True Costs Of the MCSC School Levy

Ms. Andrew, I want to thank you for graciously investing time associated with the levy debate. While I disagree this is a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity for the matching grant at 26% as the new line forms if it fails, you have been an honest broker with information.

I am stepping out of the fray and letting constitutional theory debate take over. I can handle Adam Smith and Milton Freidman on economics, but I am slightly overwhelmed with tea party purists to add much more to the debate associated with constitutional issues associated with property taxation.

  

Charter school advocate wants to strip requirement for public schools from Ohio Constitution

http://www.ohio.com/news/charter-school-advocate-wants-to-strip-requirement-for-public-schools-from-ohio-constitution-1.480752

Published: April 14, 2014 - 10:50 PM | Updated: April 15, 2014 - 10:57 AM

COLUMBUS: The phrase in the Ohio Constitution that requires the state to provide an adequate system of public schools would be stricken from the document if the head of a constitutional modernization subcommittee has his way.

Chairman Chad Readler, a Columbus attorney who leads the Constitutional Modernization Commission’s schools and local government committee, wants to remove the phrase “thorough and efficient” from Article VI of the Constitution.

Justice Francis E. Sweeney Sr., who wrote the majority opinion, scolded the legislature by calling for a “systematic overhaul” of public education, citing examples of unsafe buildings and poor academic programming in some districts while many suburban districts enjoyed great wealth.

“Today, Ohio stands at a crossroads,” he wrote. “We must decide whether the promise of providing to our youth a free, public elementary and secondary education in a ‘thorough and efficient system’ has been fulfilled. The importance of this case cannot be overestimated.”

If  in fact our legislators are considering changing the system of public schools in our state, we need not invest any tax collected  moneys until they have made a final decision.

Click on above link to read the whole story

 

Abolish the property tax for the school system!! its unconstitutional !!

Vote no on may 6 if you want to START making a change in the current system!!

 

Visit

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Middletown-Ohio-Vote-NO-on-Issue-3/784089358269325?ref=br_tf

 

and like the page to show support of your constitutional freedoms in Ohio.

 

please don't hesitate to tell me your opinion as

 

Brevity is the soul of wit  

 and with out laughter over the kinks in society anarchy might prevail.

and that's the rest of the story , good day ( Paul Harvey 1946)

Marcia Andrew and fellow blogers pro and anti bond / levy

Marcia Andrew  has stated that the OSFC is a reputable and accountable arm of our school funding system.
in preliminary research of this bureaucratic extension of distribution of illegally collected land tax for public schools I have found that ,

http://www.clevelandchallenger.com/arkansas-man-behind-clintons-1992-black-son-scandal-silenced/

state auditors failed to audit the Ohio School Facilities Commission. Why?

Ohio's biggest Republican names will tumble like dominoes if the Ohio School Facilities Commission is ever audited and investigated

It is an Ohio law that every unit of government must be audited no less than once every two years.  The state auditor doesn’t have the option of performing the duty.  State senators and state representatives passed laws saying they must do it.  If a state auditor doesn’t audit or cause every unit of government to be audited no less than every two years, Ohio’s revised code calls their failure to perform the duty … dereliction.  It’s a criminal offense.

The penalty doesn’t carry jail time, although it can if added to other offenses.  What it does is expose a politician or bureaucrat’s incompetence in performing the lawful duties of the jobs they hold.   Derelict public officials and employees forfeit the job and can’t run or serve anymore.  It’s a pretty good law when it’s consistently enforced.  The problem is finding an example of a politician of bureaucrat of any party who has been charged, prosecuted and convicted for “dereliction of duty.”

So the only state elected official who a Republican state auditor "special audited" as ex-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell by Mary Taylor.

So the only state elected official who a Republican state auditor “special audited” was ex-Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell by Mary Taylor.  Yeah right! 

So let’s talk about the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) that has never been audited by any state auditor since its inception in 1997.  That’s four state auditors since 1997: Jim Petro, Betty Montgomery, Mary Taylor and now David Yost.  Yost is still within the time frame required to ensure that the OSFC is audited under his watch, but the clock is ticking.

