By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
Thanks to our friends in Geauga for the following article about Kenston Schools. Regretfully, we do not believe that the public school system can be saved. Something needs to be done. Either starve them of funds or students!
DEFEAT KENSTON SCHOOL’S FALL 2024 REPEAT EFFORT TO IMPOSE 5-YEAR PERMANENT IMPROVEMENT LEVY AFTER ITS $1.164 MILLION INSIDE MILLAGE HEIST FROM SENIOR TAXPAYERS
Thursday, October 17, 2024
Kenston Schools could have resolved its own top-heavy financing of educators accustomed to receiving healthy raises and fringe benefits in the fall of 2023 when it chose to “stick it” to elderly taxpayers caught between a rock and a hard place after the sexennial revaluation. Back in October 2023 we learned that Kenston Schools had, done an excellent job of staying quiet, playing dumb, and not saying a word about the windfall of $1.164 million dollars that would benefit the system annually without even a vote from beleaguered taxpayers. Then on top of it they expected taxpayers to buy into paying even more out of the goodness of their hearts. These were elderly taxpayers whose fixed retirement benefits had been determined 20-30 years earlier. Kenston Schools have become noted for Taj Mahal laboratories, library acquisitions, new textbooks ,supplies, electronic upgrades. Whatever has happened to waiting for the best deals instead of buying stuff at top prices Because of inflated home prices and shortages of homes on the market, taxpayers were being squeezed, and those highly-paid school executives in charge of spending taxpayers’ fixed incomes, rather than their own dollars, had no empathy, no concern, no respect for homeowners losing the American Dream of Home Ownership so the Kenston Schools could be the Taj Mahal!
As early as October 2023, the Geauga County Budget Commission offered a plan of action to beleaguered taxpayers supporting the top-heavy pyramid oppressing them:
“Encourage your County( Board of Commissioners), School (Board of Education), and Local Government (Trustees, Council, Mayor) to consider reducing Outside Millage to offset the increased Inside Millage tax. Recommendation letters have been sent to the County, Schools, and Local Governments from the County Budget Commission.”
Did Kenston Schools give anything back during their moment of clairvoyance that they were suddenly filthy wealthy on the backs of peon taxpayers, in many cases, taxpayers who had struggled to support exorbitant wants, not necessities, and educator-heavy payrolls within Kenston Schools.
As a result of this elitist attitude and total disrespect for the backs of taxpayers, these taxpayers voted overwhelmingly on November 7, 2023, to defeat Kenston’s 5-year Permanent Improvement Levy. How dare those educators on the receiving end dare to presume that they would be more entitled to Taj Mahal surroundings while the taxpayers felt squeezed inside out. Shame on those college-educated elitists who feel so uniquely entitled to deal with such small numbers of young people. They certainly have no respect for the taxpayers.
As a result Kenston Schools brought their own doom by not receiving their anticipated additional $1,265,000 to buy the newest , the best of electronic and wireless equipment and inflation- subject luxuries. The Kenston Board of Education had finally overplayed its hand when all it was really necessary to do was demonstrate that those beneficiaries of advanced degrees, tenure, and fringe benefits had totally disregarded the needs of others in the community—those who pay property tax.
Candidates running for re-election have in October 2024 campaign literature verified their efforts to make unionized teachers part art of an entitled class. Steve Demetriou has crowed during election season 2024 that as an active lawmaker in Columbus, he has “secured record funding for Ohio’s public schools (e.g., Kenston Board of Education) ” and “provided pay raises for our teachers so our [Public] schools can acquire and retain the BEST POSSIBLE educators,” Obviously, lawmaker Demetriou assumes that the best possible public school teachers are only a function of the highest dollar offered to them…
The Kenston Board of Education under Superintendent Steve Sayers and his successor Dr. Bruce Willingham, had apparently very little difficulty realizing that if Kenston was able to make some cuts on low-hanging fruit by simply offering a retirement buy-out-incentive, the exorbitant costs and fringe benefits for 10 teaching employees could be painlessly eliminated. The most important question is what took these elitist, very highly-paid executives so long to figure out that Kenston Schools was operating with great waste and inefficiency. If these highly-paid leaders were so skilled, why couldn’t they have figured out the waste and inefficiency long before instead of enjoying so much lavish overpayment for teachers on a nine-month teaching calendar?
Additionally, 3 teachers could be reassigned to the Middle School, based on their current certification and seniority. Again, how long on the backs of taxpayers are we supposed to be tolerant of employees on a nine-month teaching calendar with such lucrative fringe benefits when taxpayers are asked to be patient as they are squeezed on the whims of inefficiency and maybe even sweetheart deals.
What we have read from Treasurer Seth Cales that the annual $1,164,000 inside millage annual unvoted windfall is meaningless to him because the $1,164,000 creates no sense of gratitude in him or those in charge of the Kenston Board of Education. After all, to hear Cales rationalize his disregard for the mere $1,164,000 demonstrates his contempt that the annual windfall “constitutes less than 3% of the Kenston Board of Education’s TOTAL REVENUES.” POOR TREASURER CALES! What a sense of entitlement the taxpayers of Bainbridge and Auburn have created in this new class of royalty. Maybe the Kenston Board of Education has just become too accustomed to lavishly spending “other people’s money.”
