Priced Out of Public Schools

The title is taken from an article written by Laura Rawley from Yahoo! Finance.

The author is confirming what many of us in Mt. Lebanon already know. We receive a premium on our home values because of our school district's reputation.

The question, then, is how much?

From the article:

While neighborhood amenities and a close commute to downtown may also skew prices higher, academic studies controlling for those issues still find a significant school premium for both test scores and state rankings. David Figlio, professor of education, social policy, and economics at Northwestern University, looked at what happened to home prices in Florida in 1999, when the state launched its School Accountability System that ranked schools from best ("A") to worst ("F").

Figlio examined prices in 199 subdivisions and 20 elementary school zones in Gainesville before and after the grades were announced. Families were willing to pay 9 percent more to be in an "A" school vs. a "B" school and about the same amount more to be in "B" school vs. a "C" school. "Importantly that's over and above the amount people were willing to pay for test scores," Figlio says. "People would pay more to be in an "A" school with higher test scores than an "A" school with lower test scores."

The article goes on to document what some parents will do in order ensure their kids get to good schools.

Ms. Rawley also maintains a blog where she wrote a post titled, "Tips for Home-Buyers Researching Schools" which is worth a read as well. The post hits on a lot of things my family did before moving here in 2004.

Thanks for reading.

James

Zoning Hearing Board Findings

The School Board has received scores of emails regarding the outcome of the Zoning Hearing Board decision from last month.

I provide the link below as a public service. I have to reserve comment for a later date as the Board is currently considering its options with regard to the variance denials.

The full Zoning Board Findings can be found here.

Usually I would say to contact me with any questions but in this case, don't. The findings are pretty self-explanatory.

Thanks for reading.

James

2010-2011 Budget Vote

Last night the school board passed its preliminary budget with a 6-3 vote. The budget includes an increase in millage from 24.11 to 26.69 and represents a 10.7% increase in school district real estate property tax.

I was one of the "no" votes. The comment I made was with regard to questioning where people were going to find this money. In the past, the earnings of our residents would have been able to cover some of this kind of tax hike. But in the times we have today, people will be forced to cut expenditures in other areas of their lives in order to make things work out.

How do I know this? Our state income tax receipts are down this year. This is a reflection of lower earnings throughout the Commonwealth. Additionally, according to the Census Bureau, real median income has been declining the last few years.

The other comment I made was that the tax hike we are seeing now was predictable. I don't even know how many posts I have on this blog with regards to this, but there are quite a few. If this Board was serious about reducing the base budget in an effort to lessen the impact of this tax increase on our residents, we certainly had enough time to make serious changes. Unfortunately, these changes have not taken place.

This is the first of many tax increases coming your way. We borrowed approximately 2/3rds of the money we will need to complete the high school project. The next bond float is still a few years away. The PSERS spike will have a massive impact on us in 2012-2013. Again, these are expenses we know are coming. Without making significant adjustments to the base budget to lessen the impact these events will have on our taxpayers, I cannot support this budget.

Finally, I have updated my chart from the white paper I put out there in January. It is my opinion that these tax increases will put us in a difficult competitive situation with other school districts with which we like to compare ourselves. Below is a graph showing the combined historical school district and municipal millage rates from 2002-2009:



The chart above does not include the projected 2010-2011 school district tax increases.

While many people like to say that Bethel Park and Penn Hills are embarking on similar high school projects, the one major difference is that neither one of those school districts need to raise taxes to pay for their schools.

From the Penn Hills Website:

What This Means to the Taxpayers
The proposed budget presented in April and tentatively scheduled for passage in June maintains the real estate millage in the District at its current rate of 24.81. The purpose of this plan is to provide the best facilities for our children while allowing Penn Hills to be a more affordable place to live. The District is planning on accomplishing this without raising taxes, calculating that properly done and well-thought-out consolidation can reduce the District’s overall operating costs in order to offset the bond issue planned for the new construction/renovation.

As for Bethel Park, they made sure that their construction project coincided with the pay off of bonds. They collected money from taxpayers for a year (maybe two) without lowering their millage in order to build up a fund to help pay for their school. The new debt taken on to pay for the new building was similar in size to what they had been paying for the old, retired bond.

While Mt Lebanon will certainly see some savings due to more energy efficiencies (a good thing), we will most certainly be distancing ourselves from other school districts in the total tax department as long as we make no meaningful adjustments to the base budget.

Keeping a Tally

As many of you know, the Act 34 hearing for the High School project closed last Monday. The Board will be asked to vote on the submission of these documents to PDE. While I do not know if anyone will actually make a count of the documents and how many were in favor of or opposed to the project, I do know that there was a ton of material submitted. I will be stopping by the office next week to review what I can.

The close of the Act 34 comment period, as well as a comment made by our Board President last week, got me to thinking. Everyone on the Board has talked to many, many people and heard many, many opinions regarding the high school project and its affordability. The comment that caught my attention on Monday night was the one where it was said that the community is evenly divided on this project. My recollection of emails and phone conversations was much different but without the facts before me at the time, I decided not to comment.

I went back and spent some time this week counting up all the emails the Board has received since January 1, 2010. This count has been double checked with duplicate emails from residents who voiced their opinion multiple times discarded so as not to slant in favor of any one person.

I have put together a spreadsheet and present its results below:

Total/Against/ For
411/ 308/ 103
100%/ 75%/ 25%

I have broken down the list of emails by date and removed the names from the list that I used to verify duplicates.

