Keeping Mt Lebanon informed about the thinking that goes into decisions on the Mt Lebanon School Board
Friday, January 30, 2009
Stimulus and Mt Lebanon School Construction
According the bill that passed the House, funding to school districts will be sent to the State first. That money then will be doled out by the State according to its "principal funding formula". Pennsylvania's funding formula does not help us out very much.
There was an article in the Post-Gazette on Tuesday that outlined how much money each school district would receive. In fact, the calculation for every school district in the state can be found here. According to this chart put together by US Rep Jason Altmire's Education and Labor Committee, Mt Lebanon would expect to receive the following funds:
1) Construction Funding - $207,600
2) IDEA Funding -$568,200 (2009) and $651,200 (2010)
Total funding would be $1,427,100 over two years under this bill.
By contrast, the City of Pittsburgh schools would receive $55,023,600 over two years including almost $24 million for construction alone. City of Philadelphia School District would receive $504, 977,700 with almost $212 million for construction purposes.
The Senate still needs to pass its version of the bill. The reality of the situation is that any bill that asks the State to disperse money for education according to their existing principal funding formula will by definition put Mt Lebanon far down the list of financially needy school districts.
We can hope for change, but I think it would be unrealistic of the Board to expect much more than this.
Thanks for reading.
James
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
High School Project Discussion Meeting
As the article mentions, Options 1 and 1A look to be off the table. It was the consensus of the Board that these options did not adequately address what it is that this community wants. While the options may very well make the building fine to educate our kids in for another 30 years, Mt Lebanon is a town that wants to be at the forefront of education while respecting its rich traditions. I agreed with the rest of the Board that the full renovation options did not get us to where we as a community want to be.
Option 2A was also taken off the table. While it seemed like a pretty good idea going into it, the cost associated with the option was too close to the option for a brand new school. The difference was just short of $2 million. I'd rather the Board spend the extra $2 million and get a completely new school.
Option 2B was introduced by Director Remely. Last night was the first time this idea came to light. Based on Mr. Remely's comments last night, the idea came about largely because of his belief that a referendum for one of the options costing over $110 million would be difficult to pass. Using cost per square foot numbers outlined by PJ Dick, Mr Remely and Mr Silhol thought there might be an alternative to renovate 200,000 square feet and construct a new building for around $85-90 million. I said that I was intrigued by the idea. Yes, it is a little late in the game, but so was the idea I presented to the full Board just a few weeks ago. I'd like to give them some time to more fully flesh out the idea and see if it is a viable one.
Option 3 was the other option left on the table. This is the option to build a new high school.
Options 2 and 3 would require voters to pass a referendum allowing the District to take on more debt than State law limits us to. Pennsylvania law says that school districts can have debt up to 225% of three year average annual revenues before they need to go to referendum to get an exception. Right now the District can take on an additional $110 million in debt before we have to send this to the voters.
I have my doubts about a referendum passing in this economy but we have had a lot of community feedback regarding going for a new school. While I will not make my decision right now, I do not feel as if I would stand in the way of sending this to a referendum. I say this only because I think the voters in Mt Lebanon will vote down the referendum and send this back to the Board.
Last night I mentioned that it might be possible to follow dual paths. If this Board votes to send this issue to referendum then it makes sense to have a backup plan in place. I do not think it is in this Board's best interest or in community's best interest to have a referendum fail and then just keep trying until we get one passed. We need to have something that we can easily move to in case of referendum failure. This is why I suggested that in combination with going to referendum that we also embark on an more full investigation of the proposal I put out there in conjuncton with a Guaranteed Energy Savings Plan. The GESP is something that was developed by the Governor's Green Building Council and allows government entities to upgrade energy systems and to pay for those upgrades using the savings generated by the more efficient systems.
The reason this may work is because if a referendum fails, the Board cannot discuss a high school renovation/construction project for five months. What happens then? Using the GESP program should not constitute major renovation/construction and should be allowed under the law. This plan may allow us to address many of the deficiencies at the high school (windows, boilers, and roofs are all included as allowed expenses) while not having to invest a lot of our own money. It would allow us to continue to educate our kids in the same building while paying down our debt and saving for a major construction project in 2017.
