London Schools levy: Coaches, teachers may be cut
By Rob Treynor
Rob Treynor - StaffOn the table were Ben’s recommended cuts should the 8.5-mill levy on the March ballot not pass.
Should the levy fail, an additional $500,000 in cuts will be needed to be made in order to operate within budget for the 2012-2013 school year.
With that, Ben presented board members with a handout labelled “Supplementals” with the first series of cuts proposed for the night.
The supplementals list included 21 part-time assistant positions. These positions are: Freshman football, assistant band, varsity assistant boys basketball, varsity assistant girls basketball, freshman boys basketball, varsity assistant boys track, varsity assistant girls track, reserve assistant varsity boys soccer, resident assistant varsity girls soccer, varsity assistant baseball, varsity assistant softball, varsity assistant wrestling, reserve golf, band auxiliary advisor, spring strength coach, seventh-grade assistant football, eighth-grade assistant football, middle school baseball, middle school boys track, middle school girls track, and middle school assistant wrestling.
The total savings to the system by eliminating the supplementals is $42, 187.
Other cuts proposed included 4 teaching positions, one maintenance person, and one para-pro position.
A lengthy discussion of other areas of cost savings ensued. Look to Friday’s Madison Press for more details.
A formal presentation of the proposed cuts will be presented next Tuesday, Feb. 14, during the monthly Board of Education meeting.
I attended a meeting with the london school board prior to the vote on the last failed levy. Some of the points brought up, 60-70% of your total property tax bill goes to the schools. Of the amount , 80+% goes to wages and benefits. The London schools have been in fiscal watch since 2006. I went to BUCKEYE INSTITUTE.ORG, a web site that lists the wages of all school employees in Ohio. Going to the London school district, I went back to 2005-06 and randomly picked employees and looked at their wages then and now. Here is some of what I found, 2005 wage 28,961.00– 2011 wage 47,727.00, a 65% increase. 2005 wage 33,098.00– 2011 wage 55,956.00, a 69% increase. 2005 wage 31,995.00–2011 wage 52,664.00, a 64% increase. 2006 wage 31,250.00–2011 wage 44,435.00, a 42% increase. 2007 wage 31,620.00–2011 wage 44,435.00, a 41% increase. 2009 wage 39,546.00–2011 wage 46,081.00, a 16% increase. It goes on and on and on, increases for some over 65%. The last one listed here was from 2009 to 2011, a time when they were broke, they still got 16% raise. Who reading this has received raises like this ever, let alone when the company you work for is claiming they are on the verge of being broke. Is it any wonder, the money goes out faster than it comes in. One person stated it was only 75 cents per day increase for all tax payers. Speak for yourself. The cost to each tax payer is different in all cases. Your increase may be 75 cents a day, which is 273.75 more per year, which is another weeks work for the average worker or 2 weeks of food for someones family. To others that amount equates out to several thousand more dollars , on top of the thousands already being paid. Look it up yourself, go to BUCKEYE INSTITUTE.ORG and look , you will see where your tax money is being spent. Look in the paper, page after page of brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, mothers, fathers, neighbors and friends loosing their homes. We have supplied this school district with $50,000,000.00 (50 million) worth of new schools. Enough is enough, why would you cut the gifted student programs and keep countless Ass’t coaches, are you kidding me. An article in the press said the school is predicting to go from in the black this year , to in the red of over 3 million dollars in 3 years. How can your expenses increase so much over a short period of time, no one elses does. Perhaps raises of over 60% are part of that answer. Its all about tryting to hit the community where it hurts the most to get what you want, as always, MORE MONEY.
School supporter……..you can pay my share of any additional property taxes. I already pay high enough property taxes plus my 1 percent from my paycheck.
That’s right…….I own my home. I pay property taxes. I can say that I do not eat candy nor do I drink coffee.
You do not know my home situation nor that of most people who are in the school system. Who are you to say that we are being selfish?
And, using CAPS, are you yelling and assuming that I am poor and live on credit cards. Use your own credit cards. I’m not using any credit cards just to pay for my higher property taxes.