Quite honestly, one of the reasons I put that white paper together in January was because a Board member told me that the community was evenly split. This has never been the case for this level of spending. The Republican Committee of Mt Lebanon did its own survey that showed 70% against a $114 million spend. This Board member at the time already knew about the RCML survey but chose to believe that the community was still split. My time knocking on doors in each of the past three summers had already convinced me of what these surveys proved. This is why I put out my own proposal for addressing the High School- because I didn't think we had an option on the table that adequately addressed the concerns of the majority of our residents. For me, my focus has become trying to figure out ways to save money on the existing design which is why I mentioned last Monday that we ought to consider moving the Central Office staff away from the high school in order to reduce the total square footage of the project.

I point these numbers out because this is honesty. This is transparency. Truth and transparency are sometimes inconvenient.

Thanks for reading.

James

I-80 Toll Denial

I received an email from the PSBA regarding the recent denial of the I-80 Toll.

Governor calls special session to address transportation funding

This week Gov. Edward Rendell said he will call a special session of the General Assembly to address transportation funding following the federal government's recent decision to again deny Pennsylvania's application to toll Interstate 80.

Act 44 of 2007 called for the tolling of I-80 and additional revenue from the Pennsylvania Turnpike to provide funding for road and bridge repairs and for public transit agencies across the state. However, the U.S. Department of Transportation in rejecting the application said that plan would violate federal law that requires money from tolls to be used only for the roadway that is being tolled, not on transportation initiatives statewide.

Rendell had included projected revenue from I-80 tolls in his 2010-11 state budget proposal, and without it said the state now faces a $472 million gap in transportation funding.

"We have to deal with the fallout of this decision; there is no way that we can just do nothing," Rendell said. "I'm going to call a special session of the legislature to address our transportation challenges. We'll look at every option on the table. This is a dire situation with significant consequences."

A factor to consider is how this gap will impact the 2010-11 state budget for all programs, including education. A date for the special legislative session has not yet been set.

There is now a large hole in the State budget. Add declining state income tax revenues to the mix and we are trying to fill and ever increasing hole in the budget.

Rendell has thus far kept his promise of increasing the basic education subsidy to all districts across the state. Mt Lebanon is scheduled to receive a 2% increase in its subsidy this year. The 2009-2010 Basic Education Subsidy provided to Mt Lebanon was $5,584,093. Right now we are budgeting for an increase from that level. The reality is that, right or wrong, the decision to deny the toll road will put much more pressure on the Governor and Legislature to reduce costs elsewhere in the budget.

The denial leaves an additional $472 million hole in the 2010-2011 Commonwealth budget. This does not include the $719.6 million that the State is already missing due to declining tax collections for the entire budget year. From the above link:

Acting Secretary of Revenue C. Daniel Hassell today reported that Pennsylvania collected $3.9 billion in General Fund revenue in March, which was $243 million, or 5.9 percent, less than anticipated. Fiscal year-to-date General Fund collections total $19.9 billion, which is $719.6 million, or 3.5 percent, below estimate.

The Governor is hoping the month of April brings a windfall of tax collections which will help balance the 2009-2010 budget.

Thanks for reading.

James

National School Climate Survey

I received the email below in my inbox today. It is interesting timing as I remember Obama and Arne Duncan speaking recently of realigning No Child Left Behind to include the measurement of school "climate" as part of the grading process. I will admit right off the bat that I am at a loss for what the term "climate" means in this sense. I am working on getting to the bottom of it.

I invite you to help me get a handle on this climate survey that comes around every two years. School climate could be interpreted many ways (including literally) and I would like to figure out exactly what the Department of Education is up to. I have found some links but am reluctant to come to an immediate conclusion as to what this means. Let me know what you find out.

TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP April 6, 2010 Dear NSBA National Affiliate School Board Members and Superintendents: I am writing to ask for your school district’s participation in the National School Climate Survey 2010. This study, planned to be the largest in the history of public education, will solicit responses and reactions from teachers, students, administrators and parents from urban, suburban and rural schools throughout the United States. In January, the National School Boards Association’s (NSBA) Board of Directors endorsed this study and agreed to provide support in the recruitment process. You may recall the series of studies that I conducted on urban school climate in conjunction with the NSBA’s Council of Urban Boards of Education a few years ago. These groundbreaking studies received incredible coverage from the national news media and have been well-received in academic and practitioner circles since publication. We learned a great deal about perceptions of urban schools and continue to process that data even to this day. The new study, combined with Census data collected this year, promises to provide even more insight on the day to day lives and perceptions held by those closest to the education process. This time, I am soliciting the views and perceptions of the entire spectrum of schools and individuals represented in the American education system. Views on safety, respect, bullying and parental involvement are just a few that will be investigated in this study. The impact of school climate on student achievement is quickly being recognized as an important dimension to consider when designing programs aimed to improved student outcomes. We need you and your district to participate this year. We are recruiting districts from all fifty states between now and September 1. There is no cost to your district. For each school that participates, the school board will receive a brief report with the school-level results that will assist in your policy decisions regarding the improvement of school climate. The survey takes less than 10 minutes to administer and is done completely online with exception of the parental surveys. We plan to have well over 100,000 respondents to this truly historic survey and hope that your state will be included in that number. If you are interested in participating and for more information, please feel free to email or call at bp58@columbia.edu or 203.660.8406. Sincerely, Brian K. Perkins, Ed. D. Principal Investigator National School Climate Survey 2010

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Thanks for reading.

James