I think this Board knows what the community wants. What it wants can only be done by referendum right now. The proposal I put together is the only thing out there right now that can get us there without a referendum.
Thanks for reading.
James
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Special School Board Meeting
The Mt. Lebanon Board of School Directors will hold a Special Meeting on Monday, January 26, 2009, at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Theatre to discuss the alternatives for the High School Renovation project. Over the past two weeks, four community meetings were held to present the latest information about the project and gather public input.
The Board has spent a lot of time sharing with the community the latest information regarding this project. My understanding of how this will go is that there will be a period prior to the Board discussion for public comment regarding the project. If you haven't made your voice heard, then this may be the time. The Board will then discuss the options on the table. The actual vote to pursue a specific option is still scheduled to take place in February.
I look forward to listening to the thoughts of other school board members at this meeting. I think most people know where I stand at this point. I do not think we can afford a massive millage increase to pay for a major construction project but if we plan prudently, we can certainly get there. However, given the divisions I have seen in this community regarding the project, I would not stand in the way of this decision going to a referendum which would have to happen with any project costing more than $110 million.
Thanks for reading.
James
Friday, January 16, 2009
January Community Forum
There is not too much more information to share on the actual proposals outside of their updated costs. To see the entire slide show from the forum, click here. To see the video from the forum, please click here. The architect and project manager went over many of the same points that were presented in July with regards to the benefits and drawbacks of some of the plans. I won't rehash all that information here. Please take the time to review the slides from the forum above.
For a review of the July forum and my comments on it, please see this blog post.
Below are the alternatives and their related costs as presented on Wednesday night. Note that the July numbers were just construction numbers and did not include soft costs. The December numbers include all costs.
Alternative 1- $79.8 million in July/$103.2 million in December (29.3% increase). This option entails a complete repair of the existing building.
Alternative 1A- $97.3 million in July/$123.9 million in December (26.6% increase). This option is a complete repair of the existing building with a significant reinvention of building C.
Alternative 2-$118.7 million in July/$138.8 million in December (16.9% increase). This option would make a completely new front to the part of the building that faces the football stadium.
Alternative 2A-$156.3 million in December. This option was not evaluated in July. It would build a new wing to the high school that would attach to the Little Theatre.
Alternative 3- $131.7 million in July/$157.9 million in December (19.9% increase). This option would build a brand new high school on the upper parking lot.
There was not much talk about the proposal that I presented at Monday's school board meeting during the presentation. That was not surprising because of the timing of everything. There were at least a few comments from residents that referred to the plan.
Regarding the forum itself, I still feel like I need more information. I have serious concerns about "open" classrooms as discussed by the architects. This experiment has failed in the past to the point that some schools ended up simply putting up walls in practically brand new schools that were built with this "open classroom" approach in mind. The idea had a bit of a foothold and movement in the early 1970's but was largely removed from the educational vocabulary by the time the mid 1980's rolled around. Perhaps there are newer design variables in place today that did not exist five years ago that make this idea more workable. The resistance I have to this idea does not filter over to a Project-based approach to learning which I am in agreement with as long as it is written into our curriculum.
There was a great question asked by a resident about the District maintaining the B Building along Cochran Road. This resident noted the cost to keep that building appeared to be $25 million. I am looking through the information the Board received from the CM and Architect to verify this. Under many of the approaches, this building would be used as Administrative Office and Community office space. However, the details on the future uses of this building are lacking at the moment. If this building was to be used for something other than educational space then we have to wonder what sense it makes for the District to maintain/repair the building. This District is in the business of educating children, not renting office space.
