Shame on Remely

I can't believe I read this. Dan Remely is putting down our police and fire department in the Trib article,  Renovation change orders could cost Mt. Lebanon School District $200 K

“Our illustrious police department and fire department are spending a heck of a lot of our money,” he said, noting that their reviews required more safety measures."

The PG caught that comment too. Mt. Lebanon school board nears decision on rifle range

Board member Dan Remely expressed concerns about the possibility of representatives from Mt. Lebanon's police, fire and inspection offices determining if additional safety features are needed.

 THAT HE QUESTIONS? This isn't the first time Dan Remely has questioned our fire department. I am sorry, but I would NEVER question our police and fire department when it comes to our schools - or any time!!! We're talking about our children's safety.

This is what you get when we have four seats and four candidates running for school board. They can do and say anything they want, because they're in!

On a side note, the Trib picked up on Ostergaard's comment.

Board member Dale Ostergaard said he's worried because the district approved changes costing more than $300,000 last month.
“If we continue at this pace, we're going to run out of contingency (money) in eight months,” he said.

Someone asked me where I find the change orders on the school district website. That is a good question. They aren't listed in any particular section. You have to go to mtlsd.org. On the left hand side of the home page, click on "School Board." At the top of that page, click on "Agendas." In order to find the change orders, click on every agenda listed and the change orders for that month will be there. There is no running total available on the District website. To get that, file a Right To Know. Or look on the right hand side of this blog.

Let's hear it for Directors Ostergaard and Goldman!

Last night, the school board directors voted and approved raises for head custodians, administrative assistants, supervisors, specialists, custodial/maintenance employees and administrators (3%). June 18, 2012 School Board Meeting Agenda  Scott Goldman explained why he was going to vote no. Dale Ostergaard also explained why he was voting no. Watch the meeting or listen to the podcast and hear Josephine Posti publicly scold Dale for his reasons. Larry Lebowitz also chimed in and supported Josephine. We knew it was going to go that way since Josephine included in her monthly report how Dr. Steinhauer deserved his raise. Here is the best part. Scott Goldman asked Tom Peterson if the vote was 9-0 against the raises, would the staff still get the raises.  Peterson said, "Yes." Then Goldman asked why even vote if it is guaranteed. Peterson said that's the way it's always been done.
It's on the podcast.
Remember what USC's superintendent did? Is Steinhauer in this for the money? Evidently.

Only two showed up for a cuppa Jo?

Updated the Google Doc link

In an article written by Deana Carpenter For The Almanac, there were only two community members who met with Josephine Posti, Scott Goldman, and Dale Ostergaard. Mt. Lebanon seeks community input (Updated copy to include priceless comments saved in Google Docs) I received zero feedback for this blog about the first meeting where Posti and company made an attempt to reach out to the community.  I thought people were just being shy, but it was a situation where the board members outnumbered the community members. Two mothers of children who attend Lincoln Elementary School, attended the coffee and raised the same concerns that were raised here on Lebo Citizens. As discussed in the article, one of their concerns included the MLEA grievance, a subject that the Board refuses to include in next year's budget and could be an issue for the next twenty years. That fact is only brought up by Dale Ostergaard, time and time again. Posti always seems to forget that part.

Another topic for discussion was the unanimous vote for the feasibility study. Funny thing about the feasibility study.  The money was taken out of this year's budget because it was available. But in "The List" versions 1.0 and 2.0, $40,000 is listed Above The Line (ATL) to reduce consulting fees. Were consulting fees ever listed in the budget previously? And again, no mention of our secret admirer willing to pay for 25% of that study.  Sounds to me like they backed out, don't you?

Finally, the community members were concerned about cuts that were on the table affecting the elementary schools, specifically Lincoln.  Is this when 4,000 people, including former school board directors, say, "I told you" to the school board?

The kicker was this quote in The Almanac:

Posti said that in a short period of time she has heard a lot of positive feedback from members of the community. "There are a lot of exciting things happening in the district that we see people are enthusiastic about."

