Budget Battle Lines Drawn Over… Cushions!?

By now, loyal reader, you know never to be surprised by the latest developments on the school budget front. But even with that preparation for the unexpected, we need to warn you – the newest development will take your breath away, make your head spin and/or boggle your mind. In a nutshell, it appears that the blank-check-for-the-schools brigade is about to launch a full-fledged attack to add back $320,000 of cushions to the budget. That’s right, they are poised to insist that the Town Council… and the voters… restore to the budget $320,000 of funds that school officials admitted would not harm academic programs if eliminated. (In more polite budget terms, this $320,000 might be referred to as “contingency funds;” in less polite terms, it might be referred to as “fluff.”)

However you care to characterize the $320,000, one thing is clear – the elimination of it from the school budget will not impact academic programs. How can we be so sure of that? Well, for $250,000 of that amount, we direct you to Superintendent Entwistle’s June 22, 2015 “Budget Update” (link here) in which he describes “$200,000 of these reductions, however, would depend upon a fundamental shift in established budgeting practice related to planning for a small amount of fund surplus to accrue during the budget year (to serve as a cushion for any unanticipated expense(s).” [Emphasis added.] He continued: “Another $50,000 was identified as potential savings to be generated by a shared-services agreement with Cape Elizabeth for our new Director of School Nutrition.” Sounds like a good shift in budgeting practice to us. Perhaps there are even more cushions to be found.

Even more directly, School Board Finance Chair Caiazzo said in a public statement at the June 24, 2015 Town Council meeting:

“But it is when we attempt to move beyond this point [$320,000] to close the remaining $180,000 gap that we lose our ability to preserve current programs and services.”

The $320,000 reduction now reflected in the school budget will not harm current programs and services. It is a cushion. We should not be adding cushions to the budget! (For those of you who are interested in Chair Caiazzo’s remarks, please go to the 8 minute, 30 second mark in the video available on the Town website at this link.)

 Where are we now?

So what happened at the July 15 Town Council meeting? As is often the case, it can be very difficult to follow the amendment process, especially if you don’t have a copy of the materials distributed to the Council members during the meeting. Here is a quick summary of the changes to the school and municipal budgets approved at the most recent meeting. (Note that these are the changes from the version of the budget rejected on July 7.)

• Added back $180,000 to the school budget (which the School Board had determined – incorrectly, we believe – could only be saved by cutting after-school activities and sports).
• Directed the Town Manager to cut $180,000 more from the municipal budget, apparently in a share-the-pain gesture.
• Added $885,000 to school revenue to reflect the final amount of GPA (“General Purpose Aid”) to be received by the Town from those villains in Augusta. Scarborough’s final GPA amount, after all the budget wrangling in Augusta, was $4,645,000 – a reduction of $133,000 from last year.
• Added $200,000 to municipal revenue budget to reflect additional excise taxes expected to be received by the Town. (This is simply a refinement of a budget estimate.)

Here’s a quick chart that summarizes the amount of taxes to be raised:

As you will note, taxpayer funding of the schools is now down to a mere increase of 4.9%, largely as a result of the final GPA infusion from the State.  Municipal operations, on the other hand, are not requiring any increase in taxpayer funding over last year; i.e., a flat budget. Hmmm.  Please draw your own conclusions.

An important cautionary note: At the July 15 meeting, the Council approved only the “first reading” of the proposed budget just described. At the special Council meeting to be held on July 22, the Council could very well make additional changes to the school budget we will vote on August 4. Be sure you get an update on the Council’s action before deciding how to vote on August 4! We will, of course, provide an update in our next blog posting.

Hats Off to the Town Council

It’s never easy being a member of the Town Council. We stand in awe of those who willingly take on that responsibility for a measly fifteen hundred bucks a year. That’s likely below the minimum wage when you reduce it to an hourly rate based on the number of hours they work. And never did they earn that salary more than last Wednesday evening when they were besieged by the red-shirted, blank-check brigade.

Our seven stalwart Councilors were alternately lectured, belittled, accused, hectored, browbeaten and admonished. Facts were in short supply, but that didn’t stop the lecturing.

And please remember… it was not the Town Council that cut the Key club, band, cheerleading, wrestling, etc. – while at the same time giving the budgets of school and system administration (and many other areas) a pass. That was the handiwork of the School Board. If there’s one thing that rankles us, it’s misdirected ire!

In their own words

Here is our favorite quote of the week, ripped, as it were, from the headlines:

This one cries out for a response. First of all, who accused school officials of hiding money and who called them liars and cheats and for what reasons?

Second (and dearest to our heart), Ms. Perry maintains that the School Board has answered “every question… about this budget.” Actually, one citizen is still waiting for a reply from Chair Beeley on a July 9, 2015 email to her requesting a copy of any financial analysis that was done in connection with the new sharing of a food services director with Cape Elizabeth. On April 13, the same citizen also requested a copy of the analysis of the financial impact of the custodians’/food services workers’ contract finalized in April; he has not yet received a response. Finally, the suggestion to broadcast and record School Board Finance Committee meetings has been met with a deafening silence. Not every question has been answered.

As to the accusation of inciting parents and public by cutting activities and athletics, if the shoe fits… To the apparently rhetorical question of “but what are our choices?,” we would politely refer Ms. Perry to our previous blog posting where we identified $268,000 to $375,000 of potential reductions that would not harm academic programs. These were areas that we hoped a School Board intent on looking out for the best interests of the kids would have at least required a meaningful review.

Coming attractions

Come early for a front row seat at the next Town Council meeting – Wednesday, July 22, 7pm at Town Hall. The festivities will include the all-important “second reading” of the school budget. This is where the school budget amount will be set for the August 4 vote. It will be interesting to see whether the Council holds firm on their unanimous first reading vote or decides to restore $320,000 of cushions to the school budget.

Until next time

Goodbye from Lake Wobegon. 

Be neighborly,

TT Hannah

Maker of fine cigar ashes since 1951

Well, how’s this for summer entertainment! Since we last met, the school budget has gone down to a second – and particularly ugly – defeat. The NO’s far outnumbered the YES’s: 3,584 to 496. The “Too Low’s” modestly outnumbered the “Too High’s” – 2,042 to 1,833. But to hear the blank-check-for-the-schools crowd tell it, that was a clear mandate to goose the budget back to a level the superintendent is comfortable with. Perhaps we should go back to his “Leadership Council’s” original recommendation of $40.2 million that would have increased taxpayer funding of the schools by 12%. That’s the trouble when all you see is one side of the issue – no amount is too high.

