Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

Answers -- Round 1 -- Part 2

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3. I cannot easily determine, from the PLSD's financial statements (which are not always broken down in the most logical fashion), how much our teachers have received in raises since 1998. I can confirm, however, that salaries, wages and fringes together do account for about 80% of the PLSD's operating expenses (and will exceed $45 million this year).

4. Faculty raises are, of course, governed by the collective bargaining agreement between the PLSD and the Pickerington Education Association, which generally is renegotiated every 2-3 years. Under the current agreement, which expires in 2004, base salaries increase at the rate of 4.25% per year.

In addition, teachers who complete certain quanta of post-graduate courses, or certain quanta of additional teaching years, earn step increases ranging from 2-9%. Thus it is conceivable that a given teacher may in a given year receive a total salary increase of 13%. However, I am told that step increases, in aggregate, generally increase total salary/wage expense each year by only 2-3% (since, in any given year, many teachers receive no step increase at all). The PLSD is required by Ohio law to have some set of step increases, but not any particular set. This is determined through negotiations with our teachers.

5. Especially given how difficult it was to negotiate the current collective bargaining agreement (it took a mediator to settle the matter), I do not believe our teachers would be willing to reopen the current contract and grant salary concessions for next year.

Answers -- Round 1 -- Part 3

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6. To my knowledge, there are no accurate statistics on the percentage of Pickerington grads who attend, or complete, college. I have heard percentages ranging from 50% to 80%, depending on the speaker and the audience.

It is my sense that we are not preparing our students for college as well as we should. We need to move away from state report cards as the sole, or primary, measure of educational quality. We should judge our schools by how well they prepare our kids for life, and not be how well they prepare our kids for a given set of state-mandated proficiency tests. We also need to set higher expectations for our kids, and for some teachers and courses.

7. Assuming no cuts, the PLSD next year will have full-time athletic directors at both high schools, and part-time athletic directors (paid with supplementals) at both junior highs. I consider this excessive. I still believe that one capable full-time athletic director should suffice for the entire PLSD. But cutting the additional athletic director positions certainly would not balance the budget.

8. Although I do not have final figures, I estimate that sports facilities at the new junior and senior high school -- including gymns, the new field house, the concession stand, the soccer and football stadiums, and the practice fields -- will cost more than $12 million. I consider this excessive, as I consider the entire cost of these new schools excessive. We could, and should, have built them for $10-15 million less. We also could have saved a similar amount of interest expense by junking the dubious concept of ''minimal new millage'' in structuring the bond levy and bond offering.

That is why I opposed this project, opposed hiring the architects that we hired for it, and voted against the bond levy, both on the school board and at the polls.

It is too late to change any of this now. But let's not do it again. These new schools should stand as monuments to what can happen when voters do not elect strong, diligent, financially sophisticated and fiscally responsible people to the school board. Let's carry that lesson with us into this November's election.

Best regards, Bruce
ulm