Enthusiastic? Where were your supporters, Josephine? A commissioner was booked solid at her coffee at Orbis Café. Are you getting the message that we are pretty disgusted with the Board's actions?

Might. Might not. Might.

From last week's Almanac.  I am printing the entire article, including the comments that appeared online. As I have said in the past, I do not get the Almanac. I am reprinting the entire article, in addition to the link, since they do not archive their stories.

9/21/2011 

Mt. Lebanon hopes to limit second bond issue
http://www.thealmanac.net/alm/story11/09-21-2011-ML-HS-bond-

By Nick Lewandowski For The Almanac
writer@thealmanac.net
This year's property assessments will likely impact millage rates in Mt. Lebanon, according to a Sept. 19 presentation by director of fiscal services Jan Klein. She said that if assessment values increase--a likely outcome--the district will have to lower the millage rate proportionally.
Millage rates are of concern to the district as it prepares to rebid its $113 million high school renovation project.

Act 1 of 2006 limits the potential millage increase for a given year in proportion to an inflationary index calculated from both Pennsylvania wage increases and a national index for education salary increases.

Klein estimated that number to be 1.7 percent for the 2012-13 budget year.
This could impact the strategy the district uses to fund its renovation project, as it, combined with the elimination of exemptions contained within the recent Act 25 legislation, limits the district's ability to raise taxes to fund debt. While all current debt is considered "pre-Act 1," any additional bonds floated to pay for the renovation will be subject to both Act 1 and Act 25 restrictions.
As it stands now, the district faces a second bond issue of $36,640,000, likely to be needed in 2014.
Klein stressed this was the maximum the district would have to borrow, however. She urged the board to consider alternative funding sources to limit the amount borrowed. These include the $8 million capital projects fund, the $600,000 food services fund and the $1.7 million asbestos abatement fund.
Any money used would still be considered part of the project budget, but would reduce debt issuance, thus leaving the district more flexibility financially.
This could prove critical in a few years as pension and healthcare obligations pressure district finances, especially given the murky legislative climate.
Asked to speculate on the impact of future legislation, Klein replied, "there are so many possible changes you're really going to have to look at it (when something is passed)."
The board also heard recommendations from an eight-member revenue review committee co-chaired by Klein and Kirsten Fudeman, which looked at possibilities for supplementing the district's current sources of income. These included advertising opportunities within the new high school building.
"We have a very attractive demographic in this community," said committee member Marc Field, who worked on that portion of the presentation. "But it would take a real commitment of resources to develop policies to determine what is and isn't appropriate."
More traditional suggestions included a planned giving program and alumni fundraising.
School superintendent Dr. Tim Steinhauer said he along with the administrative team would review the suggestions before making recommendations to the board.
Finally, on Sept. 19 the board voted 9-1 to submit revised PlanCon documents for the renovation for the high school project to the Pennsylvania State Board of Education for approval.
Vice president Dale Ostergaard was the lone dissenter, citing previous concerns regarding add and deduct alternates specified in the bid documents.
"I don't believe (the auxiliary gym, tennis courts and rifle range) should be listed there," he said. "I feel we committed to including them in the Act 34 document."
Just because an item is included on the add/deduct list does not mean it will be deleted from the project. It does, however, give the board options if project bids again come in high.
Several board members have indicated they might not support the project if any of these items had to be removed.
2 comments

Love that last sentence : 9/22/2011
"Several board members have indicated they might not support the project if..." Now there is a commitment to a plan if I ever heard one. Might not?! Might?! Might not?! Might?! I love decisive leadership.
Fed Up

---

What???? : 9/23/2011
Board members... "MIGHT NOT SUPPORT THE PROJECT IF ANY OF THESE ITEMS HAD TO BE REMOVED." Woul someone please analyze that sentence and tell taxpayers exactly what it says! Could one sentence sum up exactly what is wrong with the Mt. Lebanon School Board and the high school project. If they "might not" support the project, then they are also saying subtly "we might support the project too!" Love it when elected officials show decisive action... don't you?
Thinking about being disagreeable!

