Is it too much to ask? UPDATED

I have been trying to get the 2013-14 Final Budget posted on the MTLSD website. The Budget that I have been asking for is the detailed budget that is generally around 200 pages - at 25 cents a page, somewhat out of my price range to pay for a printed copy.  Please read the exchange below.

Re: Follow up to Right To Know
From egillen476 egillen476@aol.com
To JSzalinski JSzalinski@mtlsd.net, jklein jklein@mtlsd.net
Cc schoolboard schoolboard@mtlsd.net

Ms. Klein,
I believe this was to go to you.
Elaine Gillen

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanine Szalinski <JSzalinski@mtlsd.net>
To: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
Sent: Thu, Sep 5, 2013 8:22 am
Subject: RE: Follow up to Right To Know
Jan,

I know the budget is ready and she could pick one up, but she is looking for it to be posted on the website.

Jeanine

Jeanine Szalinski
Administrative Assistant/Open Records Officer/
Assistant Board Secretary
Superintendent's Office
Mt. Lebanon School District
7 Horsman Drive
Pittsburgh PA  15228
412.344.2077



-----Original Message-----
From: egillen476@aol.com [mailto:egillen476@aol.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2013 8:02 AM
To: Jeanine Szalinski
Cc: School Board Email list
Subject: Follow up to Right To Know

Good morning Mrs. Szalinski,
Back in June, I had filed a RTK for the Final Budget. I was looking for the complete budget, as posted here.
http://www.mtlsd.org/district/finance.asp You had told me that the state gave you until August to make it available. I see that in July 2011, the 2011-2012 Budget was posted. As of now, nothing has been posted on the MTLSD website. When will it become available to the public?
Thank you.
Elaine

---

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I have not received neither a follow up email from the School District nor a link to the document online.

September 5, 2013 4:23 PM I heard back from Jan Klein.

Mrs. Gillen,

The report is now complete. The person who posts it to the website anticipates she will complete that function by the end of next week. 
Respectfully,

Jan

Janice Klein
Director of Business
Mt. Lebanon School District
7 Horsman Drive
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
412-344-2098 (office)
412-559-9310 (cell)

I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom - Anatole France

Yes, he is very deserving. UPDATED

The Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Linda Lane turned down her raise for a second year in a row. So far, she has declined $35,000 in pay.

After the vote, Ms. Lane said that she and the top academic team will forgo pay raises.

The decision comes as the district has made unprecedented teacher furloughs and tackles a budget deficit.

Ms. Lane said the decision is in recognition of the serious fiscal problems the district face and a statement of support "for the district and those who aren't with us. We lost a lot of good folks."

Ms. Lane's contract calls for a raise of $5,000 each year as well as a bonus of $10,000 each year if certain performance goals are met. For 2012, she was eligible for the full $15,000. But for 2013, she was not eligible for the bonus amount because state test scores dropped.

Back to the bubble, our super Super gets raises every year. Dale Ostergaard concluded, "I am also normally conservative when it comes to raises, but I think in this particular case with a single individual Dr. Steinhauer is very deserving."

Yes, he is very deserving. As I commented in my last thread about grinding and a 16 year old girl who was carried off the dance floor and taken to St. Clair and then later to Children's Hosptal because she was drunk, the PG story was the number one emailed story according to the PG.

Just last month, Mt. Lebanon School District was recognized in the PG story, PSSA results come up short in Mt. Lebanon, Bethel Park.  Goal number four 4. Student Achievement – The Superintendent will maintain or improve student achievement. We can get another warning label from PA and Timmy will be maintaining student achievement. Yes, he is very deserving, Dale.

The number one superintendent in the state, Dr. Patrick O'Toole voluntarily froze his salary as well as the financial director's salary. Certainly Dale, O'Toole is very deserving.

I guess I shouldn't be so harsh with Dr. Steinhauer. I actually got a response from his office the other day to an email I sent.

Fwd: Your website

From	egillen476 egillen476@aol.com
To	schoolboard schoolboard@mtlsd.net
Cc	TSteinhauer TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net, CBowman CBowman@mtlsd.net

While I never received a response from ANY of the eleven of you, I see that the Board reports were updated and the goals have been posted. Thank you. Why would you remove the existing reports? Would you please include all of the reports for the year?

Still nothing for the Extra Mile Award. If you just cut and paste from
the Board President's Reports, my request is a rather simple one to
fulfill.
Elaine Gillen

-----Original Message-----
From: egillen476 <egillen476@aol.com>
To: schoolboard <schoolboard@mtlsd.net>
Cc: TSteinhauer <TSteinhauer@mtlsd.net>; CBowman <CBowman@mtlsd.net>;
EGillen476 <EGillen476@aol.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 17, 2012 3:56 pm
Subject: Your website

When do you plan to update your website?