Cutting to the bone? Or removing a few cushions?

If we had a nickel for every time the word “devastating” was used to describe the proposed $500,000 reduction to the school budget, we would be able to fulfill that long-held dream of retiring to a tropical island. But, alas, it is proving impossible to turn rhetoric into an income stream.

Please take a quick peek at the following chart of just how that $500,000 reduction was going to be achieved. As you will see, the first $300,000 or so was mostly accounting gimmicks and reductions with minimal or no impact on the kids. It was only that last $180,000 – the major slashing of sports and after-school activities – that hurt. And that slashing was meant to hurt, make no mistake about it. Having unnecessarily inflicted that pain, the superintendent got the attention of the school parents and misled them into thinking the academic sky was falling. We’ve used the word before and will use it again – cynical.

For an “official,” though less informative, version of this chart, please follow this link. Our earnest hope is that a few of those who have taken the School Board bait will actually read and understand the above chart… and realize the results of the reductions are not devastation – most of them don’t even rise to the level of inconvenience.

 Into the Wayback Machine…

Sherman: “Where to today, Mr. Peabody?”
Mr. Peabody: “Today Sherman we only go back to 2011. We’ll be visiting the posh Boston suburb of Belmont, where the school budget is facing a $2.9 million shortfall. A huge community outcry has arisen over threats to make deep cuts to music, art, foreign language, social studies, and library programs. Let’s see what Belmont’s superintendent of schools, George Entwistle, has to say…”

For full article, click here.

Sherman: Wow, Mr. Peabody, that rhetoric sounds awfully familiar!
Mr. Peabody: Yes, my boy, once you learn a good scare tactic, you should never let it go.

 Our List of Budget Reductions

As faithful readers know, we here at LookOutScarborough.com are not educators. (In fact, some of our non-fans question whether we’re actually human.) Be that as it may, we contend that you don’t have to be an educator to find legitimate areas of the school budget to analyze for potential savings. We hope that at least a few of those who are blindly rallying to the School Board’s defense will join us in the future in a thoughtful review and analysis of the school budget. Come to the School Board Finance Committee meetings and pull up a chair.

In the meantime, here’s our list of some of the areas of the school budget that we believe at least deserve analysis and consideration.

Should we at LookOutScarborough.com be making these suggestions? Absolutely not, but if the superintendent refuses to take a serious and honest look at the school operations – and share it with the public – then we have no choice but to suggest relatively uninformed, but plausible, areas for review.

A Suggestion Everyone Should Love?

On July 10, we emailed School Board Chair Beeley asking her to consider streaming and recording all future School Board Finance Committee meetings. Currently the Town’s Finance Committee meetings are streamed and recorded and made available on the Town’s website. The School Board meetings are also made available in this manner. The School Board Finance committee meetings are where the infamous $500,000 reduction list was concocted. The meetings are critical to an understanding of the school budget and yet they can be held at very inconvenient times (recently one was at 9:30 am on a Monday and another at 8:00 am on a Wednesday).

Anyone who wants a thorough understanding of the school budget should be able to attend or at least review these meetings.

We have not yet received a reply from Chair Beeley to this suggestion. Let’s hope she shares our interest in having full and transparent public access to the School Board’s operation. How could one be against that?

Town Council meeting:

Wednesday, July 15, 7pm at Town Hall.

“First reading” of the proposed school budget for referendum #3.  Should be interesting to see if the blank checkers have their way with the Council.  If their public comments are any indication, expect lots of hubris and some rather bold demands.

That’s it for now, folks!  Mark August 4 on your calendar — Referendum #3. We may be going for a record here…

Be neighborly,

TT Hannah

OK, folks. This is it. Last call. Sanity is on the line here. The School Budget referendum vote is July 7. Many of the blank-check-for-the-schools folks are saying that a 6.8% increase in taxpayer funding of the schools is too low. How is that even possible? How big an increase will be enough for them?  And how are we talking about a 6.8% increase as if it were a devastating cut???   This is, indeed, a bizzaro budget.

Please vote “NO” and “TOO HIGH” on Tuesday if you haven’t already. If you have already voted, thanks! But please reach out to family, friends and neighbors and get them to Town Hall to vote on Tuesday. The blank-checkers have gone all out with a full-page newspaper ad and the rampant misuse of email addresses entrusted to them for non-political purposes. We need to counter this one voter at a time. Please round up as many voters as you can and get them to the polls. This is a critical vote for the Town’s future.

What Jerry’s Friends are Saying about the School Budget…

In their own words…

This is one of our favorite features. We get to share some of the public statements that just make you want to scratch your head and make you wonder if you’re living in a bizarro world where everything is backwards.

Wait, what? Taxpayer funding of the schools is up 28.8% in the last five years. Schools account for about two-thirds of our tax bills. And Ms. Shea thinks this is “tax relief!”  We’d hate to see what tax stress is like!

Great moments in budgeting history

As was well documented in the last blog post, Superintendent Entwistle – with the complicity of the School Board – engineered a $180,000 reduction of extracurricular activities as part of the $500,000 Town Council-mandated school budget reduction. (The $500k decrease means taxpayer funding of the schools will “only” increase by 6.8% this year.)

The threatened cuts were designed to maximize the public pain and outcry. They diverted attention from the school administration’s and School Board’s failure to make meaningful reviews of most of the school operating budget. This is a time-honored tactic for resisting a legitimate budget review process — propose reductions that invoke the maximum public outcry in an attempt to pressure politicians into providing more funding.

We found a few more examples of the same basic bullying tactic being used in budget negotiations throughout history:

New Secret Club Revealed!

By now, most everyone has heard about the private, invitation-only FaceBook page that the blank-checkers have formed to promote their agenda in the secret comfort of their own lair. (See link here.) Seems that openness and public discussion are not among their core values. There’s nothing worse than contrary opinions to spoil one’s thought process.

In any event, we at LookOutScarborough.com have obtained exclusive inside info on another new secret organization known as “The Taxpayers’ Club.” Details are sketchy, but here’s what we have so far:

The Club has plans for a secret clubhouse. Here’s an architect’s rendering of the new facility which we understand will be located in the revitalized Dunstan Corner area. Until the clubhouse is built, members are reportedly holding meetings at Tim Horton’s on Route 1.