Bonds, Debt and Taxes

I want to thank both Steve Diaz and Dale Ostergaard for having an open dialog.  It is refreshing to get more from a school board director than just, "Call my cell phone to further discuss." Thanks, Dale. I hope you aren't getting any grief from the others for your willingness to communicate.  And Steve, always a pleasure to read your eloquent letters.  Thanks.

Dale:  I respond to your message (text below).  It makes no sense to present a "millage equivalent" from non-millage charges, and there is nothing in your chart to hint at such an approach.  If, again, as you did in your last email to me, you are telling me that the figures provided are not transparent, you underscore the problems of stewardship and credibility under which the school board labors -- problems of the board's own making.  

I will not comment further as this has become a game of district officials consistently offering a moving target, never standing in one place even by the clear implications of their own numbers.  It is another example, just as you may remember the district's reference to "20 year" enrollment projections--which do not exist--during the Act 34 process.  This is part of what is wrong in this district.

The other most significant part of what is wrong in this district is reflected in your complete failure to address the "renovation" issues.  It is beyond cavil that the school board postures and games the public, and then attempts to blame everyone from it's own paid advisers and consultants to a virtually non-existent "inflation" for its own failures of judgment.  This nonsense has to stop: take responsibility for your own performance.  You yourself ran on a platform opposed to the then board-majority's blind support for the renovation plan, but in the face of pressure from your new colleagues you capitulated and caved-in.  Now, the public is not supposed to notice or hold you to your own pledge of independence?  And what of the other matters that no one on the board will discuss as to the failed renovation?  You saw how James Fraasch was bullied and intimidated, and you just bent in the wind to avoid the same fate - and make no mistake that is exactly how it looks to those of us who voted for you, including me.  When does the board accept any culpability for the decisions it makes?  

Let's take a concrete example.  You say that the near $70 million in bonds for the "new building" should never have been sold when they were, and you are absolutely correct in that.  We could not spend the money at that time, nor since for years afterward.  We are paying what is clearly too high a rate of interest and we are paying now, on funds the district cannot use for a project that may never happen and will most certainly not approach the scale for which the school board thought it was borrowing.  Moreover, there is a threat of a Federal arbitrage penalty looming in a matter of months because of the board's imprudent rush to raise money.  It is not unnoticed that you have chosen not to answer such funding, arbitrage, and financial stewardship questions as posed in my email, nor to address what, if any, action alternative(s) the board may be considering to deal with the matter.  The board is like a dog chasing its own tail: no one else sees any benefit in the motion.  How much would this district have saved if the bonds had not been prematurely sold?  Why does not the board admit responsibility for a clearly foolish and improper decision to issue bonds when it did?  It is a classic case of taking a mortgage before you go looking for a house, then only to find that you cannot buy the house after all.  Unfortunately, you used this community's credit to "buy a mortgage" - that is, to issue bonds - because it was other people's money at stake and you thought you could use the borrowing to justify a project for which there is overwhelming community disapproval (remember The 4,000).  A clear example of gaming the community and trying to coerce acquiescence in a project in which most of us have no faith and frankly see as counter-productive and wasteful.  Does the board still insist that the "essential" elements of the building project as extolled in the Act 34 submission, the board's sales brochure for the public, and in its published "FAQs" are "essential"?.  If you do think that, how can you throw yourselves, as you have, into an exercise of jettisoning the LEEDS certification, the 3rd gym, the "crystal tower", the replacement of the entire theater building and the flex-space building "C", etc. etc.?  How can you not answer these questions in simple declarative sentences?  What are you doing and why are you doing it?  Why does no one on the board have the courage to ask the obvious questions about the board's own conduct and stewardship?

