On the September 13th blog post, a number of checks were put up to illustrate the board’s blatant disregard for fiscal responsibility by allowing substantial expenditures for administrative and board travel and perks. (http://fortcherryinfo.blogspot.com/2011/09/fc-tax-dollars-being-used-for-our.html)
The board, under Dinnen and Sroka’s direction, cut vital programs and furloughed dedicated teachers due to “budget cuts”.
Programs and teachers were cut; meanwhile the administration and board spent $27,917.13 in travel and perks in three months.
For comparison, a starting teacher at FC earns $32,000 per year.
That’s reprehensible, but that is not the point of this blog post.
The checks that were put up on that post were obtained through a right-to-know (RTK) request to the district for district bank statements. (All manner of financial information is public under the RTK law.)
Business manager, Paul Sroka, is the district’s Open Records Officer. All RTK requests must be submitted to him.
It is Sroka’s job to determine if the documents are public in nature and provide them to the requester (for a fee) within a state mandated time frame.
As is his right by law, Sroka habitually invokes “a thirty-day extension for legal review, possible redaction and location of any records that may have been moved off-site due to a non-current status”.
The documents are reviewed by the solicitor.
Tax dollars pay for the legal review.
As usual, Sroka invoked the thirty-day extension for the bank statement RTK request.
Some of you may have noticed that the September 13th post has been altered.
The checks obtained through this RTK request revealed the addresses of school employees. Those addresses have since been redacted from the checks.
The checks obtained through this RTK request revealed the addresses of school employees. Those addresses have since been redacted from the checks.
According to the PA Office of Open Records, public school employee addresses are not to be released. This is by order of the PA Supreme Court. https://www.dced.state.pa.us/public/oor/fd/20101102_Supreme_Court_Inj.pdf
Even after legal review (at taxpayers’ expense) the checks were given to the requester with the addresses of the employees intact.
The redactions that now appear on the post were done by a private citizen, not by Sroka.
Sroka habitually passes RTK requests on to the solicitor for review and guidance at taxpayers’ expense, when he could easily obtain the same guidance from the Office of Open Records by phone call or website visit for FREE. (http://openrecords.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/open_records/4434)
In fact, the information about public employee addresses is on the Office of Open Record’s home page in big red letters – it’s pretty hard to miss . . .
Sroka is paid $82,411 per year (not counting additional perks) and has a team of solicitors to back him up.
All that help and Sroka still got it wrong.
To uphold the Supreme Court’s injunction, a private citizen had to redact the information.
That’s reprehensible, and that is the point of this blog post.
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Hot Off the Press!
Trisha Craig, Director of Curriculum will not be at work the beginning of next week.
She’s on the list of attendees for the 3rd Annual ShaleNET Workforce Forum which is being held in Altoona. (http://www.cvent.com/events/marcellus-shalenet-workforce-forum/attendees-3c314d047df84acaacfba7e8cf73b200.aspx)
Here’s the description from the website:
3rd Annual ShaleNET Workforce Forum - will be held on September 19-20, 2011 at the Blair County Convention Center (Altoona, PA) and is being organized by the Marcellus Shale Education and Training Center. The ShaleNET Workforce Forum is a multi-state conference designed to assist high schools, careeer and technical centers, community colleges, universities and government agencies in building a strong local natural gas workforce pipeline. (http://cce.cornell.edu/EnergyClimateChange/NaturalGasDev/Pages/UpcomingEvents.aspx)
The 3rd Annual ShaleNET Workforce Forum, Linking Talent to Opportunity promises to offer nationally recognized speakers on workforce development, experts on shale gas development, exciting opportunities for hands-on education, and the chance to receive new curriculum hot off the press. (http://www.cvent.com/events/marcellus-shalenet-workforce-forum/event-summary-3c314d047df84acaacfba7e8cf73b200.aspx)
Wow, preparing our high-school students to enter the natural gas work force and new curriculum hot off the press! How exciting!
Wait a minute. . .
Why would Craig go in search of new curriculum when we couldn’t afford to keep what we had in place?
Board member, Bruce Sharpnack pleaded with the public at a recent meeting, asking residents and taxpayers to donate $1,000,000 to the district. (That’s not a typo - one million dollars.)
Why? Is the money needed to cover the cost of sending administrators and board members on extravagant trips, well out of FC’s budget?
The board just approved cutting dedicated teachers.
Who will teach this new hot off the press curriculum?
The board just approved cutting vital programs - Reading Recovery, Drivers Education, Media, Elementary Music, High School Library and Jr. High Guidance.
These programs and teachers were cut by official board resolution filed with the Department of Education.
Drivers Ed, which was cut, had approximately 100 students. Aside from teaching our teens how to be better and safer drivers, this course gave many parents a break in their car insurance . . . GONE!
The high school Library, which was cut, affected the entire junior/senior high school. Now teachers are made to take shifts filling in as a librarian instead of teaching their subject of expertise . . . GONE!
The media program was cut along with the media teacher . . . GONE!
OOPS, WAIT . . . IT’S BACK . . .
The board brought back Media with a new teacher. This should please board member Jamie White, whose two sons make up one-fourth of the class of eight. Three others are also seniors, leaving only three students to proceed with this 4-year progressive course.
Western Area Vo-Tech prepares FC students to enter the work force. A Vo-Tech representative, Tim Angert, is also on the list of attendees. Why should FC send Craig?
3rd Annual ShaleNET Workforce Forum – cost of attendance:
· Registration: $225.00
· Lodging: $94.00 per night (according to the website, a block of rooms has been reserved for event registrants at a rate of $94.00 for single or double occupancy)
· Gas, Mileage, and Meals: ?????
· New Curriculum, hot off the press: ?????
Cost to taxpayers: at the very least $400.
Benefit to Fort Cherry students: ?????
Vital programs and dedicated teachers cut, yet the administration spends money on this???
Where’s the accountability?
And why are the board members permitting our money to be spent this way?