We can also confirm the new Club has adopted an official high sign to aid in identifying other club members. See below.

Watch future issues of this blog for more information about this new secret group.

 Half a story

It seems that the blank-checkers are spinning a new line about the budget. They’re focusing on a 3-point-something percent increase in the School operating budget. Which is fine as long as you remember that that’s only part of the story.

They conveniently forget that we taxpayers have to fund the entire school budget, net of State revenues like GPA (General Purpose Aid for Education). Last time we checked, the net school budget to be funded by taxpayers was up 6.6% over last year. Add to that the net cost of school capital projects and a couple of other minor items that are not voted on in the referendum and you get the $38.6 million total net school budget that’s shown on the tax calculation worksheet at the Town website. That $38.6 million – described as “amount to be raised” on the worksheet – is the total taxpayers will be paying if this budget is approved. It is a 6.8% increase over last year. Slice it and dice it any way you want, focus on any pieces of it that you want, but that’s the bottom line.

This is it folks… LAST CALL.  Send this bizarro budget down to defeat…

Please spread the word… EVERY VOTE IS CRITICAL!

 Until next time, be neighborly!

And you thought you had heard it all…

Well, our friends at the School Board have come up with a new message to sell the 6.8% increase in taxpayer funding of the schools: vote no, it’s too low. Yup, it turns out a 6.8% increase isn’t enough for them! Good luck selling that idea to the taxpayers of Scarborough!

So if 6.8% is too low, just how much do they really need to get a school system they’ll be happy with?

One defense that the blank-check-for-schools folks keep bringing up is how low Scarborough’s overall property tax (or “mil”) rate is. For instance, in her recent piece in The Leader, School Board Chair Beeley stated – apparently with a straight face – “The mil rate in Scarborough is among the very lowest in all of Cumberland County.” According to LookOutScarborough’s  count, there were 15 communities with higher mil rates and 9 with lower mil rates. (Link here for a list of current mil rates.)  How that makes us “among the very lowest” is indeed puzzling. The article contains several other assertions that range from unsourced to just plain wrong.  Perhaps the School Board should consider adding a fact-checker to the school payroll. Why not? Money appears to be no object.

In our ongoing effort to educate and inform, we like to ask appropriate “what if” questions. School Board members are extremely fond of telling us how low our overall mil rate is relative to other towns — especially compared to those towns with school systems we’re supposed to worship, like the Cape and Yarmouth. Somehow that’s supposed to convince us that we’re not spending enough on the schools. Well, as the old saying goes, beware of what you wish for…

Take a look at this table which shows what the taxes would be on that oft-cited $300,000 house if it were located in towns other than Scarborough:

To find what your actual real estate tax would be in one of the above towns, just take your current tax bill and multiply it by the “Mil Rate Multiplier” shown above. [Warning: Please be seated in a ground floor room before making this calculation.]

So is Yarmouth really the goal? If so, we ain’t seen nothing yet. To get to Yarmouth’s mil rate, we’d need to increase our overall tax rate by 43%.  (And there are certainly some in Town who wouldn’t have a problem with that.)

There’s an old Indian saying…

There’s an old Indian saying along the lines of “It’s very difficult to find something if you don’t look for it.” That pretty much sums up the School Board’s approach to allocating the $500,000 reduction that the Town Council approved on June 24.

We watched the process as the School Board’s Finance Committee attempted to allocate the $500,000 among various school programs and expense categories. As one would expect, the process was directed by the superintendent – he’s the one who controls the data. And control it he did. The first $320,000 identified by the superintendent and endorsed by the School Board did not involve much heavy lifting. There were a bunch of reductions that were more or less accounting adjustments. And some reductions that might rate a 2 or 3 on a pain scale of 10, but nothing even remotely approaching the “devastating” level that you have likely heard about.

No need to pack anymore.

The focus of the final $180,000 of the total reduction then quickly shifted to extracurricular activities – after school clubs, activities and sports. The impact of these reductions was appropriately identified, bemoaned and finally accepted. Hundreds of kids will suffer because of the activities eliminated – 8th grade sports, all Wentworth and many Middle School activities, the Key Club, the band, the chorus, spring boys and girls tennis, among many others.

What was shocking was the almost entire absence of any pushback from the School Board members. There was no demand from them to review any other areas of the budget to determine whether efficiencies might be achieved or less painful cuts made. They apparently believe that it is impossible that other, more appropriate opportunities for reductions could exist. It was a very disappointing process to watch.  We wish more members of the public could have witnessed it.  The interests of the kids of Scarborough were not well served.

Some could legitimately suggest that our view of the budget review process was inaccurate and biased. But let’s put that possibility aside by looking at the results of the School Board’s reduction allocation process. The following table gets right to the heart of the matter…

That’s right, 18.6% of the extracurricular activities budget was slashed. System administration was cut by 0.3%, school administration was untouched, student and staff support (curriculum development, IT, library, etc.) cut by 0.7%. These categories total about $6.8 million. If they had looked, perhaps the School Board could have identified redundancies, inefficiencies or excesses that would have been less painful than the slashing of extracurricular activities. But if you don’t look, you won’t find.

Now we here at LookOutScarborough are not educators, but we do know budget gaming when we see it… and that’s precisely what this was: Identify programs that will have maximum impact and create the loudest public outcry. This creates a perfect diversion from the failure to perform the comprehensive and even-handed review that should have occurred.

Are those last $180,000 of cuts very harmful to the kids of Scarborough? You bet they are. Are they necessary? No, they are not. Did the Board of Education seriously look for less damaging cuts? No, they did not. This is the real shame in the way this budget process was conducted. The kids of Scarborough are suffering because the School Board members refused to do their jobs in a manner that best protected the kids. Send them a message that this is unacceptable – VOTE NO/TOO HIGH!

Do you hear us?

Sometimes we think many of our elected officials are as deaf as the proverbial haddock. The concept of “affordable” seems to have escaped some of them. Perhaps because they tend to be at the upper end of the income scale, some of them forget that Scarborough is a very economically diverse town. According to 2013 U.S. Census Bureau figures, 49% of us had household incomes of less than $75,000. And the income of 22% of households was less than $35,000.