The lack of introspection or open-mindedness on the school board are its most salient features.  Note, for example, that when James Fraasch left the board for work-related reasons, an otherwise unanimous board, cognizant of the petition of The 4,000 and the obvious majority sentiment of the community in opposition to your building plans, rather than acknowledge that Mr. Fraasch had been elected by a significant constituency that would have no voice whatever on the board in consequence of his leaving, and that the board, in turn, would have no internal insight into the concerns and interests of that constituency, chose a new member to replace him who, on the contrary, opposed all of the ideas and positions Mr. Fraasch represented on behalf of that constituency so you would be a monolithic "Leviathan" (to borrow Edmund Burke's famous phrase).  This was thoughtless for a local governmental entity, although it was quite consistent with your president's unconscionable commencement address to our graduating seniors this year in which she told them that they should only surround themselves with people who agree with them. This board is as anti-intellectual as it is anti-social and anti-democratic.  We seem to be governed by megalomaniacs.

It is increasingly clear that excuses and explanations are more important to a self-justifying board of politicians than any reasoned accounting of the handling of the public's business in this school district.  It is no wonder this board has failed in its own self-defined mission, and is failing by all objective standards in every aspect of its responsibilities.  In the process, you are also offending and frustrating an entire community of your neighbors.  If this board cannot handle the job, as it now appears, the members should voluntarily step aside and resign so that more insightful, effective and representative members of the community may take a turn to serve (to answer your question:  no, I would not be among those ever seeking a seat on this or any other public board as I did that already, for some 40 years).  

Dale, these are plain words, not disrespectful, but reflective of the facts and realities of the community relations situation developed by this school board as either a conscious policy or by social/political ineptitude.  It is time for someone to say:  "the Emperor wears no clothes".

With Due Respect.  Steve Diaz

                          

--- DOstergaard@mtlsd.net wrote:

From: Dale Ostergaard To: "Steve Diaz, School Board Email list, Lawrence Lebowitz

CC: Ronald Davis Subject: RE: Bonds, Debt, and Taxes...
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2011 03:14:15 +0000

Mr. Diaz,

I want to clarify the numbers I provided you concerning the PSERS rates and millage.  The "Budget Required for Pension" column represents the total amount payable to PSERS. That includes the District contribution and the state contribution.  The state reimburses 50% of the total cost back to the district.  So the cost to the district is half of what you see in the chart. You are also seeing the total cost, not the incremental cost year-to-year which is a fraction of those numbers.

I calculated the "Millage Eqv" column simply by dividing the Total amount payable to PSERS ("Budget Required for Pension") by the current millage rate to arrive at an equivalent  millage value.  It was not calculated by the District, does not represent the millage imposed on our community for pension costs, nor does it represent any increment in millage to the community for the coming years. The possible millage increment year to year above our current contribution is more in the range of .3 mills to .6 mills depending on the PSERS rate and is already reflected in the Forecast  the District puts on the website.

As part of our annual update of district financials, this forecast will be updated and posted in August with the latest projections .  Our debt service forecast will also be updated.

Sincerely,

Dale Ostergaard

Thoughts about last night's school board meeting

Last night's meeting was one of the shortest in quite a while, but I feel that there were comments made that should be noted.

Dan Remely is incorrect about the time needed to replace a school board director.  As with finding a replacement for James Fraasch, the process must be completed in thirty days, not two or three months as he first claimed. David Huston was correct. Another thing that bothered me when I watched the meeting this morning, the school board directors reacted inappropriately towards Mr. Huston's comments.  Personal attacks were made towards Mr. Huston, and that was uncalled for.  He was merely pointing out policy and tried to handle the situation as delicately as possible.  I see it as another example of bullying, which the school board does so well.  It is unfortunate that Director Sue Rose has been out of commission for as long as she had been, but there was no communication until last night's agenda about her status. We were due an explanation, don't you think?  And for school board directors to be insulted, was not necessary or appropriate.  The community was uninformed again.

Steve Diaz's ongoing conversation with Dale Ostergaard has been fruitful. It will be a topic of future discussion.  Thank you, Dale.  Here is another letter from Steve Diaz.

