probably run again.

Ed Kubit was president of the school board during the high school turf project. (See John Ewing.) Ed had a nervous habit of looking at his watch during school board meetings when his critics spoke during residents' comments. He also gave me the gavel when private citizen Kristen Linfante was heckling me during the residents' comments portion of the April 2010 school board meeting. It was fun to agitate Ed and watch him ramble. Ed's term ends in 2015, and it is doubtful that he will run again.

Dan Remely's campaign promise was to bring in the high school project under $95 million. As co-chair of the high school renovation project, Dan did vote against the $74,000 trophy case, which was moved to Capital Projects. Dan also ran against Dan Miller in the State Representative race. Dan's term ends in 2017.

Bill Cooper made his mark on the school board when he advocated for the full proposed .54 mill increase, comparing it to “two large pizzas” on a $100,000 house. Bill's term is up in 2015 and it is doubtful that he will run again. Bill was one of Timmy's initial Key Communicators:

Al Frioni
Andy Rhodes
Betsy Dillon
Bill Cooper
Blaise Larotonda
Corey Polena
Dan Goff
Dave Reese
Deb Smit
Diane Wainwright
Elaine LaBalme
Elizabeth Glantz
Frank Baker
Frank Hines
Gail Sieg
Hugh Beal
Joe Polk
John Schrott
Kim Ressler
Kristen Linfante
Larry Lebowitz
Mary Ellen Schmidt
Rob Gardner
Rob Papke
Ruth Foltz
Sheldon Campbell
Sue Fretterd
Sue Simmons
Tom Moertel

Scott Goldman, last of the good guys, always voted with a conscience. Not a popular guy on the board, I believe he was set up one summer evening, but that's not a tale for discussion. Scott's term ends in 2015. I hope he considers running again, but it is doubtful.

I have never met Bill Moorhead. I stopped going to school board meetings before he took office. Bill doesn't appear be a yes man by voting for everything that comes along. Bill's term ends in 2017.

I remember Mike Riemer as "Officer Riemer" who would visit the kids at school. I'm not a fan of Mike's since he claims that my blog is trash. Everyone is entitled to his opinion, but he allegedly has never read Lebo Citizens. Mike's term ends in 2017.

There are others in the School District's cast of characters.

Cissy Bowman is the District's Public Information Officer, Director of Communication. Cissy has a cake job. Timmy is her photographer and the Mt. Lebanon Public Information Office writes all her stuff for mtl Magazine. 

Tom Celli, architect from Celli-Flynn Brennan, and Tom Berkabile, construction manager from P.J. Dick, are usually seen at the high school construction updates. I'm too tired to write about these guys. Do a search here and you will learn more about these cast members.

David Huston brought transparency to the school district with his trusty recorder. David has been recording all the school board meetings for five years now. He taught me everything I know about Right To Knows. Thanks, David for your dedication.

John Ewing's claim to fame is his classic line about artificial turf to Ed Kubit, "You didn't look at it, Ed." John also coined the phrase "Deadbeat Athletic Supporter." Don't dare criticize Timmy or say anything negative about fundraising. It will set him off. If you want to get on John's good side, start bad mouthing the teachers' union. They're to blame for everything.

A blast from the past includes:

Josephine Posti, former school board president, was the plagiarism expert and authority on bending school board policies. Jo was a carrier of School Board Disease. Symptoms of School Board Disease include, but not limited to:

• Disrespect of public thought
• Listening only to those who agree with you
• Illegal executive sessions protected by lawsuits against moms
• Rejection of other board members’ viewpoints
• Groupthink
• Unity Voting – the most deadly symptom

James Fraasch was definitely last of the good guys. He was head of the Audit and Finance Committee and was the most level headed school board directors that I knew. James was always a threat to the other school board directors. They circled their wagons and attacked James at every opportunity. James ended up resigning and was replaced by Larry "I'm excited" Lebowitz.

John Allison was superintendent prior to Timmy's arrival. I didn't know Mr. Allison, even though I have a photo of him handing a diploma to my son. Mr. Allison's parting gift to the school board was a stern warning about going overboard with the high school renovation. Needless to say, we would have been better off had the school board listened. Mr. Allison went on to bigger and better things in Wichita, Kansas. 

I hope Part 1 of the Mt. Lebanon School District's Who's Who guide is helpful. Part 2 includes the characters from the Municipality.

Let's play Lebo Whack a Mole

Remember this game? We would always play it when we went to Chuck E. Cheese's. A mole pops up.  You whack it and then another one pops up somewhere else. Whack a Mole.

With all this talk about artificial turf, getting the "facts" from Jan Klein about YSA's contributions, and sign ordinance amendments, the school board directors have been getting a break.  Monday, the school board agenda includes these items popping up:


More discussion about the final budget with the final vote being May 21. The school board is about to go down in flames on its latest budget. It'll be nasty and I think there may be a surprise or two waiting for us (things that haven't been discussed yet.) It may be the first budget in a few years that gets a few "Nays" which will be refreshing.  I hope the community doesn't sit back on this issue.

The school board will be approving John Ferguson as tax collector and delinquent tax collector, at the rate of $10,000 a year.  This one confuses me. Is he still needed???

Some new appointments are in the works.  They will appoint Jan Klein as Treasurer and Cissy Bowman as Board Secretary.  OMG.  Can she spell OMG?

A potential change order for the high school project will be presented and reviewed by the Board. Nello Change Order HS2012-1  This is for the general contractor who was 20% lower than the next responsible bidder.  The $8 million difference saved the project from referendum. 

And finally, the Board will be approving "Shame of the Nation" as a textbook for next year.

So while we have been discussing lawsuits, signs, turf, and all the other stuff, the School Board has been quietly gearing up for big changes. I wonder what they are going to pop up with next.  Remember, everyone has the power to make a difference. 

Seriously, why do we have Cissy?

Why do we have Cissy?  How much does she make?  It never stops.  The coffees are NOT being held at Coffee Tree on Washington Road.  There is no Coffee Tree on Washington Road.  The announcement is shown here (original version before correction found here) and here. Note: The coffee house locations will both be on Washington Road at Uptown Coffee and Orbis (formerly Aldo's Coffee.)
Why can't the District get with the program?  No budget posted along with the agenda tonight. It was posted that the special budget meeting was going to be held in the Jefferson Middle School Library, when in fact it had been moved to the Jefferson Middle School Auditorium.  The Superintendent and Board President Reports are not posted unless I mention them here.  They can't spell Markham for the Odyssey of the Mind teams. The board is voting on the OM trip which is in Philadelphia, but according to a parent here on the blog, it is in the Poconos.
Seriously, folks.  I do this FOR FREE!!!  And they want to eliminate the community service coordinator??