Let’s hope our Council and School Board wake up and get a better understanding of the impact of relentless increases in property taxes. (And, no, property tax relief schemes are not the answer. Let’s not fund a tax relief program by raising taxes on others! Let’s go to the root cause and keep everybody’s taxes as low as possible.)

OK, if you’re so smart…

More than once we’ve been asked: “So if you’re so smart, what areas would you have reduced instead of the extracurricular activities to come up with the $180,000?” Usually, in a fit of humility, we decline to give specifics and say that’s the School Board’s job. But since they don’t seem willing to engage in meaningful questioning of the budget, we’ll throw out three areas we would have liked to see them give a thorough review:

1. Custodial Services: In the course of bargaining the last union contract, the union “proposed savings of what it believed would be approximately $300,000.” (From Report of Arbitration Panel, dated 10/24/14, p. 4.) The schools’ facilities director “did not find all of them [the union’s proposals] feasible. He felt that realistically, the savings would amount to $108,000.” (Same source.)  So at some point in the not-too-distant past, the school and custodians’ union agreed that there was at least $108,000 of savings in the custodial services budget.  In addition, the current budget shows High School Custodian wages increasing from about $241,000 in FY 2015 to about $311,000 in FY 2106, an increase of $70,000. Did the School Board request an analysis of custodial expenses in its budget review process?

2. Wentworth Technology Integration: In FY 2015, a technology integration position was added to Wentworth as the new school opened up with significantly upgraded technology. So it made sense to have someone to help get teachers up to speed. Now that the staff is trained, is it necessary to have a full-time technology staffer assigned to Wentworth?

3. Improvement of Curriculum: The FY 2016 budget includes $943,000 for “improvement of curriculum.” In addition to $350,000 of salaries and $152,000 of stipends, this department includes $90,000 of instructional supplies, $70,000 of books and subscriptions, $75,000 of contracted services and $94,000 of staff development expenses. None of these could be shaved by a percent or two in order to spare the Key Club or 8th grade sports?

.
OK, maybe there’s not an ounce of fat in any of the above areas. But even if the answers to the questions do not result in identifying some savings opportunities, wouldn’t it have been nice to have the School Board members ask for some meaningful analysis of these areas?

 Time to act!

It’s very easy to get caught up in emotion and anger on this issue. It’s obviously happening on both sides. And that doesn’t serve anyone well – the school kids or the larger community. At this point, the best thing to do is vote – NO and TOO HIGH. Hopefully after July 7 we can knock out a rational, even-tempered, balanced approach to moving forward.  Perhaps we could even start before then…

In the meantime, please make your plans NOW to vote. The easiest option may well be this Tuesday (8am-4pm), Wednesday (8am-6:30pm) or Thursday (8am-4-pm). Friday and next Monday are difficult since you need a “special circumstance” to cast an absentee ballot; it’s hard to do. So the sooner the better!

Please vote NO/TOO HIGH as soon as possible!

We understand that the blank-check-for-the-schools crowd has finally organized.  Unfortunately, it’s in response to bogus cuts, but what can you do.  The votes of uniformed and misinformed voters count, too.  So please, vote as soon as possible.  And prod your family, friends and neighbors to vote as well.  Use email, social media, flyers, phone calls, Hannaford deli conversations.  Whatever it takes.  Now is not the time to head for the hammock!

Happy trails, kemo sabe!

Welcome to a special, non-inflammatory, highly-respectful blog posting, designed to tamp down fiery rhetoric and elevate the level of civic discourse… all while providing the same facts, analysis and insights that you have come to expect. Non-inflammatory, yes… boring, never!!!

 First, the news…

At the Town Council meeting on June 17, the Council set the date for the second school budget referendum for July 7. They decided – after significant public comment – that their first proposed date of June 30 would not allow time for sufficient public understanding of the revised budget. (Thank you, fellow members of the public, for speaking out to assure that we have at least a week to ponder the new budget.)

The Council also agreed – unanimously – to make a $500,000 reduction to the school budget that had been defeated at the June 9 referendum. The new budget amount still results in the total net education budget increasing from $36.2 million last year to $38.6 million this year, a $2.4 million increase. That’s still an increase of 6.8% from last year. (To verify these amounts, please download the document available on the Town website — click here and then open the download. The school budget component is page 3 of the worksheet.)

And speaking of the June 24 Town Council meeting… this is the meeting at which the new school budget amount will be finalized. Although the Council voted unanimously on the $500,000 reduction only a week before, they have the ability to change that amount on June 24. Stranger things have happened at Town Council meetings. Please pay close attention to the June 24 Council meeting.

So what does the newly proposed school budget boil down to?

It’s only 4 bucks a week…

Here’s the breakdown of the tax bill for that oft-cited $300,000 home for the current year and next year using the new school budget amount:

So your tax bill is “only” going to increase an additional 4 bucks a week.  Of course that four bucks a week is on top of the $87 per week you’re already paying in property taxes on your $300,000 home.  That brings the property tax tab to $91 per week — a significant sum if you’re living on a modest income.

We have been asked why we focus on the school line in the tax bill. There are two very important reasons for this: First, it is only the school budget that we’ll be voting on on July 7. The municipal and county components are done deals. Second, as you’ll see from the way your taxes get distributed in the above chart, 65.6% of your tax dollar will go to support the schools. So when the biggest share of your tax payment is increasing by an amount significantly greater than the overall inflation rate, we believe it deserves the most attention.

Speaking of inflation… the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics just released its May report a few days ago. The bottom line of the report: Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) for the twelve months ended May 31, 2015 was “unchanged.” Yes, that means inflation was zero for the last 12 months. Some will maintain that the CPI may not be the best comparison for the increase in the school budget, and that may well be true. On the other hand, it certainly is one meaningful comparison to the 6.24% increase in the school portion of your tax bill.

 Lessons Unlearned…

                                    In Their Own Words…

Donna Beeley on the defeated budget referendum:

The undeniable fact (if there is such a thing anymore) is that the taxpayer funding of the schools increased by 8.19% in the budget that was defeated. That is the statement that has been consistently made in this blog, and it is supported by the Town’s tax calculation worksheet (see two blog posts ago for the worksheet). The sole reason the total tax increase was only 5.78% was that the net municipal budget increased by 2.11%.