My goal is to maintain my home and live within my budget. London School needs to run within it’s budget.
And, by the way, your statements were just ridiculous.
London needs to close their schools and send their kids to Madison Plains, West Jeff, and Jonathan Alder.
Cool idea london resident, and I hope the town left turns to crap with you living in the middle of it. That’s what happens to towns with poor schools with no extracurricular activities and a poor academic program due to cuts.
I find it very interesting that the London School Board has been trying to pass a levy, but are still paying assistant coaches. They have already cut high school bussing, gifted programs, staff, and whole lot more and you were still paying assistant coaches. I find that truly amazing and slap in the face to tax payers. Most folks don’t have the extra money to pay in additional taxes and most certainly expect every penny to be scrutinized. To date the school board has been negligent in spending and the oversight of the funds they are responsible for. None of the school board members have been held accountable for their negligence for the 2.5 million dollar budgeting error. Before anyone agrees to increase taxes, the sitting school board members need to be replaced. The school only needs 500 hundred thousand dollars to balance the budget for next year — an 8.5 mil levy would only allow for additional misuse of funds. Cut the 500 thousand by eliminating all paid coaches, institute pay to play, and cut the middle school busing. Come on school board members, resign, or do your job by cutting the frivolous spending and stop trying to take the taxpayers to the cleaners. Do more to focus on an education on not your sports programs — maybe you can reach the goal of an excellent school. But, having a minimum GPA of 1.6 to play sports is only setting everyone up for failure…. oh, that’s right where you are. Step it up or get out.
If they eliminate all coaches why do they need pay to play? If you think you will get volunteers to coach all those sports, good luck. If you think they could save 500,000 by eliminating coaches, having pay to play, and eliminating middle school busing then it shows your ignorance of school expenses. Let’s envision the school you want…………a school with no sports, no busing, no extracurriculars, and a skeletal teaching staff. That will certainly distinguish London schools and community among Central Ohio schools. Regarding board members, you seem to believe strongly that you have all the answers, why don’t you run for the board? Then you could get right in there and fix these problems yourself.
And how do you propose they find the $1 million dollars that the district needs to cut the next school year 2013/14? Even if they cut away ALL sports, and you won’t even get close to $1 million. You won’t even be 1/3 of the way there. Then it’s on to State Receivership. Say goodbye to sports, marching band, music, honors classes, AP classes, basically EVERYTHING in our schools will be cut. If this community keeps voting levies down, you are going to see exactly what it’s like to not have anything available for our kids that makes them well rounded citizens.And when you lose sports, you have idle, non-drug tested pre-teens and teenagers. Guess what happens then people? You can see exactly where our youth and our community is headed if these levies fail. And all the people that have all the great ideas about getting a new Board in place, where were all of you when there was an open spot on the Board recently? Only ONE person in all of London cared to even apply for the position! Quite frankly I’m tired of all the negative, ill informed people of this community pointing fingers and telling others how the schools should be run. It’s time to put your money where your mouth is! Why don’t you volunteer at our schoools, attend Board meetings(no one does) go to the Superintenden’ts MONTHLY open forum (no one goes), apply for open Board positions. Try being part of the solution, not part of the problem. If this district had more people who cared, truly cared, our kids wouldn’t be looking at a district that will soon be run by the State of Ohio. And when that does happen, get ready to see the quality students and caring parents leave this district in droves. It’s time to get real, and help our schools, not just complain about them!
Announcing these possible cuts are not a threat to get the school levy passed. The truth is cuts have been made in the past, cuts are going to continue and will eventually affect every single child in the school system until the levy passes.
If this levy does not pass, the state will come in and the state will run everything!! If this happens there will be no use of school facilities for anything! That includes the public use of the facilities (walking on track, Relay for Life or any other events that may utilize the schools facilities).
The state will come in and they will determine what classes, teachers, etc. that will be cut. (our school board, parents, etc. will have no input or control over these cuts) We can not afford for this to happen and it very well could.