The OSFC was originally funded with $2.3 billion in 1997.  It’s no secret that ex-Governor George Voinovich’s handpicked executive director, Randall Fischer, personally awarded 1700 contracts totally $1.8 billion without public bidding or commission approval.

Compare the donors to Voinovich’s campaigns to the 1700 companies getting contracts from Fischer and the game they were playing becomes obvious.  It’s  why the 16 year lack of an audit trail is so glaring.

Montgomery can’t claim she didn’t know Fischer violated laws at least 1700 times.  She was the attorney general and the OSFC’s lawyer when Fischer’s misdeeds were exposed in the Monarch Construction v. Ohio School Facilities Commission 2002 decision.  Montgomery was supposed to represent the interests of the citizens of Ohio after the agency was sued for the wrong Fischer had done.  There’s no way for Montgomery not to know Fischer was violating public spending laws before she became the state auditor in 2003 after Petro replaced her as attorney general.

The case was heard in ex-Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s court when she was a Franklin County common pleas judge.   Read what Brunner said in the decision she ruled against Montgomery’s defense of Fischer and the OSFC’s equally derelict board members.

“Nearly $2 billion of public money have been distributed through more than 1,700 contracts for the construction and renovation of schools throughout the state of Ohio, not one of which has been approved by a vote of the commission. The final word on all of these contracts has lain with one individual, who is not a public officer, has not taken an oath of office, nor is bonded. The public education of the state’s children, an essential government function, is threatened by the unbridled discretion unlawfully placed in the hands of one person, Randall Fischer. This is unconscionable.  The court finds as a matter of law that OSFC has not only unlawfully approved the rejection of Monarch, it has abused its discretion in so doing.”

Montgomery should have screamed to high heaven about Fischer’s 1700 crimes to any official who would listen, especially to the general assembly.  As attorney general she should have reviewed every illegal contract Fischer handed out and reported back to the state’s citizens.  She also should have blasted Petro for his dereliction in not auditing the agency that employed Fischer.

Once Montgomery replaced Petro as state auditor in 2003, she should have minimally performed the required two bi-annual audits of the agency during her four term in office.  But since Montgomery had first hand knowledge of Fischer’s crimes, she should have conducted a special audit and forwarded the results to the Franklin County Prosecutor.  The same applies to Taylor, who’s now lieutenant governor. Neither of the two politicians audited or special audited the OSFC.  Taylor did, however, conduct a special audit of J. Kenneth Blackwell’s “office” as secretary of state after he lost for governor in 2006.  In fact, Blackwell has been the only state official to receive a special audit.  We wonder why.

OSFC employees and the agency’s commission members have spent an unscrutinized $13 billion since its inception.  It’s understandable why Petro and Montgomery were silent as attorney generals since they would have exposed each other’s dereliction as state auditors.  But their decision to cover for each other doesn’t negate the fact that a complete, thorough and retroactive audit of the OSFC is long overdue. The fact that it hasn’t happened is proof by itself of their dereliction and of Taylor’s.  Only in politics do officials who fail to perform the duties of their elected offices get to hide their shortcomings behind fancy commercials and get promoted.

State officials appear to have gone out of their way not to audit an agency that’s handled $13 billion since 1997.  We think it’s because they know the cookie crumbs will lead to jail time for the party’s biggest names.  A complete audit will expose such widespread corruption the cast of characters it exposes will make what happened in Cuyahoga County look like petty theft.

Yost seems to be catching up on the backlog of audits his political party mates left him.  Even this writer’s 2006 through 2009 audits as East Cleveland’s mayor were finally performed six years later in 2012, and nearly three years after he left office.  East Cleveland’s previous financial audit was in 2001.  That’s 11 years without an audit for a city being in fiscal emergency under the auditor’s supervision for 18 years.

If Yost doesn’t audit the OSFC twice within his term of office, he’ll be the fourth derelict state auditor not to review how and who received $13 billion to work on Ohio schools.

Real and not “bull____” accountability demands that Governor John Kasich immediately order an intensive audit of the OSFC and let the chips fall where they may on who is held accountable. 