Ms. Beeley continued:

Of all the possible lessons that came to mind, Ms. Beeley’s take-home message wasn’t one of them.  We were thinking a prime lesson might be along the lines of “Gee, this budget seems to be too high for most Scarborough folks.”  Shows how much we know.  In any event, Ms. Beeley has introduced a breathtaking new concept in political analysis with huge implications. — those who stay home and do not vote count as being in favor of the status quo.

We urge you to read the entire article in The Current about the School Board’s reaction to the defeat of the school budget — link here.

School Board Finance Chair Christopher Caiazzo on the school budget defeat:

This comment requires a couple of responses.  First, our voter turnout of around 20% was head and shoulders above that of most of our neighbors.  Turnout was about 3% in SoPo, less than 2% in Portland, and about 11% in Cape Elizabeth.  With continued voter interest in the school budget, let’s hope we do even better on July 7.

Second, Mr. Caiazzo appears to be suggesting that parents of school children were a significant factor in the referendum’s defeat.  That’s probably true, but not in the way he assumes.  The assumption of the School Board and administration seems to be that parents with kids in the schools are a unified voting bloc that will be a yes vote for any school budget that comes up.  We believe that is a bad assumption. 

Parents are taxpayers as well as consumers, via their kids, of the schools’ services. They are subject to the same ongoing financial pressures as many Scarborough residents.  They, too, need to balance the schools’ financial needs with their own ability to afford the steadily increasing  tax demands.  When they pull that curtain behind them in the voting booth, they are free to vote in a way that best balances those needs for them.

 Early Summer Destinations

Yes, we know, with summer finally here after a seemingly endless wait, it’s hard to worry about voting on another school budget referendum. But worry we must. With the Fourth of July coming up, it will be very easy to skip the vote on July 7. So please take a minute right now to review the referendum calendar below and decide when you’re going to vote. Mark it on your calendar now so you’ll be sure your voice is heard in this important vote.

Notes on the calendar:

“Easy voting” is just that. Show up at the Town Clerk’s office (first door on the left) at Town Hall and vote on the spot. It is literally a two-minute process.

“Special circs voting” means you need to have a “special circumstance” to be able to cast an absentee vote that day.

For complete voting details, click here for a link to the Town Clerk’s page. For voting questions, call the Town Clerk’s office at 730-4020.

 We keep trying…

Despite our best efforts to clear up misunderstandings, certain very basic myths persist.  Perhaps the most troubling is that Scarborough has a long history of cutting the funding of our schools.  This one persists even among otherwise well-informed folks.  But it just ain’t so!  Here’s a very basic graph of how taxpayer funding of the schools has increased — steadily — for the past five years and the current budget.  The FY 2016 budget amount has been updated to reflect the budget that will be voted on on July 7.

Source: Town records.

A Tip of our Mortarboard…

to the 239 seniors who received diplomas from Scarborough High School a couple weeks ago!  The college plans of some of the graduates include a number of high-powered schools like BC, Bowdoin, Brandeis, Brown, BU, Colgate, GWU, Michigan, Penn, Smith, US Naval Academy, Wheaton, etc.  Congratulations and best of luck to all 239 graduates!

• Is the “Level-Services Budget” on the level?
• Why does the myth of repeated school budget cuts persist?
• A short history of State aid funding (“GPA”).
• Surprises lurking in the FY 2016-17 budget.
• School budgets our neighbors have approved.
  

That’s it for now, folks! 

Back to full-throttle, no-holds-barred rhetoric next time!

Book ’em, Danno!

Yes, friends, just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, it does.  Much worse, in fact.  The Town Council is on the verge of adopting an accelerated schedule for the second vote on the school budget.  Incredibly, it is a schedule which will not even allow enough time for the three local newspapers to publish the amount of the school budget being voted on prior to the date of the vote!  So much for having informed voters!  Additionally, the “compressed schedule” will severely restrict early/absentee voting.  This is especially troubling in that about 25% of the votes in the first school budget referendum were cast as early/absentee votes.  What possible reason can the Town Council have for this absurd schedule?

Other than a nefarious possibility or two, we can’t think of one.  State law governs the school referendum process.  According to the law, our second referendum can be held anytime between June 19 and July 24.  There is absolutely no legal requirement that an approved school budget be in place by July 1 (the start of the schools’ fiscal year).  So why is our Council proposing the June 30 date, which severely limits voter access to information and minimizes early voting opportunities?   We wish we could explain it.

Here’s what the schedule the Town Council will be considering at 9 am on Tuesday, June 16, looks like:

Shenanigans Schedule

That’s right, there are exactly three business days between the Council’s adoption of the final school budget amount and the referendum on that budget.  I don’t know about you, but when somebody puts an unrealistic time deadline on me to decide something, it sends up major red flags.  This unholy rush to pass the school budget strongly suggests there’s going to be something in it that folks won’t like when they finally see and understand the details.  The unreasonable schedule in itself may just be enough reason to vote against the school budget if the Council insists on a June 30 vote.

Transparency? Informed voters? Adequate time for early voting?  Obviously these are not concepts that the Council values if they continue with this headlong rush to a June 30 voting date.

(By the way, two special Town Council meetings — including one at 9 am — within 9 days… doesn’t that alone suggest mischief is afoot?)

What can we do?

So what can we as concerned taxpayers do?  Two things come to mind:

• If you can do it before their 9 am meeting on Tuesday, June 16, email the Council members and tell them to respect the right of Scarborough voters to be adequately informed about the school budget before having to vote on it.  Three business days between Council approval and the referendum is obviously inadequate.  The email address that will reach all Council members is: scarboroughtowncouncil@googlegroups.com.
• If the vote is indeed scheduled for June 30, mark it on your calendar right away.  And be prepared to get out on June 30 and vote NO unless you have received persuasive information that the revised budget adequately balances both the programmatic needs of the schools and the tax affordability needs of all Scarborough residents.  (Based on their track record so far, we sincerely doubt that the Council will adjust the school budget in a manner that adequately addresses the concerns of most Scarborough taxpayers.)
  

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In our next blog…

We have purposely kept this posting short and focused.  If you have a couple of minutes now, please consider a quick email to the Town Council indicating your strong objection to a referendum schedule which (1) makes it nearly impossible for voters to become informed about the revised school budget and its tax implications and (2) severely constrains early/absentee voting opportunities.