Extra Mile Award is from January 2012.
Superintendent Board Reports are from April 2012.
Board President Reports are from March 2012.
Superintendent Goals are from last year?
The agenda for Monday's meeting was finally posted on Monday morning.

Is this Cissy Bowman's responsibility?

Elaine Gillen

Finally, I got a response from an email I sent to the board.
Response from Tim Steinhauer While all hell was breaking loose over grinding at dances, Tim is enjoying his very deserving additional vacation days. Does an automated response from his office satisfy goal number five, Superintendent Performance Goals 2012-2013? Tim is well on his way for an increase next year.
Update October 25, 2012 1:30 PM Timothy Steinhauer's contract is available here. It is from June 8, 2009. It does not reflect his current salary, contract extension or additional vacation days. Article V permits him to undertake consulting work during his vacation days or with prior written approval from the Board. In other words, any time he wants.

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??

An observation

An observation: Legally unenforceable prohibitions against using any information from the taxpayer-funded websites of the Mt. Lebanon School District and the municipality of Mt. Lebanon (other than for "personal use") will lead to far wider non-personal use -- and decidedly non-flattering -- than either entity could ever have imagined.

Read more: Laurels & Lances - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_777471.html#ixzz1k0h9lMKr

Progress with the bid review process

The Mt. Lebanon School District's home page reports that there "will be an Architect Update on Monday, June 13, 2011, at 7:00 p.m. in the High School Library prior to the School Board meeting. The architects from Celli-Flynn Brennan and the construction managers from P.J. Dick Corp. will report to the School Board on their progress with the bid review process."   Again, I am asking for a volunteer to record the meeting. Presently, 37 countries have visited Lebo Citizens. There is definitely a need for these meetings to be available online, instead of just the cable channels. I have reached out to School Board candidates with no luck, and now I am asking the Key Communicators for help.  Unfortunately, my list of Key Communicators is over a year old (not well communicated), so maybe one of these people would volunteer.

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

If you are willing to help, please contact me at EGillen476@aol.com, and I will make arrangements to get a recorder to and from you.  Thanks in advance!

Update 9:54 am It occurred to me that there may be some readers who are not aware of the Key Communicator group.  Through a Google search, I found this explanation on the Plano Independent School District website. http://www.pisd.edu/about.us/key.communicators/index.shtml I also found references to Dr. Steinhauer's group at a local level. http://voteccl.com/about_bill , http://jposti.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-board-member-appointed.html and http://votelinfante.com/content/candidate-profile-kristen-linfante.

But can they spell?

Fairfax County Schools, in Falls Church, VA, has had a freeze on salaries for two years.  Jack D. Dale, superintendent of Fairfax County public schools, has announced a plan to introduce significant pay raises for school employees in next year's budget - a proposal that drew immediate criticism from the county's Board of Supervisors.

Dale has long promised to prioritize employees' salaries - which have been frozen for two years - in this year's tense budgetary process, which begins next month. He will ask the county this spring for a 2 percent cost-of-living increase and a 2 percent step increase, which would cost about $70 million.
Read more: The Washington Post: Fairfax schools chief seeks raises for employees; supervisors critical

Mt. Lebanon School District, on the other hand, had “approved an average salary increase of 3 percent for administrators; 2.5 percent for administrative assistants and supervisors, specialists and head custodians; 3.86 percent for custodial and maintenance employees; and 4.55 percent for secretarial and clerical employees. School Director Dale Ostergaard cast the only vote against approval of the 3 percent salary increase for administrators, so the motion passed 6 to 1, with directors James Fraasch and Elaine Cappucci absent from the meeting.”  Read more: Post Gazette Mt. Lebanon school administrators, other employees getting raises

In my on-going efforts of getting the Mt. Lebanon School District website up to par, you may remember this letter to the editors of Blog-Lebo. School District Website Reflects Poorly on the District and Community.  My latest find is School Board President Reports Only four reports were posted in 2010.  The September report linked to September 20, 2010 (Swine Flu Tips)  I am not sure that Mr. Kubit reported about the Swine Flu at that meeting, but I could be wrong.  It was also pointed out to them that the spring break (April 6-9) wasn't three days as reported on the home page of the District website. 

Why do administrators get increases in Mt. Lebanon when they can't get things right?  Even our Superintendent didn't meet his goals in 2009-2010 and got a nice increase.  Other school districts have salary freezes.  Why is our School Board so free with our money?