As for what I think is going to happen next, I think there are three pretty clear paths. First, we can go do a renovation of the high school for $100 million and not go to referendum to do it. But does that do anything for us? We do have structural issues, not with the buildings themselves, but with how the classrooms are configured. Support columns make it difficult or even impossible to reconfigure classroom space in certain parts of the buildings. Second, we can go to referendum to try to do something more along the lines of alternative 3. The cost benefits just don't appear to be there to justify the expense of the alternatives that include BOTH renovation and new construction. Thirdly, we can come up with some solution that stops short of $110 million to avoid a referendum. This option would be something that has not yet been discussed or designed.
I still feel the same as I did in December when I posted the following:
There is a certain irony in this that I think is important to point out. There are many that have emailed the Board and said that the most important thing to keep in mind is that we need to hold our taxes in check so that we remain competitive with neighboring communities. There are also many that have emailed the Board and said the most important thing to keep in mind is that we need a new LEED certified school to maintain our reputation as a community that values education and that a tax increase to accomplish this is well worth the investment.
The reality of the situation is that the current economic environment seems to put these two groups of people on the same side.
The point is, there is a path that gets us to a new high school, I am simply very much of the opinion that that path does not include a referendum. Not only is the economy in a place where people are unwilling to take on more debt, but I believe that people do not want to be paying hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year in additional school real estate tax. While I have many times made the case that this district cannot afford a new school, I would not stand in the way of the Board asking to put the new school option to a vote via referendum. If the community votes for a new school, then build it. Those that do not think the additional tax is worth what a new school will bring will most likely leave if they are able. Those that look at a community and think the high school building itself is a reason to choose one community over another will most likely choose to live here.
That's all for now. I look forward to getting feedback next week at the next round community forums.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
January 13 Proposal Presentation
You can view last night's entire presentation with this link here. There were some slight changes to the plan presented in December after I received a lot of good feedback from the community. Some of the changes that came about were:
- Instead of a 1 or 1.5 mill increase in year one, the new plan phases in a .5 mill increase over three years. This would net us approximately $21 million if the money was saved until 2016-2017
- Instead of waiting until 2020 to start construction, the revised plan looks at putting a shovel in the ground in 2017.
- I added a few slides to show the increased cost of issuing bonds in this uncertain economic environment. Rates have increased from 4.5% (as calculated for the July forum) by 1-1.5% according to what our bond counsel told us in December.
- I added a slide that shows future millage rates based solely on this plan and a $100 million dollar project in 2017 versus doing a $100 million project starting next year. That slide does not take into account any millage increases due to retirement contribution increases or normal operating budget increases- it only compares a $100 million construction project. Note that while we may experience some inflation in the years heading up to 2017, much of that inflation would be made up for with whatever rate of return we would get by investing the savings from the increased millage in government bonds.
Let me make one point here. Last night a Director suggested that with my proposal "...it was clear that the education of our children never entered the equation". Nothing could be further from the truth. What will come to light tomorrow at the forum will be that each of the alternatives (except for a full renovation) that were investigated in July will more than likely require us to go to referendum. Based on the July projections, I figured that was likely to be the case. That forum was the impetus for me to get to work on brainstorming some alternative, workable proposal to address the educational needs of our students.
This begs this question, if the original four proposals investigated by the architect and construction manager were recommended to the Board due to the likelihood of those options satisfying the educational needs and wants of this community, and now each of those options is off the table due to the need for a referendum, then where does that leave us?
The plan I put out there gets us one of those options that was recommended by the architects. I know for a fact that it satisfies the needs that this Board and the community had set forth in 2007 because it allows us to afford one of the options that was recommended by the professionals. In fact, it doesn't just put us into position to afford ONE of the options, it likely allows us in 2017 to move forward with ANY of the alternatives without the need for any kind of referendum. The Board at that time would have the flexibility to do whichever project seemed appropriate and that decision would not be burdened by trying to do only what they could do short of forcing a referendum.
There were some good questions from other Board members that I will answer in my future blog post after Wednesday's forum. I was not allowed the opportunity to address all of the questions from other Board members last night.