In our next blog we will be sure to share how each Councilor voted on the adoption of the June 30 referendum date.  (There seems to be very little doubt about which way six of the Councilors will vote.  We have a small bet with Mrs. Kincaid, the office cleaning lady, about which way the remaining Councilor will go.)

Next time we will also be able to report on the “first reading” proposal for the school budget at the June 17 Council meeting.  (Our best guess: a reduction of $250,000 to $350,000, an amount which will still keep the increase in taxpayer funding of the schools at more than 7%.)  We also have several interesting tidbits about Town Hall goings-on that we decided to hold over until the next blog.

Happy trails until we meet again!

Wow! Our friends at the School Board have had a busy few days pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with to swing the vote their way tomorrow.

Kids are being sent home from school with a “please support our schools” flyer.  Parents are receiving multiple emails from School sources.  And, even more unbelievably, a large number of Town residents – all of them with kids in the schools, as far as we can tell – received a robocall from School Board Chair Donna Beeley on June 4. In the call she doesn’t beat around the bush… she “encourages you to vote yes…” on the school budget referendum.

The numbers called appear to be the phone numbers parents provided to the schools for emergency contact purposes, not for political purposes.

The calls raise several significant issues:

1. Why is the School Board misusing private and personal data to push its budget proposal?
2. What school (i.e., public) resources were used to make the calls?
3. Why doesn’t the call specify who authorized the call?
4. Did the School Board seek legal advice about the appropriateness of the calls? If so, who paid for the legal consultation?
5. What was the School Board’s process for authorizing Ms. Beeley to make the calls? (We don’t recall hearing a discussion of this significant policy decision at any recent School Board meetings. Is there another School Board decision-making process in addition to their public meetings that we don’t know about?)

Obviously the School Board members are worried. As well they should be. It seems to be sinking in that an 8.2% increase in the taxpayer funding of the schools is not playing well in the court of public opinion.

If you haven’t already voted, please make sure you add your voice to the NO chorus!  And please nudge as many family members, friends and neighbors as you can in the direction of Town Hall tomorrow!

Are you being misled?

‘

At last Thursday’s School Board meeting, one of the members strongly suggested that Scarborough residents are being “misled” when they are told that taxpayer funding of the schools will increase by 8.2% if the budget is approved. Well, please take a look at the following excerpt from the Town’s budget calculation worksheet and decide for yourself.

Yes, indeed, the “Total Net Budget” (aka “2016 amount to be raised”) is increasing by 8.19%. (All our postings are carefully reviewed for accuracy by the renowned Cambridge, Massachusetts  law firm of Dewey, Cheatham & Howe.)

What’s next?

If, as we earnestly hope, Scarborough voters reject the school budget on Tuesday, what happens next? Here’s a quick summary:

1. If the budget is not approved by voters on June 9, the Town Council must prepare a revised budget and submit it to another voter referendum at least ten days but no longer than 45 days after the failed referendum vote.
2. If the voters have not approved a school budget at referendum by July 1, the most recent school budget which has been approved by the Council and submitted to the voters for validation at referendum goes into effect on a temporary basis. (So if we did not hold another referendum before July 1, the school budget we’re considering on June 9 would temporarily go into effect.)
3. After each failed budget validation referendum, the Town Council must prepare a revised budget and submit it to another voter referendum at least ten days but no longer than 45 days after the failed referendum vote. (So the process could theoretically continue well into the summer – with the June 9 proposed budget being in effect the entire time.)

Let’s hope that the next version of the school budget addresses the financial realities that most Scarborough face.

 Moving On

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while now, you know that irony is one of our favorite things. And it is with a large dose of full-strength irony that we report the resignation of Ms. Jane Leng from the School Board.

And then there were six…

As you recall, Ms. Leng famously suggested that those who can’t afford Scarborough’s ever-increasing tax burden should consider relocating to a town with lower taxes. The Leng family has now relocated to the West coast. We suspect it was not a tax-motivated move.  With all sincerity, we wish them well and thank Ms. Leng for her service on the School Board.  [Editor’s note: I personally found Ms. Leng to be a very thoughtful and open-minded member of the School Board. I will miss her willingness to ask tough questions and challenge the conventional wisdom.]

 One last time… please herd as many folks to Town Hall tomorrow as possible.

Happy trails until we meet again!

Don’t Let This Happen To You!

Well, friends, June 9 will be here sooner than you think. Finally. The day we get to have our voices heard on the $39.1 million School budget. You know, the one that’s requiring 8.2% more of our tax dollars. Please make sure you vote NO and encourage friends and neighbors to do the same.  The vote needs to be an overwhelming rejection of this out-of-touch budget. The members of the School Board and some members of the Town Council obviously don’t hear well… we need to be certain they hear us loud and clear on this.

To avoid the last-minute crush on voting day, please consider voting TODAY. It’s easy and it literally takes two minutes at Town Hall. Please see the Town Clerk’s notice for the voting hours prior to June 9 at the end of this blog. Note that you can vote at Town Hall until 6:30 pm on Wednesday, June 3. And beginning Friday, June 5, you will need a legitimate “special circumstance” in order to vote via absentee ballot at Town Hall.

Aunt Bea doesn’t live here anymore

Andy, I can’t afford that tax bill!

Scarborough is a wonderful place to live. One of the things that makes it special is the wide cross-section of people who live here. A nice mix of ages. A relatively wide variety of income levels. Folks who have lived here for their entire lives, and folks who are just passing through on personal or professional journeys.

That’s why this chart is so disturbing…

“Soc Sec COLA” is Social Security Cost-of-Living Adjustment. “School Budget” is the amount of taxpayer funding of the Schools. Inflation includes 1.7% increase for 2015.

We all have a grand old time when everybody has a bit of consideration for everybody else. But the Town Council seems to have ignored a big chunk of the Town’s residents when it approved the 8% increase in the School budget — on top of the 28.8% increase in taxpayer funding of the Schools in the previous five years.  They seem to have forgotten the 19% of the population that’s over 65 years old, many of whom rely on Social Security as a major source of income. And the 22% of households whose income is less than $35,000 per year.