Another indiscretion by OSFC 

http://www.ohioconstitution.org/2010/10/18/ohio-rico-complaint-filed-to-stop-school-construction-corruption/ 

Ohio RICO Complaint Filed to Stop School Construction Corruption

October 18, 2010

1851 Center Lawsuit alleges Strickland administration and OSFC placed union financial interests and remaining in office above fiscal responsibility in building schools.

COLUMBUS – Tax dollars have been wasted and continue to be at risk due to an unlawfully cozy relationship between the Strickland administration and labor unions, claim a group of Mansfield-area taxpayers. The residents today filed an Ohio Corrupt Activities Act complaint against Gov. Ted Strickland, Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC) Executive Director Richard Murray, the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) and others. The suit will demonstrate members of the Strickland administration, organized labor, and Murray used the OSFC and school building construction contracts to engage in pattern of corrupt activities expressly prohibited under Ohio’s RICO laws.

Click on the above link to read the whole story.

Another indiscretion by OSFC

http://thetruthaboutplas.com/2010/06/30/columbus-dispatch-examines-value-of-plas-osfc-director-loosens-corrupt-grip-on-ohio-schools/

Columbus Dispatch Examines Value of PLAs, OSFC Director Loosens Corrupt Grip on Ohio Schools

1 June 30, 2010  School Construction, State & Local Construction

With Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland’s appointed director of the Ohio School Facilities Commission (OSFC), former Big Labor boss Richard Murray, under investigation for pushing school districts to use union-favoring project labor agreements (PLAs) as a condition of receiving funding from the OSFC, the media stands ready scrutinize these corrupt and wasteful agreements.

Click on above link to read the whole story

Marcia Andrew  has stated that in her view I was irrational and incoherent with my post on the blog.

Lets review the definitions,

Irrational

adjective

    1. not logical or reasonable.

                            reason / Reason is the capacity for consciously making sense of things,  applying logic, for establishing and verifying facts, and changing or justifying practices, institutions, and beliefs based on new or existing information.

    synonyms:     unreasonable, illogical, groundless, baseless, unfounded, unjustifiable;

                         absurd, ridiculous, ludicrous, preposterous, silly, foolish, senseless 

incoherent

adjective 

not able to talk or express yourself in a clear way that can be easily understood

 not logical or well-organized : not easy to understand

1:lacking coherence: as

2:lacking cohesion :  loose

3:lacking orderly continuity, arrangement, or relevance :  inconsistent

4:lacking normal clarity or intelligibility in speech or thought

 

In my view I hardly think that I’m Irrational.

It is only rational thinking that gave our forefathers the idea that you could not have

equal taxation with out equal representation.

Taxing the land owners for the benefit of all taxpayers is discrimination.

In my view I hardly think I’m incoherent.

I  have written and copy’d and pasted many opinions that state clearly and have simple language that gives a specific fact based opinion that land based tax in unconstitutional.

Its your duty as well as the governments constitutional duty to “provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools" common denotes that the school in Indian hills should be a carbon copy of the school in middletown. They are not because people like y the pro levy / bond lobby continue to violate our constitutional freedoms by propagating a illegal form of funding schools.

Tha above paragraph shows that I have continuity in thought , that there is in fact logic to the argument as detailed by the supreme court in 1997.

Threw out your country's history it has always been the case that one citizen or resident starts the process of renewed justice for all.  It's is in many cases it's a life's work. Just look at the life of Martin Luther King.

What do you represent as a upright, compassionate, benevolent resident or citizen ?  I urge you to consider that looking the other way as the status quo indoctrinates discrimination as a form of legal taxation, that the unraveling of your own community will continue as social injustice will be the norm with no one standing up for constitutional principals and freedoms.

And additionally with the favoritism used by OSFC in its distribution of state tax funds I suggest that all taxpayers land owners or not should reconsider the continued abuse of educational funds for the prosperity of the few. Do you as a tax payers want the continued abuse of your hard earned tax dollars to empower special interest groups that are selected by your politicians to receive the contracts for your institutions ?

