By Kim and Rick Donaldson

A large portion of the Loveland community has lost faith in the Loveland board of education and school administration. This is clear from the decisive 78% to 22% defeat of the school levy and bond issue on November 5^th. Further evidence is provided by the fact that the two board members running for reelection each garnered only around 50% of the vote while running unopposed, meaning that half of those who voted chose to vote for neither of them. Before putting another levy on the ballot, the board needs to take substantive actions to regain the community’s trust.

Before putting another levy on the ballot, the board needs to take substantive actions to regain the community’s trust.

Others in the community have recommended three actions: terminate the land purchase contract with the Grail, terminate the Allerton Hill consulting contract and implement Ohio’s open checkbook. All three are excellent ideas and we support them wholeheartedly. These three actions would demonstrate that the board is responding to the electorate and that they are committed to communicating openly, honestly and with full financial transparency. In addition, the board needs to demonstrate a commitment to providing strong, fiscally responsible governance in the future.

We, therefore, recommend two additional actions

The first is to implement an annual budgeting process that starts with a strict cost cap tied to taxpayers’ ability to pay. A relatively simple way to do this would be to limit the total expenditure per student, including both operating and non-operating expenditures, to a fixed percentage of the median income in the district. We recommend a limit of 20%, which according to the Ohio Department of Education data corresponds to 2013 levels, before the ramp-up that occurred over subsequent years. This would serve to ensure that school taxes do not continue to consume an ever-increasing portion of household income and restrict tax levies to levels more acceptable to voters.

Because of its focus on cost versus benefit, this method forces much better prioritization and decision making than the typical method.

The second action is to use a zero-based budgeting approach to allocate money within the budget cap. This is a standard budgeting method in which the budget allotted to each expense category starts at a base level of zero and moves up from that level only to the extent that is justified by its benefit. Because of its focus on cost versus benefit, this method forces much better prioritization and decision making than the typical method wherein each expense is assumed to start at the prior year’s level plus a standard annual increase. In this context, benefits would need to be defined as proven, quantifiable impacts on academic performance in order to ensure we deliver the best education our community can afford for our children.

Taking these actions now would go a long way toward convincing the community that the Loveland board of education is actively supervising school administrators, ensuring sound management of the school system and advancing the interests of the entire community.

After all, that is what we elected them for?

Kim and Rick Donaldson live in the Grailville neighborhood of Miami Township

By Kim and Rick Donaldson

As a community, we support the goal of providing high-quality education for our children. But we also need to consider affordability.  Loveland is largely a residential community whose local tax burden falls primarily on individual homeowners who are somewhat less affluent than those in surrounding districts. Whereas a one mil property tax raises about $228 per student in Mariemont, $249 in Madeira, $339 in Sycamore and $607 in Indian Hill, it raises only about $191 per student in Loveland. Consequently, we need to recognize that our school budgets are necessarily more limited, and just as a family with a limited budget must prioritize needs and manage money wisely, so must the school district. The proposed building master plan does not, in our opinion, adequately address these budget constraints.

We wonder what other cost reduction opportunities we might find were we provided with a more detailed plan.

In the board of education’s January 23^rdcommunity meeting presentation, there is a single slide showing a $65M baseline plan for repairs at all existing building sites, which was rejected because it “does NOT address any of the core identified needs that were discovered during the assessment process.” After evaluating multiple options for addressing these “needs”, the board settled on a $165M plan and a $7.7M land purchase, i.e. $108M more than the baseline plan. From the very high-level cost breakdown subsequently provided by the administration, we can see that the plan includes $10M for athletic facility upgrades and $22.6M for a new fine arts building. That’s 30% of the incremental cost over the baseline plan going toward enrichment programs affecting a subset of the students, not to fundamental academic programs affecting the entire student body. We wonder what other cost reduction opportunities we might find were we provided with a more detailed plan.

To arrive at a more cost-effective solution, we need to start again from the beginning with clear priorities regarding what is needed, as opposed to what is wanted.

To arrive at a more cost-effective solution, we need to start again from the beginning with clear priorities regarding what is needed, as opposed to what is wanted. Building safety and security come first, followed by those facility improvements that have a proven impact on academic achievement. Increasing classroom space to enable reducing the student to teacher ratio might fall into the latter category. We then need to develop facility concepts that satisfy these needs in a manner that minimizes both construction and future operational costs. For example, the current facility master plan envisions three separate buildings for pre-K through 5^thgrade. Combining these into a single building would reduce construction costs, reduce heating and cooling costs and maximize the opportunity for sharing resources and occasional use spaces like cafeterias, gymnasiums, and auditoriums. A two- or three-story building would also provide the opportunity to use an existing site, eliminating the cost of land purchase and development.

These are just a few ideas meant to illustrate the point. Given the right set of objectives and constraints, the district’s architectural consultants would undoubtedly come up with more and better ideas. But the first step toward developing a school facility plan that strikes a reasonable balance between the educational needs of our children and the financial limitations of the community is to vote against the Loveland school levy and bond issue on November 5^th.

Reference

January 23, 2019 Community Meeting Presentation:  https://secureservercdn.net/50.62.175.49/f0o.a87.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/CM3-01.23.19-Slide-Deck.pdf