The real estate tax bill is one of the largest expenses for many Scarborough families – not only for those on fixed incomes, but also for those with kids. So when the School portion of that tax bill escalates at three or four times the rate of inflation, real financial pressure results. It is not just “the price of a couple of cups of coffee a week” – it’s a matter of several hundred dollars being added to a bill that’s already several thousand dollars each year.

The School Board and the Town Council need to take into account the financial realities that all taxpayers face, not just the relatively affluent whose voices seem to drive Town government.

Old School/New School

Upper right: Dunstan School, circa 1965. Lower left: Wentworth School, 2015.

Fourth Grade – Then and Now

Some of the folks reading this blog have been out of school for a quite a while. But just for the fun of it, let’s do a quick time travel exercise and go back to the fourth grade. Picture the school you attended. The teacher you had. The subject you enjoyed the most. The trouble you got into. (Skip that last one if it’s too painful.)

If you were in fourth grade fifty years ago in Scarborough, you attended one of five schools – Dunstan, Oak Hill Grammar, Pleasant Hill, Eight Corners and (the then brand new) Blue Point, There were a total of 164 fourth graders among those schools. Fast-forward fifty years to 2015: all Scarborough’s fourth graders – 226 of them – attend the posh new Wentworth School.

Wentworth is the home for all of the Town’s third, fourth and fifth graders – a total of 700 kids. Here’s a summary of the staffing of the Wentworth School. See how many of these positions you recall having at your fourth grade school.

* This list does not include custodial staff or bus drivers. Some of the above positions may be part-time employees, but still…

A few observations and questions:

• Total enrollment for all schools in Scarborough in 1965 was 1,859 and there were 97 teachers. Today there are 52 teachers just for the 700 students in the three grades at the Wentworth School.
• What the heck are “academic life skills?”
• Guidance counselors for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders?
• Wentworth has 52 teachers and 51 support staff positions. So for every teacher, there’s another non-teacher on the payroll. Yikes.

Yes, we know, nostalgia has its place (and its place is not to influence school staffing decisions). And we understand that education has changed dramatically, even over the past decade. But still…  [Please feel free to formulate your own questions here.]

How to tell a long-time Scarborough resident…

Patrick Kincaid, our office cleaning lady’s son, is a budding sociologist. For a class project, he sought to identify some of the traits that separate long-time Scarborough residents from short-time residents. Herewith a few of his findings:

Patrick was quick to point out that people don’t fit into neat boxes, and that stereotyping is not a productive exercise. As a follow-up to the above analysis, however, he is working on a method of distinguishing Townies from other Long-timers.

Here’s the scoop on voting — now and on June 9 — from the Town Clerk.  If you have any questions, please contact the Town Clerk’s Office at 730-4020.  They are always willing to help.

Make Scarborough affordable for Aunt Bea again… and the rest of us, too.   Please vote NO on or (preferably) before June 9. Encourage friends and neighbors to do the same.

Happy Trails until we meet again.

Of course the Town Council recognizes the fiscal constraints of Scarborough taxpayers!

The bad news

At its May 20 meeting, the Town Council approved a School budget that requires $39.1 million of taxpayer funding. That’s an 8.2% increase. Kind of steep, most folks say, especially when the Council’s objectives for the budget included “maintaining a stable tax rate” and “recognizing fiscal constraints.” Too much, many say, especially since the increase in taxpayer funding of the Schools over the prior five years was 28.8%. (You can bet the objectives of “maintaining a stable tax rate” and “recognizing fiscal constraints” will be tossed on the rubbish heap of broken commitments and will not reappear in the FY 2017 budget dog-and-pony show.)

So there we have it, friends, lots of hot air and blather about balancing the School’s requests with the need to give taxpayers a fair shake. And we end up with an 8% increase in School funding.

But the indignity doesn’t stop there… Now we have to endure the bleating of several elected officials as they boast of how successful this year’s budget process was! That’s right, some of them think they’ve crafted a most excellent budget for us poor saps in Scarborough.

And, believe it or not, there’s even more bad news. As bad as an 8% School increase sounds this year, fasten your seat belts because we’ve been promised even more challenging times in the coming years. Translation: more unaffordable increases in property taxes over the next several years.

And now the good news!

But now – finally – some good news! No, GREAT NEWS! Now we, the lowly voters of Scarborough, get to have our big fat say on this nonsense. It’s time to vote on the School budget!

The Time to vote is NOW!

The budget referendum vote is June 9. But there’s no need to wait until then to vote. In fact, from now through June 8, you can vote at Town Hall any time during the normal business hours of the Town Clerk’s office. Please, do not delay. Grab a friend or two and head to Town Hall soon and vote. Say hello to Tody, our Town Clerk, or Tracy, the Deputy Town Clerk.

Let’s not let facts get in the way…

“We can’t keep cutting the School budget year after year and expect to provide our kids with an excellent education.” How many times this budget season have you heard a version of that old chestnut?

Unfortunately, many Scarborough residents have been misled into believing that the School budget has been cut year after year. And, as the above chart clearly demonstrates, that just ain’t so! It sure looks like an increase every year to us. In fact, in the five years from FY 2011 to FY 2105, there was a 28.8% increase! Did your family income, salary or retirement benefit go up 28.8% in the past five years??? And do you expect an 8% increase in next year’s income, salary or retirement benefit???

It’s fine to debate whether we’re spending enough on the Schools. Or whether we’re spending it wisely. But, please, let’s agree on some basic facts… among them, taxpayer funding of the Schools has increased consistently and at a rate of more than double the inflation rate over the past five years.

Another Leng moment?

Bitter medicine for some Scarborough residents.

At the May 20 Council meeting, Councilors Babine and Donovan paired for a lovely duet rendition of “The Down-and-out Tax Blues.” They sang a sad lament about our future: probably more cuts in State education funding, probably new revenue sharing reductions from the State and definitely new County taxes that we’re on the hook for. All of which, apparently, we should just expect the Town to pass on to the taxpayers. There wasn’t any mention of matching Town expenditures to Town revenues. That concept of matching your expenses to your income (which you and I are forced to follow every day in our personal lives) must be too quaint or antiquated to be considered for the Town’s financial management.