I always want to be transparent with what I am talking about. To that end I have a couple of links for you. In order to see the data from the graphs in the presentation click here. If you see anything wrong with the assumptions let me know. They were all pretty straightforward. Additionally, there was a chart that I did not include in the presentation that I am still trying to digest. It was a pretty amazing discovery (for a data geek like me anyway). Check out this slide that charts Percentage Millage Increases vs Percentage Student Population Changes from 2001-2008 for school districts that are similar to Mt Lebanon. I am still trying to determine whether I can make any definitive conclusions with this. I suspect I will need to get some more school districts in the data set to see for sure.
I'll be back on Thursday. In the meantime, be sure to attend the forum on Wednesday night at the High School Auditorium if you can.
Thanks for reading.
James
Monday, January 12, 2009
Board Discussion Meeting Tonight
The items for discussion are as follows:
Tonight I get the chance to present that proposal I put out there in October. Based on feedback received, tonight's presentation will be very similar in scope to the original proposal but will most definitely have a few changes. I will make the full presentation available for download here after the meeting tonight.
III. Discussion
A. Adoption of Policy KBF, Classroom Visitation - Enclosed is a copy of Policy KBF,
Classroom Visitation. The Policy Committee recommends adoption of this policy at the
January 19 regular meeting.
B. High School Renovation Project – James Fraasch
C. 2009-10 Capital Projects Budget – The Capital Budget is scheduled for approval in February.
The preliminary list of projects will be presented to the Board for review prior to discussion
and approval in February.
If you haven't seen it, check it out. If you have seen it and have questions, please watch the Board meeting tonight or send me an email.
I expect tough questions from the rest of the Board and from members of the community.
Thanks for reading.
James
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Aftermath of Financial Crises
The authors had previously done research into the aftermath of financial crises in developing countries and this paper expands to include developed countries as well. It is a relatively short read (13 pages) and is quite informative. You don't have to believe everything they say, but you should respect it. I believe there is a consensus out there that we are right in the middle of a pretty severe financial crisis. These authors are ranking what we are going through now right up with what they call the "Big Five" post-war crises that include Spain 1977, Norway 1987, Finland 1991, Sweden 1991, and Japan 1992.
They make some very interesting points regarding expected changes in employment, output, equity prices, housing prices and more. Below is an excerpt:
Broadly speaking, financial crises are protracted affairs. More often than not, the aftermath of severe financial crises share three characteristics. First, asset market collapses are deep and prolonged. Real housing price declines average 35 percent stretched out over six years, while equity price collapses average 55 percent over a downturn of about three and a half years. Second, the aftermath of banking crises is associated with profound declines in output and employment. The unemployment rate rises an average of 7 percentage points over the down phase of the cycle, which lasts on average over four years. Output falls (from peak to trough) an average of over 9 percent, although the duration of the downturn, averaging roughly two years, is considerably shorter than for unemployment. Third, the real value of government debt tends to explode, rising an average of 86 percent in the major post-World War II episodes.Interestingly, the main cause of debt explosions is not the widely cited costs of bailing out and recapitalizing the banking system. Admittedly, bailout costs are difficult to measure, and there is considerable divergence among estimates from competing studies.
But even upper-bound estimates pale next to actual measured rises in public debt. In fact, the big drivers of debt increases are the inevitable collapse in tax revenues that governments suffer in the wake of deep and prolonged output contractions, as well as often ambitious countercyclical fiscal policies aimed at mitigating the downturn.
It's interesting what they say here. That third point about the real value of government debt exploding is certainly a path that we are embarking upon. What is it that we have now, one $700 billion stimulus package down, and a one trillion dollars left to go?
It's been strange hearing economists predict that the way we solve this crisis is to do what got us in this crisis in the first place. We spent too much, we borrowed too much, we leveraged too much. And now the government has reduced interest rates to 0% which necessarily punishes those who wish to save and encourages people to borrow. The government keeps handing out cash to banks and asks them to lend more. The problem is, the American consumer is tapped out. There is a retrenchment of the consumer happening now that is of a degree not seen in some time. How long that retrenchment (and the reduced consumption that goes along with it) lasts will determine the severity and length of this economic downturn.