Back in January 2024 in In the Know Kenston, outgoing Superintendent Steve Sayers reported that “currently the intermediate , middle, and high schools are only operating at 2/3 capacity.” To this writer and to many other observers, this statement is clear evidence that heating, lighting, utility, and janitorial bills were overpriced because of too much available space and too much opportunity for inefficiency. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that charging taxpayers for unused or misused space is an invitation for being ripped-off. By simply deciding to close the Intermediate School and to take advantage of the available space at the Middle School for 4th and 5th grades and to move 8th graders into already available but unused space at the High School could have provided vast savings, years ago, but as long as taxpayers were nothing more than a source of other people’s money to exploit, why work to solve the obvious problems any sooner than absolutely necessary? This writer feels great shame for the inability to foster the problem-solving skills that Kenston Schools continually boast about but take their sweet old time to demonstrate. Hypocrisy?
Interestingly, Kenston Treasurer Seth Cales showed up in person about February 2024 to present his 2024 budget to the Geauga County Budget Commission [Auditor Charles Walder, Prosecutor James Flaiz, and Treasurer Christopher Hitchcock]. At the time, Prosecutor Flaiz reminded Kenston taxpayers about Kenston Board of Education shortcomings and perhaps half-truths as he personally chided Cales in person:
“You are talking about reining in your expenses, but your expenses have been flat for the last three years. Yet, this budget cycle you are jumping up to $2 million. You just got $1,160.000 on inside millage revenue, so what are you all of a sudden spending $2 million on out of your general fund? . . . Permanent Improvement Projects are what’s driving your increases and your deficits. That’s going to eat away at your [annual] cash carryover.”
The Kenston Board of Education apparently refuses to accept the notion that runaway price inflation on even the most pathetic cuts of stew meat and fresh produce are driving into dire straits those who sacrificed for years to achieve the American Dream of Home Ownership.
Instead the Kenston Board of Education has come up with a new five-year Permanent Improvement Levy that will still run $2.92 per month per $100,000 valuation if voters are foolish enough to blindly trust the omissions of information from a group of educators destined to benefit personally from positive approval of the 2024 Permanent Improvement Levy:
Before you accept hype without demanding positive proof as a devil’s advocate, please be aware of several alarming factors presented in Kenston’s own biased reporting to the Auburn/Bainbridge Township Communities.
First of all, according to pages 5-6 of Kenston 2024-2025 District Calendar, Kenston local receipts soared in a two-year period:
local residential real estate taxes increased from $24,185,829 in 2022-23 to $25,701,656 in 2023-24; commercial real estate taxes increased from $4,290,481 in 2022-23 to $4,301,024 in 2023-24; Kenston Board of Education interest income increased from $547,842 in 22-23 to $826,060 in 2023-24.
As elected Steve Demetriou attested, State of Ohio sources of funding/revenue to Kenston Schools nearly quadrupled from $161,394 in 2022-2023 to a whopping $636,205 in 2023-2024. If a school system can’t wholesomely manage giveaways like $1,164,000 in inside windfall millage, but can refuse to respect and honor its Senior Citizens and long-time real-estate tax payers ravages, and can continue to indulge a Gravy Train in top- heavy Salaries and Fringe Benefits, then frankly they do not deserve to continue spending other people’s money.
If Treasurer Cales can justify spending $23,950,000 for Salaries plus Fringe Benefits of nearly $10,000,000 during 2022-2023 and apparently enjoying that role so much that during 2023-2024, he managed to spend $24,200,000 on Salaries and nearly $11,000,000 on Fringe Benefits. During 2023-2024, he did not learn any kind of responsible behavior or respect for the taxpayers, did he?
Worst of all, the Kenston Board of Education under Treasurer Seth Cales can justify overspending capital outlays of $185,502 in 2022-23 to $253,034 in 2023-2024, Those actions force this writer to conclude that the Treasurer truly enjoys spending other people’s money with no respect whatsoever for the homeowner, particularly the homeowner on fixed income who may be squeezed enough between the rock and the hard place to lose all solvency.
If you want other examples of irresponsible behavior, tune in to the Kenston Treasurer’s spending of so-called Non-Operational expenditures. In 2022-23 Treasurer Cales blithely spent nearly $1,100,000. As if that weren’t a big enough demonstration of the Happy Spender of Other People’s Money, Treasurer Cales managed to spend nearly double that amount, $1,800,000 during 2023-24.
The conclusion here is that Kenston taxpayers need to revisit and remember their own pain during the sexennial revaluation. Treasurer Cales will spend every last penny you permit him to spend without subjecting him to the criticism for irresponsibility that he has earned from taxpayers. Uncensored and allowed to spend freely, the Taj Mahal School System created in Kenston is going to break everyone’s financial backs.
Please share this documentation with every potential sympathetic taxpayer in the Kenston School District and vote to defeat the outlandish waste created in Kenston Schools on the backs of responsible taxpayers.
Make sure you communicate your wishes not to have the Happy Spender, Treasurer Cales, eat up your hard-earned money during these awful inflationary times. This lesson may be the very best real-life lesson that Mr. Cales and his entitled crew can realize during the hard times that still need to be resolved.
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Categories: Contributors, Real Estate Taxes