Bond restrictions?
Dale and Members of the Board:  I have been advised that the bonds you sold on behalf of the district for the "renovation" project, commencing in the Fall of 2009, may be restricted to construction and renovation purposes.  Such restrictions may now limit your options given the failure of your effort to move forward with the project as proposed.  Given this fact, what are you doing with the money in the interim?  We are certainly paying interest on it.  Are you drawing any income off the idle funds?  If you are drawing such income, is the district subject to IRS arbitrage penalties if the funds are not spent within a certain time (say, two years)?  What is the full scope of permitted uses of the proceeds?  What do you intend to do under the obligations of the bonds as issued?

If you can only spend the money on "renovation" and construction, what happens if you cannot deliver the project you promised to the public as reflected in the Act 34 Handbook and the glossy brochure you mailed out to all of us? Or, what happens, as now seems quite likely, if you cannot even commence construction before the end of October of this year?   Do you have any constraint of law or policy to revisit major changes in the scope or nature of the work with the public, or anyone else?  I realize that you, as a collective body, feel absolutely no obligation to advise the public of your plans or activities (I think one of your number put it most accurately at the public meeting when you passed the "no release of email without the author's consent" rule, saying: "If they don't know we have it, they cannot seek it under the Right to Know")---but will you tell me, now that I ask, how you plan to proceed?  The current hearings and agenda items seem a jumble of posturing and confusion, with no clear approach.  You seem just to want to build anything, to prove you did something.  It is actually amusing (but for the devastating financial and educational results) to watch your members scramble for "solutions" that entail back-tracking from everything you formerly said was "essential" to the project, and now trying to claim as your own the very criticisms of the original proposal The 4,000 put before you time and again only to be ridiculed and bullied by your undemocratic antics.  

All the while, not the board corporately, nor any individual member has stepped forward to take any measure of personal responsibility for your stewardship or oversight of the project.  For example, how about the chairman of the renovation committee, Mr. Remely, and his erstwhile side-kick, Ms. ("it's only a latte a day") Cappucci, or other board members, such as Mary Birks, who rather than listen to the public at the Act 34 hearings, first told the public that those hearings were "too late" an occasion to raise any objections (have you actually read Act 34?), before lecturing the public on why only your now discredited and failed plan was acceptable to you.  Does it occur to any member of the board that the "buck stops here"?  If the public is not to hold each of you personally responsible for your project, to whom do we turn?  Why do you think the school board is elected by the people?  The members of the board need to demonstrate the courage of their convictions, to accept the consequences of their own public acts, and to admit that "Sun Gods" they are not, nor do they enjoy a Divine Right to rule over us.  If you are responsible, you should at least be mature enough to say so, admit error and arrogance, apologize to your constituents who have placed a public trust in your hands - but whom you have failed.  

You can certainly continue to "stonewall" and hope the scandal will blow over.  You can tough it out.  Hide behind your secrecy and your bullying (and the bullies you send out to intimidate your legitimate critics).  But, you cannot face your neighbors walking through Uptown, or at the dry-cleaners or the grocery, with any assurance that behind the polite greetings, or the discrete evasion of face-to-face contact that the old admiration and support is still there. Sometimes, on the other hand, you do show symptoms of shame by avoiding contact with your local critics, as, yes, has been noted in recent select table-hopping by Ms. Cappucci and Mr. Remeley, for example.  The point is that you have not only lost respect in this community, you are dividing us and causing deep social and economic injury.  Is that why you "offered" to serve?  The best service you can do at this time for Mt. Lebanon is to show your own respect for the people who live here, who parent the students you are supposed to be educating, and who pay the bills you rack up, even when the interest we pay is for money that you leave laying around for years with no legitimate use, by taking responsibility for the taking and use of our money and the education of our children.   Your cavalier and ineffective stewardship has degraded the effectiveness of this school district and threatens our strong and proud academic tradition. You cannot substitute intrigue for policy, or bullying for leadership.