It is often said that history repeats itself. I prefer saying that history rhymes. I think that is more accurate. To that point, I would like to point out a series of papers written by Ludvig Von Mises. Von Mises was a preeminent economist that was part of the Austrian school of economics. Most people today are taught Keynesian Economics which were developed by another economist, John Maynard Keynes. Keynes is the inventor of all those supply and demand curves you learned about in high school and perhaps in college as well. Von Mises did not agree with everything about the Keynesian school of economic thought. Through his papers published before, during, and after the Great Depression, you can get an idea of what he believed to be the causes of, and the cures to, the Depression. There is a series of papers out there called "The Causes of the Economic Crisis and Other Essays Before and After the Great Depression". The essays contained in this document were published between 1923 and 1946. The last paper from 1946 has a working title of "The Trade Cycle and Credit Expansion: The Economic Consequences of Cheap Money". The conclusions from that paper really allowed me to get a handle on what we are going through today and what effect government intervention may have.
The point of this is to say that the large majority of economists that are prominent today come from the Keynesian school of economic thought. When we hear people talk about a huge majority of advisers and academia folks agreeing on the best way to get us out of whatever malaise we are in, it is because most are believers in the Keynesian school of thought. Those that follow the Austrian school of economic thought were proven to be correct about a lot of the causes of the Depression. Those that are Keynesians believe that we can stimulate demand (and therefore employment and production) by embarking on massive government spending programs. While these programs may make us feel good in the near term because we can see that our government is trying to do something, the long-term consequences of such programs is astounding.
I am hopeful that the Austrian school of economic thought will start to make its way into the mainstream in 2009.
What does this have to do with anything on the School Board. Well, as President Bill Clinton would say, "It's the economy, stupid".
And just in case you were wondering, yes, I do read those things for fun! I love reading material from people that were closer to the history than I am. When I wanted to read about the US Constitution, I read Charles Austin Beard's The Republic first published in 1943. When I wanted to read about the underpinnings of capitalism, there is no shortage of books out there. I chose (among many others) Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nation's (1776), John Chamberlin's The Roots of Capitalism (1977), and Jude Wanniski's The Way the World Works (1978). These books come from a different time and from a different perspective. To me it is fun to see how well these authors have predicted what our world would look like today.
Thanks for reading.
James
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Pennsylvania's Graduate Competency Assessements
Here is a little demographic information on the county. Montgomery County borders Philadelphia County. It is a commuting suburb for Philly and parts of New Jersey. It ranks as the third most populous county in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia and Allegheny Counties. According to Wikipedia, Montgomery County ranks as the 44th wealthiest county in all of the United States.
It was with great interest that I read the white paper. Please take a few minutes to review the document. It outlines very clearly the many problems GCAs will present. It also outlines very clearly that the problems the PDE is trying to solve do not get addressed properly with the GCAs.
You can find the online version of the white paper here. Below is an excerpt:
It's good to see other organizations out there standing up for what is right. Please contact State Representative Matt Smith and State Senator John Pippy to voice concerns about the GCA's moving forward.A substantial body of research makes clear that GCA’s are an inadequate prescription for concerns about curricular rigor, relevance or equity.
“The perception that our education tests are precise because they yield numerical scores is fundamentally mistaken.” (James Popham, Educational Leadership, December 2007). The research and literature is rife with evidence that high stake tests should never be the sole determinant when making important decisions about students.
Thanks for reading.
James
Mt Lebanon High School Project Upcoming Meetings
Beginning next week the District will hold a series of meetings. The first set of meetings will be to inform the public as to what the findings of the architect and construction manager were with regards to their analysis of the options presented to the public at the July 2008 community forum. The meetings will update the public with the revised numbers for each of the options.
The public should start to see some discussion at Board meetings regarding each of the options beginning with the January 26th meeting.
