i am from a different school district and I believe that the two things DO go hand in hand. You vote for the levy if you support what the Administration is doing - don't be ssssooooo naive to vote just for the children. Believe me, they will not suffer. In my district, our teachers and administration's benefits are paid at 100% by taxpayers. They contribute NOTHING.

While the rest of us tighten our belts, our school is not. In my district, Board members are elected based upon their name and not upon their voting record. People really need to wake up and vote responsibly..... my child's future is not a popularity contest.

Quality Control,

I never said I didn't like them. I don't like how they spend the funding and approve every little thing the Superintendent throws at them.

They are not rational most of the time in their decisions and those decisions are what put us in the predicament we are currently in.

You need community input for there are a lot of people out there that have good ideas but the BOE closes their mind to these people. I am not speaking of myself, but many other ideas I heard from other people that seem like great ideas.

The BOE doesn't understand or want to understand they are the representatives and liaison for the community. They feel if they didn't think of it, it is not important. I have even seen teachers present ideas and the board just stares at them with little or no response.

Teachers are in the trenches and seem to have ideas that will help the students but the BOE and Administration seem to go deaf when they speak.

The BOE and Administation are not our rulers, they are employees of the district. They need to address the needs and concerns of the people who provide their funding to pay for their salaries.

We are still waiting after two years and decision on Block Scheduling, we are still waiting for them to pay fees that they promised in 2007 for k-8 and the reduced course fees. They would of had a carryover of 2 million dollars at the end of 2008-2009 school year but spent 1.4 million over the projected revenues but still carried over $700,000.

They could not stay within the budget for reasons yet unknown because I have not received anything from them that explains why they went 1.4 million over.

Now I am leery about giving them any more funds when they can't account for the 1.4 million.

They should figure out why they overspent and make corrections to get those funds back. Pure and simple.

Our current board just doesn't have what it takes to help make this district survive and now because of their mistakes they are putting the children in this district in danger.

They can straiten this out, they just don't want to admit to their mistake. That is all that is is and nothing more. The money is there, just eliminated the things we don't need and there are many. To start, dump the Marketing firm and another is to use our own Psychs to do the observation that they hired a private firm to do.

Martin Fleming

Msmetz,

I confirmed my finding with the Treasurer of the district and he emailed me detailing that the board picks up the STRS for ALL administrators.

For the costs of utilities yes you can. The school district has joined a consortium that provides them with cheaper rates than what homeowners pay.

As I have stated, this levy has nothing to do with supporting the children and providing materials and technology. And as the superintendent stated, 85% of this levy will go to salaires and benefits.

Go to my web site, send me an email and I will forward the email to you that the treasurer states that all STRS for all administrators is paid by the BOE.

Refute that with him when you get my email. My facts are accurate and correct.

Sorry.

Unfortunately I too do not have the leisure time. I make time to attend the board meetings. I work for myself and I put in around 14 to 16 hour days. I care enough about the childrens and seniors of our community to make time for them.

Martin Fleming
Martin Fleming

I wasn't thinking anything, everything I stated is a hard fact. Voting no only punishes the children it does not do anything to remove any of the administrators or the board members that you feel are incompetent.

Thankfully a majority of Streetsboro voters think quite differently than post #2.

Marty,

I will correct at least one of your pseudo facts, I received a copy of the salaries and benefits summary just as you did. Most of the District administrators do pay their portion of the STRS only the Superintendent and Treasurer are picked up at 100%. In addition it is my understanding that many of the administrators are also paying the same percentage of their health care costs as the teachers.
If you are going to quote facts please give the complete story instead of the part that suits your purpose.
Their is a great deal more that comes out of the General Fund than salaries and benefits, utilities, bus fuel, supplies, etc... I know my fuel and utilities costs have risen dramatically in the last couple years, am I supposed to believe that the schools have been magically exempted from these cost increases. Unlike a company that can raise prices when their costs go up schools are dependent on the taxpayers to get funding. When the taxpayers will not provide the funding then services have to be cut, I do not believe that anyone takes these cuts lightly. Yes busing is one of the proposed items to be cut to save money, but also by my count sixty people are losing their jobs.
I wish I had the leisure time to attend the Board Meetings as you seem to unfortunately my work schedule interferes, I do attend when I can.
I will echo the sentiment of the article above, If you don't like the current Board of Education or the administration then vote them out elect new Board members and have them clean house. Heck you could run for the Board yourself, but campaigning against school funding is not doing anything to support the children you claim to care so much about.

This levy is not for the students. This levy is strictly and basically for salaries and benefits.

Yes I did ask for the teachers to take a pay cut but after studying the reports I have, I realized that the 5 year forecast developed by Mr. Puster already accounted for the teachers in that forecast.

Then after receiving the new report from Mr. Barnes on their year end statement I discovered it is not the teachers that put us into the bind we're in but the overspending of funds by the Administration and BOE.

Since the last BOE meeting, the teachers informed me they would take a pay freeze if the Adminsitration would pay their share of the STRS into their retirement.

At this point I then received the Salaries and Benefits the Administration receives and that really tipped the bucket.

It is not our teachers that are driving us under but the Administrators and mispending the BOE is doing.

If you keep throwing money into the pit, with no accountablility and sense of spending we will have to start voting for a new levy every year. They must first learn how to budget the money they receive.

I don't think it would be fair to the teachers at this time to take a pay cut. I don't think they should really freeze their pay either but they can do as they wish.

Again, none of this money would really go to the students in the ways of technology, books or repairing the facilities. That funding comes from Permanent Improvement. This levy is strictly for the general fund. This is where we pay the teachers, Administration and the BOE.

The Board should give up any and all money they receive from this district. Period. The Administration should pay their own STRS funds and should also take a pay cut of at least 10%.

This would leave more than enough money for the busing.

The ideal thing would be to just get these BOE members to resign and get fresh minds in there who have some strong business sense. Our current board doesn't seem to know when to say no to anything introduced by the Superintendent. They make rash and quick decisions before really going over what is put before them.

As past board members from years ago have explained to me, anything new presented was tabled to the following month to make sure what they were saying yes to was credible and needed.

Our board has never done that in the last seven years except for once.

Martin Fleming