Dale, you recently asked me why only one "outsider" is running for the school board, given all that I have raised.  It is a good and telling question, the answer to which is as sad as it is obvious:  the school board has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation in which people are afraid of what the board members and their cronies will do to harass them and their families.  It is very troubling that 4,000 people would sign an historically unprecedented petition in opposition to your center-piece policy, but then give rise to only a single candidacy at the next election for multiple directors.  You decry student bullying, as you should, but how can you not see the impact of your own bullying on the social and political life of our town?  So, the ball is in your court:  will you engage the authors of what you now concede are very practical concerns with your program, or will you continue to demonstrate hubris and arrogance beyond sufferance?  It is your decision as to how you want to engage the public and how you will comport your duty of public responsibility now that you have committed to pursue the authority of elected office.

Respectfully.  Steve Diaz

Jan Klein reported at last night's meeting, that she was having a conference call with the financial advisor this morning.  I hope the issue of IRS penalties is discussed, as well as bond restrictions.  The podcast is online at 7/11/11 School Board Discussion Meeting.

Meeting with Mr. Ostergaard, Part 2

Steve Diaz continues his discussions with Dale Ostergard in this email sent to the School Board.

Dale:  Good morning.  I want to thank you for taking the time to read and respond to my email on the PERS obligation and the proposed 2014 bond (your clarification of the figures is reprinted below following the text of this email).  You will forgive me for missing the 1/4/2011 district posting, obscurely labeled "debt service" and not posted under a more transparent heading, such as, say, "proposed new bonds" -- so that it could easily be found and called-out for what it is, just as I hope you will understand how I might have missed the unlabeled change of subject on a chart showing the PERS funding obligation and might have attributed the bond to cover that expense.  The problem is, your clarification only makes the problem worse.

If, as you now clarify, the proposed bond at 1.2 mills on the ad-valorem rate (on top of the 10% increase we suffered just this past year for the building project) is just more "renovation" expense, then we in fact face a total of 5.39 mills for the PERS underfunding, plus the 1.2 mills for additional building expense, meaning a total prospective increase of 6.59 mills on school taxes alone in 2014 (compared to my initial impression that the 1.2 was included in the 5.39).  None of this includes the base operating and maintenance budget base, salaries, or other items.  This is an impossibly unaffordable burden for homeowners to bear.  Inasmuch as you tell me that your chart does not reflect any expense for financing the 539 mills, can you advise me what options the school board may be considering to fund this sum?  Are you advised that the district has sufficient credit, capacity or resources to cover such a level of spending?  Can you tell me in one simple "bottom line" number what the millage rate becomes after 2014 in consequence of the school boards intentions regarding "renovation", the PERS obligation, and all other spending, combined?  So, you may now understand why your "clarification" is even more troubling than the chart before explanation. 

Again, I have an idea the school board may wish to consider, given the untenable financial position its adventurous building dreams have place us in.  Let's start with the roughly $70 million the district unwisely borrowed years before it could possibly have needed the money for a building project with which it still cannot proceed, at rates that are too-high given the actual market for such securities in the intervening period and at the present time (unsound public policy and very poor planning and exercise of judgement).  Of such funds, why don't you pay the $11+ million PERS obligation in cash, and use the balance to correct the negligent deferral of maintenance of the public school property, using any "left-over" cash for such upgrades as we can afford, scaled to the significant decline in school population in this district?  If the board should find that it, at that point is some relatively smaller sum short for necessary maintenance, updates and appropriately scaled facilities, perhaps a new renovation plan could be proposed. Such an approach would put the school board's feet back on the ground by covering, on a priority basis, our necessary legal obligations, while restoring confidence in the common sense and fiduciary responsibility of the school board, preserving our enormous investment and assets in existing public property and infrastructure, while also allowing the district to revise much of the platinum-plated, unnecessary and unaffordable waste the board is currently trying to trim from the building plan (after ridiculing such ideas for the past several years and excoriating those members of the public who proposed such ideas, but were ignored, during the Act 34 "process".