The upcoming meeting schedule is as follows:
Monday, January 12- Architect update 6:30pm in the High School Library
Wednesday, January 14- Community Forum 7:00pm in the High School Auditorium
Monday, January 19- Regular School Board Meeting 7:30pm High School Library
Tuesday, January 20- Neighborhood Meeting 7:00pm Markham Multi-purpose room
Wednesday, January 21- Neighborhood Meeting 7:00pm Howe School Auditorium
Thursday, January 22- Neighborhood Meeting 7:00pm Jefferson Middle School Cafeteria
Monday, January 26- Special Meeting to Discuss Bldg Options 7:30pm Fine Arts Theatre
Monday, February 9- Architect Update 6:30pm High School Library
Monday, February 16- Regular Board Meeting-Anticipated vote 7:30pm High School Library
If you have not done so already, please email the Board with your comments and suggestions.
Thanks for reading.
James
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Parent Resource Network Bailout Gala
My daughter, Taylor, was born 16 weeks premature due to my wife, Kelly, being sick. Taylor was born via an emergency c-section in order to save Kelly's life. There was little chance (less than 10% according to the doctors) that Taylor would even live. Even if she did manage to survive, we were told that she would have significant physical and mental handicaps. To complicate matters, the c-section happened when Kelly was visiting her parents in Chicago and I was living in our apartment in Washington, DC.
Through our time in three different neo-natal intensive care units (first in Chicago, then at Georgetown, then in Northern California) spread over a 9-month period, Kelly and I got to appreciate how difficult it was for families to have their lives changed so much due to the premature birth of their babies. For us there was so much to learn about how to take care of a medically fragile infant. There were oxygen tanks, apnea monitors, trachs to change, oxygen sensors to monitor, and an assortment of beeps and buzzes with which we had to familiarize ourselves. Add to that the birth of our second child just a few months after Taylor came home from the hospital, and well, it was quite an experience. Through the many doctor checkups, trainings, and lingering illnesses, we managed through the first two years of Taylor's life the best we could. Fast forward to today and we have a 7 year old daughter who, while she does have some speech and physical delays, is as happy and loving as any child you will ever meet. If you like to be hugged, then you need to meet Taylor. She will brighten your day.
Kelly comes from a background of social work. She approached me in February 2007 (about the same time I decided to run for school board!) and asked me if she could leave her full time job to start her own non-profit that would help those families that were just like us. She wanted to make sure that families in NICUs had the means to visit their little ones in the hospital and that, while there, they were as comfortable as possible. After giving it only a moment of thought, I of course told her to go ahead and get this thing started. Kelly has since created a vast network of parent volunteers that provide a number of services to parents of children that have been born prematurely or with a birth defect.
Parent Resource Network provides:
-A toll free hotline for parents with any questions or concerns about their premature infant
-Hospital Outreach by parents that have been directly affected by the PRN mission
-Parent Mentoring to educate and help new parents through the maze of information coming their way
-Support Groups to help those that have suffered the loss of child
-Helping Hands to distribute the necessities of daily life to those that are staying in the hospital (gas cards, toiletries, etc).
In order to continue the PRN mission of helping these families, the organization holds a Gala once a year. This year's gala is on Saturday January 17th and will take place at the Omni William Penn hotel in the Grand Ballroom. Tickets to the event are $50. There will be a table casino with top prizes, music by a Mt Lebanon DJ, silent and live auction items, and we will also honor the CEO of Children's Hospital, Roger Oxendale.
We have room for just over 400 people and would love to see the event sell out. We have lowered the ticket prices from $100 to $50 per person this year in response to the economic downturn (hence the term "Bailout" Gala).
If you would like to go to the event, please either email Kelly or myself. You can find her website at www.parentresourcenetwork.org. Or you can purchase your tickets with your credit card securely from PayPal right here. You do not need to be a PayPal member to pay with your credit card.
If you cannot attend the event but would like to donate to Parent Resource Network, please visit the PRN website and look for the 'Donation' button.
And by the way, when I say "WE" started this, it really is all Kelly. It is her passion to make this organization successful and to help families throughout Allegheny County. My role is simply providing her the support she needs to be able to attend the numerous meetings, events, and conferences that help make PRN a success.
Best wishes and Happy New Year.
James