The above items along with other opinions that I have posted are relevant to the ideal that the current  bureaucracy is tainted in many ways besides  the fact that it dose not “provide for a thorough and efficient system of common schools funded by the state threw contributions from all tax payers, not just tax paying land owners.

 

 

Abolish the property tax for the school system!! its unconstitutional !!

Vote no on may 6 if you want to START making a change in the current system!!

 

Visit

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Middletown-Ohio-Vote-NO-on-Issue-3/784089358269325?ref=br_tf

 

and like the page to show support of your constitutional freedoms in Ohio.

 

please don't hesitate to tell me your opinion as

 

Brevity is the soul of wit  

 and with out laughter over the kinks in society anarchy might prevail.

and that's the rest of the story , good day ( Paul Harvey 1946)

Marcia Andrew wrote: Vet, maintenance and repair includes preventive maintenance.  Repair is fixing something that has broken, maintenance is routine care and prevention, like oil and gas changes and tire alignments for your car. Both have been done.

NOPE. MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR DO NOT INCLUDE PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE. MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR HAPPEN AS A RESULT OF HAVING NO PM. (PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE) IF ONE WATCHES AND TENDS TO THE MACHINE (BUILDING IN THIS CASE) AS TIME GOES BY, PM IS DESIGNED TO LESSEN THE IMPACT AND COST OF MAJOR REPAIRS.

Ms. Andrew, I will use a very simple analogy so that you may understand the difference between routine maintenance/repair and PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE..

YOU AND I OWN HOMES. THE HOMES HAVE A LAWN. THE LAWN REQUIRES WATER, FERTILIZER, WEED AND INSECT CONTROL AND CORE AERATION TO STAY ALIVE AND FLOURISH DURING THE GROWING SEASON/SUMMER MONTHS.

IF YOU DO NOT SPEND THE MONEY ON A HIGHER WATER BILL IN SUMMER MONTHS, DO NOT INVEST IN SCOTTS HALTS FOR CRABGRASS, TURF BUILDER PLUS TWO FOR WEED CONTROL, SUMMERIZER FOR FERTILIZER AND INSECT CONTROL AND WINTERIZER FOR THE FALL, YOU MAY LOSE YOUR ENTIRE LAWN AND INVEST AN EVEN GREATER SUM OF MONEY RE-ESTABLISHING YOUR LAWN.

YOU MUST SPEND MONEY TO PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT AND TO PREVENT AN EVEN BIGGER CATASTROPHY...IE- LOSING THE ENTIRE LAWN.....OR BUILDING.

SAME WITH VAIL. IF YOU DIDN'T SET UP, IN YOUR BUILDING BUDGET, A SUM OF MONEY TO TACKLE THE THINGS NECESSARY TO PREVENT SOMETHING MORE SERIOUS FROM HAPPENING TO THE BUILDING EACH YEAR OVER THE 50 YEARS WE ARE DISCUSSING, YOU INCURED LARGE REPAIR BILLS WHEN THE PROBLEMS CAME TO A POINT OF NO RETURN.

IT IS WHAT FACTORIES USE TO KEEP THEIR MACHINES ON LINE AND RUNNING TO MEET PRODUCTION SCHEDULES. BEATS THE HECK OUT OF A MACHINE SITTING IDLE FOR WEEKS/MONTHS WAITING FOR AN EXPENSIVE REPAIR BILL TO BRING IT BACK ON LINE.

AGAIN, WAS THERE A PM PROGRAM SET UP DURING THIS 50 YEAR PERIOD, KNOWING THE BUILDING WAS IN A SITUATION OF REQUIRING MORE ATTENTION AND WAS THERE A SPECIFIC FUND SET UP IN THE BUDGET FOR PM? IS THERE ONE NOW FOR ALL SCHOOL BUILDINGS OR IS THE PLAN JUST TO LET THEM FALL APART, TENDING TO THE MAINTENANCE ASPECT WHEN THE SITUATION BECOMES CRITICAL?...THEN ASK THE TAXPAYER TO BUY YOU A NEW BUILDING LIKE YOU'RE DOING NOW AND WITH THE ELEMENTARIES YEARS AGO?

