Vote Early

The district is madly trying to find ways to get the community to buy into the district.  Their current scheme to get the buy in that gives voters the illusion they are part of the process is in the form of meetings to get the opinions of the public on how to find the next superintendent.

Finding applicants for jobs is a pretty straight forward process.  The fact that they need the public’s opinion on a very simple process suggests it’s a scheme and not a real invitation for voters to participate.  My prediction is they will go with someone the public doesn’t like and the voters will again be infuriated.

The biggest thing they need to change in this process is the compensation they are willing to pay this person.  The going rate for superintendents in Ohio is $140,000.  The district decided to pay the last person a quarter of a million dollars annually.  This was a huge mistake.  In addition, they paid her a $5,000.00 bonus while achieving one state parameter and being in academic watch.  This board has proven without a doubt they have no clue how to get a superintendent to achieve.  They dangled a big fat pay check and they got a money driven superintendent not a goal driven one.

The solution is simple. Pay the next superintendent the going rate of $140,000, but build into the contract an incentive to meet realistic goals like improving the state report card and improving the graduation rate.  Allow the income progression to grow each year with success being rewarded.  If the person doesn’t perform, they get paid rock bottom and we haven’t invested over a million dollars to be worse off, like we did with Atkinson.

Offering a big paycheck invites greed to apply.  Greed will say anything to get paid.  Case in point:  Cheryl Atkinson.    Offer a fair wage with the potential to earn more with hard work and you’ll find candidates who will be goal oriented and not just in it for the paycheck.

We need candidates who will take the job knowing if they perform they’ll be rewarded.  I don’t trust this committee to be up to the task.  You have a majority of the votes  politically connected to the most corrupt politicians in the city.  It’s about power and control not about improving the district and the education kids receive.  I hope you’ll go to the meeting and share your thoughts.  They need to hear it.  I hope they will be receptive of the opinions they receive I just don’t anticipate that happening.

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Update: In today’s Chronicle, the District has now changed its mind on what they are doing in November.  Apparently, the city also wants to add an income tax so the district backed off.  They are tentatively asking for a $5.5 mill real estate levy.  This piece was written based on an article in the  Journal a few days ago.  I had no idea they were going to change it…

–The Lorain School District recently announced they would do a blended levy in November giving a 2 mill giveback on real estate taxes to homeowners while adding an earned income tax.  Translated, homeowners would get a small reduction in property taxes but a large increase in income taxes.  Lorain workers currently pay 2% income tax to the city of Lorain.  Cleverly, the school district isn’t saying what percentage of increase each citizen would get, but carefully paint it with a broad brush and estimate it at a $5 mill levy.  If citizens knew the actual percentage of  increase, they would surely be more informed at the polls.  Sadly the numbers won’t be released until after the levy passes/fails at which point it’s too late to do anything about it.   In addition, because it’s a set dollar amount it will fluctuate based on those employed.  The lower the employment rate, the more  each person will have to pay to satisfy the 5 mill levy.  If times get tougher and more people lose their jobs those still employed will have to pay even more.    It could be as high as double the current income tax or higher.  Based on this fact alone I don’t support this type of levy.  They will be punishing the working for a bad economy.  On a voter earning $30,000, their current obligation is $600.00 annually, this could rise to $1,200.00 if this earned income levy passes.  Voters can get up to a 2% credit they paid to another municipality but that is based on the rate they pay to that other municipality.  Most cities don’t take Lorain taxes out of employee checks, so Lorain citizens are writing a rather large check each year to the city.  That check is going to get a whole lot larger!  If it passes there will be some angry tax payers come April 15th.

Voters may want to know why the district took this route. The district is hoping homeowners on retirement income and disability will vote for the income tax levy because it will reduce their property taxes, although minimally and they won’t be subject to the income tax increase because only the working will be obligated to pay the new earned income levy.

The levy is pitting one demographic of the community against another and they hope it resonates well with elderly voters.  About 74% of properties in the district are owned.  Anyone working and living in the city will be subject to this additional tax including renters.  They will be dipping into the home owner pool of money in addition to the working pool.

Lorain has about 14% of our community over 65, according to the census, the district is hoping these baby boomers will vote to lower their taxes as homeowners, while increasing the taxes of their fellow community members who are employed.  That represents about 9,800 potential votes for this levy.  They are counting on these folks to tip the scale.   Homeowners who work will get an additional tax with this plan.  Anyone on public assistance is not obligated to pay anything to the district for their children to attend school.  With a high population of poor in the community, the district reports 85% economically disadvantaged.  The district is counting on retirees and those on disability who are homeowners to adopt the mentality “let those working take on this burden”.   Let somebody else pay for it.

Board member Mitch Fallis proves this by his statement in Journal saying its “the burden on the working man and woman” sounding more like a socialist politician rather than a school board member.  It’s agreed someone needs to pay for it but the disproportional amount of productive members of the community compared to the massive amount of non productive members creates a very unfair funding situation.  The burden falls on the productive members entirely.  This blended levy will bring that home.  It seems unfair that people who aren’t obligated to pay anything are allowed to vote to force others to pay.  Taxpayers are getting it coming and going.

I did research in the past and compared the number of low income  housing units in the county.  Lorain had about 70% of all available low income housing units.  The poor flock to Lorain because it’s the only city with an abundant supply of low income housing.  As a result, the working in our community are in the minority.  They end up assuming the tax burden for the entire city.  But they have been taxed beyond their means and are tired of getting more and more taxes added to them.  The city and school district have been notorious tax and spenders being wasteful with tax dollars but always having a hand out for more.

The real need in the district is to make cuts and live within their means rather than continuing to raise taxes on the working community.  We’ve lost about 25% of our students so the district’s financial obligations should also be decreasing with this loss but instead they are going up. In addition, the district has lost students by the state issuing vouchers whenever the district has performed poorly.  Our citizens can then take those vouchers to charters schools or neighboring districts.  About five grand goes with them when they leave.   We have an incredibly top heavy district with administration cost at about $12 million.  If you look at the chart below you can see the trend is very alarming.  With a drop in enrollment the administration should at least trend similarly.

The strategy behind this levy is simple, pass it by any means necessary.  It looks more like they are trying to trick one group of people into voting on it to force another group of people to pay it.  It’s really an ugly strategy.

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