Hilliard Schools Budget

Hilliard schools have a 6.9-mill property tax levy on the May 3rd ballot. According to the Superintendent, Dale McVey

Should Issue 7 fail, the district will make nearly $4 million in cuts in order to balance our budget for the 2011-12 school year. The list of cuts was designed to spread this difficult situation across the entire district; it takes into account the $6.5 million in recent reductions that Hilliard Schools has already made and includes:

• eliminating all middle school athletic programs;
• eliminating gifted instruction;
• eliminating fifth grade band and strings programs;
• eliminating transportation services for field trips, daycare services and FOCUS (gifted) shuttles;
• eliminating 51.5 administrative, certified and classified positions; and, reducing 247 classified positions.

Because of the Governors reckless budget, Hilliard City Schools may lose $5.2 million in Fiscal Year (FY) '12 (2011-12 school year) and $8.9 million in FY '13 (2012-13 school year). This would represent a 15.4 percent decrease in state foundation money for FY '12 and 26 percent in FY '13 according to the Superintendent.

If you live in the district, or want to help, visit www.forhilliardschools.org.
www.hilliardschools.org also has some information for you.

Teachers again prove SB5 is a sham budget tool

Collective bargaining continues to work in Ohio, and teachers and support professionals continue to make deep sacrifices for their communities to alleviate busted budgets and tough economic times. Today brings news of 2 such efforts, and further highlights the fact that SB5 is not a budget correcting tool, but a politically motivated attack on working people.

Columbus City Schools

The Columbus teachers union has agreed to a new two-year contract that apparently will delay the impact of Ohio's recently passed collective bargaining bill.

Under the pact, which the Columbus Board of Education approved tonight, teachers would receive no base salary increase for the next two years. And instead of receiving full "step" increases in salary based on their years of experience and training, eligible teachers will receive half the salary bump in a single year.

Chardon Schools

new union contracts are expected to save the district an estimated $1.1 million over the coming two school years.
[...]
The new two-year contract includes a freeze on base pay, which, at the time the contract runs out, will have been the fourth consecutive year of base pay freezes for the unions.

If you want to help repeal SB5 and preserve collective bargaining and the middle class, sign up here, at We Are Ohio.

Olentangy Schools Budget

Olentangy Schools Superintendent, Wade Lucas, provides a good overview of of the impact of the state budget on his district.

The Treasurer, Rebecca Jenkins, testimony on HB153 can be read here, and provides a good backdrop to the financial havoc this reckless budget is causing. This section caught our eye

Note that charter school per pupil funding (as well as state-wide per pupil funding) has grown each year over that same time period. This would seem logical since the state pupil funding amount has grown steadily over that period. It is interesting to note that if charter schools were kept at their 2006 funding level (like many other growing schools have experienced) their funding would have been over $55 million less in FY11.

Olentangy have a May 3rd ballot issue whereby voters will asked to pass a 7.9-mill operating and no-additional-millage bond issue. If you live in the district, take a moment to check out their FAQ.

Governor Kasich offers shabby solutions

The Dispatch brings us news of one of the most appalling rationalizations for S.B.5 that the Governor has made to date. Because Bob Evans offers "shabby" benefits, teachers, firefighters and police should be worse off too.

Talking about the need for the collective bargaining overhaul he recently signed, Gov. John Kasich today suggested employees at Bob Evans have "shabby, at best" health insurance benefits.
[...]
"You know, when I go to Bob Evans and I see a woman working in there who doesn't have any pension, and I don't even know that she has health care benefits, and if she does they're shabby, at best, to think we're asking public workers to do a little bit more, people who have guaranteed benefits and people who are not paying very much for their health care, and to ask them to a little bit more to provide balance to that mom who is trying to educate her kids, it's fairness."

The Governor has it backwards. Perhaps if workers at Bob Evans could collectively bargain, their benefits might not be so "shabby". Perhaps the Governor should be less excited to extended millions of dollars of tax payers money so the CEO of Bob Evans can have a shorter commute - and instead insist that companies receiving tax dollars provide their employees benefits that aren't "shabby".

It's time this Governor stopped believing that a race to the bottom is "winning".

Voucher expansion news report

Pretty good report on the massive expansion of vouchers for private schools.

Petition training pics and update

A packed house at JTF world HQ last night for petition training. Folks were excited and ready to go!

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Thanks to the OEA staff for taking the time to deliver the training.

We also learned that We Are Ohio have begun printing 100,000 petitions which should start being available Friday. Stay tuned.