To regain public confidence, the school board must demonstrate the ability to admit some measure of self-doubt, admit very substantial errors of judgement (for which it must take responsibility, not point fingers), and exercise creativity and responsibility in the management of the educational and financial affairs of our community.  I hope the school board is capable of admitting that there is no serious question of merely pushing ahead on the disastrous course by which they have arrived at the present situation.

Respectfully.  Steve Diaz

 

Mr. Diaz,
The bond issue you are referring to in 2014 is the anticipated bond necessary to complete the HS financing. This proposal can be found in the ACT34 hearing noted as the "Series 2012" bond on page 35. It shows up on the district's forecast of 1/4/2011 posted online in the Devt-Service row under Expenitures for 2014-2015.

There is no bond issue proposal to account for pension obligations. I apologize if in our discussions you came away with that interpretation.
Regards,
Dale

Meeting with Mr. Ostergaard

Now, it's getting scary.  Thank you, Steve Diaz, for sharing this with the community.

Members of the Board:  I had the pleasure of sitting down to discuss school issues on Thursday evening for two hours with Dale Ostergaard, whom I had never met before personally.  Dale is a gracious and cordial man whom I found to be thoughtful, decent and considerate (he is also a Purdue graduate).  My conversation with Dale was most interesting in that he actually provided some highly pertinent and important information to me which the public has a clear right - and need - to know.  Attached, in his own hand, are the district's projections of the funding requirements for the teachers' pension fund, and its implications to the property taxes in our town.  I have to assume you have all seen the same figures, but now is the first time that the broader public may come to know of them.  The facts are stunning and daunting -- this school district is in a financial hole much deeper than has previously been revealed. Your current disarray over academic performance and school administration as well as over the "renovation" fiasco that you have completely mismanaged, now come into perspective as your lack of candor or any sense of fiscal responsibility has outgrown any mask behind which you may try to hide.

As demonstrated in the attached chart, we are facing a teacher pension funding obligation that reaches a district-projected burden of 5.39 mills on the property tax rate within the next four years.  Add this to the 40% increase in school taxes already estimated by many observers to pay for your $113 million proposed "renovation", and the residents of Mt. Lebanon will effectively have to buy their homes all over again, mortgaged by the school district to pay for educating a substantially and rapidly declining school population with, as I have already noted in prior emails to you, an ever less effective academic program (we are still 3rd, down from 1st in the county).  We have only 5,000 students in this district, but you spend as if we were a major population center (I feel the need again to urge you to see the documentary, Waiting for Superman).  The fact that you are planning for a new bond issue to fund the pension liability in 2014 has never been mentioned by the board in the context of your renovation budgeting, which indicates to me that I was exactly correct when I wrote to you complaining that it seems you will bond us up to maximum levels without an election (one you know you would lose), just to then lay before us an additional bond issue that we "must" pass to finance the legal obligation under the pension plan.  Either you are utterly irresponsible or you simply have no compassion for the elderly living on fixed incomes, or young families struggling in an economy with a rising 9.2% rate of unemployment, let alone the rest of us, many of whom are also negatively impacted by the current depression and the dual threats of increased Federal and state income taxes.  Your fiscal universe is hallucinatory and deeply destructive to this community on every level: socially, politically, economically, and educationally.  You are well aware of the deep rifts your policies have created in this community, so I ask you:  is your "success" worth it?

Time has come for the school board to exercise some introspection as to the means and goals they have set for themselves and this district.  Time has come for the members of the school board to demonstrate some measure of humility (or at least self-control).  Time has come for the school board to demonstrate some respect for the dignity, intelligence and legitimate concerns of your constituents.  I close with one random thought I had the other day reading about the effort in one of our neighboring communities to consolidate itself with the Chartiers Valley schools:  perhaps the public in Mt. Lebanon should consider a similar petition to merge with, perhaps, Bethel Park or Upper Saint Clair to form one manageable district to get control of our out-sized administrative costs for an economically nonviable small district such as our own.  What do you think the fate of such a petition might be here?  Remember "the 4,000"?

Respectfully.  Steve Diaz

Ostergaard Pension Projections