We wouldn’t be the first school in Ohio to have this happen or would we be the last school in Ohio for this to happen to. The doors will open at set time and close at set time. There will be nothing for any of the students or community at any of the school facilities! People need to start attending these informative meetings and find out the final consequences about the levy not passing, instead of relying on the talks of the town from people that are not completely informed of the whole situation.
I too am a parent of a London School student. Since you are completely informed of the situation, why don’t you understand that most of us cannot afford the increase in taxes that this levy will cause?
Maybe the state needs to come in and make the decisions. I’m sure they wouldn’t have a 2.5 million budgeting error.
It doesn’t matter if we attend the meetings or not. If we can’t afford it, we have to vote “NO”.
No matter the cuts you make, the levy will not pass. Parents and citizens of the community do not have the money to pay higher taxes. Have you not been to the grocery store or gas station? We have to feed our children and we have to have money to buy gas so, we can get to work. Everything is going up except our wages.
London School should set an example and show the other schools that our children and community are the most important. Threats of all the cuts only upset the voters. And yes, you had to start with high school bussing. Hit us hard right off. Levy didn’t pass, did it?
Why can’t you really sit down and evaluate what is at hand. Do we honestly need assistant pricipals? That is a small fortune saved right there. Put them back as teachers and let them teach. They can fill in for the pricipal if they aren’t going to be at school for the day.
Use your brains people. Maybe we need to go back to the way of the old school for awhile. Back in the day of chalk boards and teachers that actually stand up in front of class and teach.
Wouldn’t that be a blessing?
I assure you that I am not bashing anyone. Speaking the truth and I’m sure most parents feel the same.
Food for thought……did you know that most children at London school get Free or Reduced Lunches.(1 in 5)
If we can’t feed our children, how can we pay higher taxes?
Beth, you are right in some respects, but very wrong in others. “Everything is going up, except our wages” is not only accurate for you, but also for our school. In fact everything for the school has been going down for the last several years, inclucding the wages and benefits for ALL of the school personnel, teachers and administrators and everyone in between. Unfortunately, the school has no credit card, it can’t borrow money and pay it back later, the school took a major pay cut from the state to the tune of nearly 30%, and yet they still educate AND FEED every single child in our community. They are doing it with less revenue and less expenses than this community has ever seen, and doing a pretty good job of it. London educates all of those “Free or reduced cost lunch” children every single day with less resources, less revenue, and it costs them more to do it than practically any other community in Madison county.
This levy will cost PROPERTY OWNERS only 75 cents per day. That’s a candy bar or a cup of coffee! Something that I would GLADLY give up for the future of my children AND YOUR CHILDREN because I care that much about you and your future and the future of this community, not just myself. The selfish thing to do and say would be “I can’t afford this tax increase, I can barely feed my kids or pay for gas” but the horrible truth is that London can’t afford to NOT pass this levy because if the school fails, then every single child fails and the entire community will fail. I want every person in the community to prosper and to make better wages, but you have to invest in order to make a profit.
Really Jimmy?? Too bad you have to embarrass yourself online by presenting such ignorance. I understand that all people don’t know all the details about everything regarding this district…but intelligent, caring, respectful people seek the truth. They don’t bash in ignorance.
Fact: If you read any newspapers or listen to the radio, or watch TV, you should certainly understand that: A). ALL districts in Ohio have been hurt financially due to the State cutting funding to local school districts- London is not alone. B). Our district will actually save approx. $50,000 in utilities alone in the new middle school versus the old schools downtown. (The Madison Press has reported this several times) . C). The district has cut millions of dollars in recent years trying to balance their budget, including cutting 36 teaching/aide positions. D). The Supreme Court has declared the current system of making districts use levies in order to gain funding, UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Yet the State of Ohio ignores that not so small detail, and decides to balance the budget on the backs of our children. Instead of calling the Board of Education names, do something productive – call, write or e-mail your Congressman or Representative and tell them we are fed up with our schools being savaged by Kasich!
Hey, London Boad of Education: Build some more schools you can’t afford to Run Makes Stupid is as stupid does
The new school was built without using any tax payer $. The new school costs less to run than the old school. I would suggest researching the facts before you make statements. Spell check is also a handy tool.