Acclaro, I don't remember all of the details regarding the higher initial bond payments and I don't know where to go to get the details, but in concept it was like two different bond issues. The largest one for full term and the bulk of the cost. The second one for 5 years, or so, for a smaller portion of the total cost. Since the second bond issue was a much shorter term the payments were higher than they would have been with a longer term. This "second" short term bond issue will go away and the new bonds for phase two will be at the max term allowed thus not adding much to the millage and to the yearly cost for property owners.

Vet, maintenance and repair includes preventive maintenance.  Repair is fixing something that has broken, maintenance is routine care and prevention, like oil and gas changes and tire alignments for your car. Both have been done.

Attention Voters....we have to take commercial break from one of our sponsors:

Valentine's Day Dinner

February 14th, 2014, 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Spagetti Dinner at Middletown Middle School
$8.00 - Adult Ticket
$4:00 - Child/Student Ticket
Stay for the Varsity Boys Basketball Game & Senior Night
Dinner provided by Sodexo

The voter should determine who puts $1.5 MM into the economy, not the BOE, nor its vendors.

Ms. Andrew; respectfully, you have made the case for the opposition, by stating very little maintenance was done after Phase 1, conveniently, teeing up Phase 2 replacement----"why bother with maintenance, we are getting a new car!"

Also, this project was visioned by a BOA that did not want new buildings. The Ohio Facilities Commission authorizes alterations for any capital expenditures weighing new build vs renovation of old, above 66% of outlay.

Movement to the east end is the driver, maintenance costs just along for the "ride."

When considering the numbers leaving the middle school years and returning, they are very nominal when considering the capital outlay.

The voters should vote this down in my opinion, and wait until MCSD sees improvement and in all probability, has a better state match than .26%, in my opinion.       

Several posters keep stating, as if it is a fact, that the middle school building is in the shape it is in because the district has supposedly not spent any money on maintenance and repair of the building since the last "major renovation" of the building 50+ years ago.  I asked our treasurer to pull information from the district's records as to amounts spent on repairs and maintenance at the middle school.  Over the last 7 years (the time period available on the financial system) the district has spent over $100,000 per year on average on maintenance and repairs of the middle school.  This does not include the time of salaried maintenance workers (before we outsourced maintenance to Sodexho 2 years ago) or the portion of the Sodexho contract attributable to the middle school (much routine maintenance or small repairs are done within the contractual payment to Sodexho).  This is during a time period when the district has been deferring major repairs or replacements on the middle school once the master plan anticipated that the building would be replaced as part of phase two.

chmoore, the school district website was re-designed last year. We are looking to re-post in one place all of the documents from the Facilities Committee.  In the meantime, one could go to the Board Docs page and search "master facilities" and a number of presentations to the board pop up.  However, this only goes back to I think 2010 when we started using the Board Docs software.  It won't show the process prior to that.

chm1;" Also, not "my committee."

Reference to votemiddies.com NOT your committee?

Levity, know you support the 'Starbucks' tax. Spirited debate, nothing personal.

Heck, I'd like to see the monthly fee per day broken into CPM   (Cost Per Minute).

.29 cents an hour.

.005 cents a minute.

In other words, lets squeeze that number where it vanishes.

processor, albeit accelerated or not, the cost would be as was indicated, or a close. Phase 1 was not matched, hence, we have principle costs, which now appears to be heavily front-end loaded (using the acceleration you refer), but I understand your point. But, if you look at LFI, the chasm/ variance, between Phase 1 and Phase 2 is negligible; about $ 5 Mm.

On the top end (300-400 KK property value), paying about a Wildwood membership annually, .4 % Brown's Run, and about 1.6 of membership at Forest Hills---annually.

ROI has to be there; pretty high numbers.

156 MM x .26- 40.56 MM

156 MM - 41 MM- 115 MM

Same numbers. About a 7.5-8 mil cumulative levy (Phase 1, 2)

Glad you aren't on the votemiddies.com team chm1.

Guarding the truth : D Amortized pain---brilliant strategy.