Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Dear friends and neighbors,

Some of my best friends in this community have suggested recently that voting against the upcoming school levy is an effective way to fight the severe problems our community is experiencing due to growth, and also to force a higher degree of fiscal responsibility on the PLSD.

They claim that growth is at the root of the PLSD's fiscal problems. Some claim that all community leaders -- Board of Trustees, City Council, Mayor, City Manager, PLSD administrators and School Board -- are somehow all in cahoots. Others claim that defeating the levy will force the School Board and the PLSD administration to assert control over the other units of government, or to convince them to change their ways. Some people may even believe that allowing our schools to deteriorate will deter builders from building here.

Growth certainly is one major contributing factor to the PLSD's fiscal problems. Those problems are equally rooted, however, in the current recession, in current historically low interest rates and, as I have explained before on these Pages, House Bill 920, which keeps the PLSD's property tax revenues from keeping up with the cost of living. Poor financial management and controls also have been a contributing factor.

The PLSD is addressing the last of these factors. The former PLSD Superintendant and Treasurer no longer work here. The School Board has established a Finance Committee, on which I serve, to exercise more careful financial oversight. Our new Treasurer has instituted a wide range of financial reforms, not the least of which is zero based budgeting. And the PLSD has met the voters at least half way, with permanent belt-tightening measures that will close at least half the current budget gap.

There is still more work to do. Financial reporting in the PLSD still is not all that it ought to be. In my opinion, we also have allowed transportation costs to get out of hand, and we need to make fuller use of our existing school buildings before asking the voters for the funds to build more of them. And we have designed and built new schools, recently, without sufficient concern for cost.

Don't Cut Your Nose Part II

Defeating the May school levy, however, will not help. There are at least three of us on the School Board who are as committed to fiscal responsibility, and to tightening the PLSD's finances and financial accountability, as anyone on the School Board as recent memory has ever been. That commitment is shared by our current Treasurer, who is as honest and hard-working a public servant as I have ever known. Hopefully that commitment will be shared as well by our new Superintendent.

Without these additional funds, however, the PLSD's financial problems will become insurmountable. We will be forced to take measures that no one wants to take, and that will further divide our community. No one has been more committed to fiscal responsibility over the last five years than me. As I have said before, I have the battle scars to prove it. And I am telling you that the PLSD genuinely needs the May levy. We will only hurt our community and ourselves by defeating it.

Don't Cut Your Nose Part III

I should add that three members of the School Board, along with some key members of the PLSD administration, are doing what they can do to persuade the city council and the board of trustees to systematically control the rate, density and composition of growth.

Perhaps better than anyone else, we understand the problems that uncontrolled residential growth is creating for our schools. The PLSD cannot do sound planning when we don't know whether we will have 100 or 1,000 new students in the fall. We cannot accommodate residential growth that produces upwards of 500 new students per year. And we cannot maintain good schools on our current weak tax base, and without the additional of a substantial amount of commercial property to our tax base.

School Board President Wes Monhollen and I are founding members of the CommUNITY 1st initiative. My colleague Gail Oakes and I have spoken out forcefully at recent meetings of the City Council and the Board of Trustees. I believe that the Board of Trustees is indeed committed to the responsible management of residential growth. That commitment certainly is shared by city councilman Dave Shaver.

My ability to persuade the other members of city council to see the light, however, is no greater than yours. I have become convinced, especially from what I have seen at recent city council meetings, that the hearts of at least four members of the city council, and also those of the Mayor and City Manager, are with the builders and developers. It would take an epiphany to change that, and it is simply beyond my power to produce epiphanies.

The city council certainly does have the legal power to control the rate, density and composition of growth, by rationing sewer and water taps and building permits, by developing a sound land use plan in cooperation with the Board of Trustees, and by launching -- again in cooperation with the Board of Trustees -- a strong and sustained program to build our commercial tax base.

I do not believe, however, that these people are willing to do so, and Dave Shaver cannot do it alone. The only solution to these problems is the immediate recall of the four councilmen in question, along with the mayor, and the removal of the city manager. I believe that, with the recall/removal of these individuals, it should now be possible to replace them with honest public servants who will do what the public good requires. I believe that we have such people in this community, if only they will step forward.

Although I am a resident of the township and not the city, I plan to publicly call for the recall of these council members. I also will circulate the petitions door-to-door, if that's what it takes to get the job done. However, we need three responsible city residents to step forward to sign the recall petitions. I plead with three of you to step forward and do what needs to be done.

We are in financial distress too

Bruce, your efforts on behalf of fiscal responsibility in the PLSD are commendable, please keep up the good work.

Please also keep in mind the same forces affecting the PLSD budget are at work on our personal budgets, as well. Many residents have seen their investment portfolios dwindle. Many companies are cutting back, many good, high paying jobs are on the bubble. Many companies are instituting wage freezes. Our home values may soon dwindle as our aging homes in established neighborhoods must compete with new homes and builders' incentives. A school surrounded by portables is not an effective selling point, either, nor is the true teacher/student ratio, if anyone could actually get that number.

My point is, our pockets are not bottomless. I do not know what the answer is to our problem. When we bought our home 6 years ago, I questioned the Realtor as to the tax base in Pickerington, she smirkingly replied ''homeowners''. I had a premonition then that we would eventually be where we are now.