So the inevitable fate outlined by Messrs. Babine and Donovan seemed to be – higher taxes in the coming years! They paid lip service to the plight of those Scarborough residents who are stressed by the tax increases, but that was it. They weren’t quite as blunt as Ms. Leng in her now-famous suggestion that you should probably consider moving if you can’t afford the taxes, but the message seemed very similar. Long-time Scarborough residents beware – a majority of Town Council members apparently don’t really care if you can afford to continue living here or not. The vote on the School budget referendum is your chance to get their attention and send them a message. Please send them a message that can’t be misinterpreted… VOTE NO on or before June 9!

Scary Thoughts Department

There has been lots of wailing, moaning and gnashing of teeth about the $1 million reduction in State education aid (“GPA”) that Scarborough experienced for FY 2016. What is startling unclear is why that reduction took place. The story in a nutshell is: There is an incredibly complex formula with a number of variables that allocates the State’s total education aid funds (“the pie”) across all the School districts in the State. The factors considered in the allocation method are each municipality’s student enrollment, property valuation and certain School debt payments. But exactly how all this data gets ground up and spit out is, as far as we can tell, an enigma to all. We’ve heard it said more than once (and in all seriousness) that there is only one person in the State who fully understands the formula… the guy who created it years ago.

The GPA calculation takes place each February in Augusta.

So, essentially we have a black box that rumbles to life once a year in Augusta, spits out how much each city or town will get in educational aid and then is returned to a closet. The winning towns celebrate their good fortunes, and the losers cry foul. But nobody seems to be able to confirm whether the black box’s results were correct. Wouldn’t it be nice if someone from the School Board came out and explained exactly how much of that $1 million GPA reduction was attributable to each factor in the formula? What if someone transposed a couple of the numbers that go into the formula? Would we even know if there were a $200,000 error in the results? Very scary!

One thing that is clear about the GPA distribution formula is that it is intended to be redistributive, that is, relatively poorer municipalities get larger school subsidies on a percentage basis than relatively richer ones. Scarborough, in the scheme of things, is a relatively affluent community. As such, the more relatively affluent we become, the less educational aid we should expect from Augusta. That’s a fact of life at the moment. Let’s hope the School and Town officials have a plan for dealing with this particular fact of life – other than blindly passing on future reduced State education subsidies to taxpayers on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

[Editor’s Note: For an informative discussion of the State education aid program and its impact on Scarborough, we encourage you to review Representative Heather Sirocki’s recent summary linked here.]

 Let’s be clear…

You will frequently hear from Town and School officials about a 5.8% tax increase. That is, in fact, the total increase you will see in your tax bill if the current School budget is approved on June 9. But please keep two key facts in mind when considering your vote:

1. The overall increase is “only” 5.8% because the municipal budget increase was just 1.7%. When the smallish (and reasonable) municipal rate increase is combined with the huge (and unsustainable) 7.8% School rate increase, they average out to the 5.8%.

2. On June 9, the only thing you are voting on is the $39.1 million of taxpayer funding of the School budget – an 8.2% increase over last year’s level.

That’s the breakdown of where your tax dollar goes. The Schools get 66%. In FY2011, the Schools got about 62%. Where does that trend end?

Briefly Noted…

The Bangor School Budget Conversation

Bangor’s so-called school budget pig with a pro-School-budget addition.

Our friends in Bangor sure know how to make a point. Click link here.  We commend both sides of the Bangor school budget debate for their use of symbolism and non-traditional media in getting their messages out. Well done!

The Academic Sword of Damocles

For a look at one of the Superintendent of Schools’ most powerful weapons, please check out this column in The Current.

 Until next time, drive carefully, be neighborly and PLEASE VOTE!

This Wednesday, May 20, the Scarborough Town Council will vote on approving the School budget for FY 2016. The proposed School budget now stands at a request of $39.1 million of taxpayer funding. That’s an increase of $3.0 million or 8.2% over the current year budget. If you think that’s too much, please invest 8 minutes right now – 4 minutes to finish reading this very short blog entry and 4 minutes to email the Town Council (simple steps included below).

Some key facts about the budget are included in the following sample email to Town Council members asking them to reduce the School budget:

Dear Members of the Town Council,

I am writing to urge you to make a significant reduction to the School budget as it is being proposed at the Council meeting on Wednesday, May 20.

The amount of the proposed School budget to be funded by taxpayers is increasing by $3.0 million or 8.2% over the current year budget. This increase is not consistent with two of the Council’s stated budget goals of “recognizing fiscal constraints” and “maintaining a stable tax rate.”

Over the past five years, the Schools’ net taxpayer-funded budget has increased by $8.1 million or 28.8%. Very few Scarborough residents – including seniors on fixed incomes and families with children – have seen their disposable income increase at anywhere near that rate. Simply put, many Scarborough residents cannot afford a continuation of School budgets rising at a rate that far exceeds inflation and wage increases.

While I support a high quality education for our children, I believe the Town Council must strike a reasonable balance between the requests of the School Department and the affordability of those requests by the Town’s taxpayers. In recent years, taxpayer affordability has clearly received too little weight. Please exercise your responsibility to assure that the School budget is reduced to an affordable level before sending it to referendum.

Thank you for considering my opinion.

So that’s the first 4 minutes… The rest is easy! Four quick steps:

1.   Cut and paste the draft email that appears above into a blank email.

2.   Edit and personalize the draft email as much as you would like. Perhaps add a bit about how the tax increase will affect you personally. Or indicate what sort of increase you believe is reasonable.

3.   Sign your name and address.

4.   Address the email to scarboroughtowncouncil@googlegroups.com and press send.

It’s easy to make a difference!

The Town Council needs to hear from every concerned Scarborough taxpayer now. Please let them know your feelings on this important issue! You can bet the no-limits School supporters are making their views known.  Also, please alert friends and neighbors to the coming vote and ask them to contact the Town Council members.

If you can, please consider attending the Town Council meeting this Wednesday, May 20,  at 6pm at Town Hall.

A friendly wager

Editor’s Note: I had a bet about this blog with Mrs. Kincaid, our office cleaning lady. She bet me an Amato’s Italian that I couldn’t make it through an entire blog entry with no sarcasm, no bad jokes and no challenges to good taste. (Mrs. K: I believe I won the Italian.  Salt and pepper, light oil, please.) To those of you have missed those stylistic features in this entry, please don’t fret – the next issue will be full of the usual hi-jinx. And we have some very interesting topics that you won’t want to miss. TTH

 As always, thanks for reading and sharing!