Thurber's Thoughts: Public unions' symbiotic relationship with government

Thurber's Thoughts: Public unions' symbiotic relationship with government

I am providing this link because of a specific part of Maggie Thurber's  post, namely:

The problem is the elected officials who too often forget that they're supposed to be doing the exact same thing: getting the best deal for the taxpayers they represent. It's too easy to view the taxpayers as a never-ending source of revenue rather than the employers they actually are.

But the rest of her post is very good, too.

I'm not aware of anyone who ran for a school board position here in recent history seeking union endorsement . . . well, maybe one guy comes to mind . . .

February 2011

Our regular monthly board meeting this month was preceded by a special meeting to discuss preparations for negotiations with the Swanton Education Association (SEA, aka "teachers' union").  That's right!  This year we need to negotiate with the teachers' union on their contract!

The men of the F.A.C.T. group had reviewed our 5 yr. forecast and other financial documents (which are also available to the public), and our executive session that night included a presentation to the Board of their findings and recommendations as related to negotiations.  After they had finished, we continued our discussion and then came out to adjourn our special meeting.

There was a short break, and then our regular meeting was called to order by board president Rick Ueberroth. 

Colleen McQuade was presented with a certificate of appreciation and our signature purple marble apple to recognize her years of service to our district. 

Greg Gettum from TMACOG was present, and he had brought Ed Snyder along to present the district with our membership plaque.  Ed grew up here, and is now raising his family in the Swanton school district.  I know him better from his work in Swanton Township, where I live.  He gave a very nice presentation.

There was no one who indicated a desire to address the board during the time set aside for hearing the public, so we moved on.  At a prior meeting, we had decided to go back to a standard agenda instead of grouping related items into a "consent agenda", which means we now go over each item separately.

The minutes of our organizational meeting and regular meeting from January were both approved, as were the financial reports, transfers, and Class of 2014 budget.  The initial contract for the ESC was also approved for 2012, with an increase in cost of approximately 4%.  

The Personnel recommendations of the Superintendent were presented and approved.  The Board was introduced to our new Head Football Coach, Mr. Phil Witker.  Mr. Witker is a former resident and student of our district. 

The Treasurer had no new business, so we moved immediately into the new business of the Superintendent.  A list of the 2011 High School graduates was presented for our consideration, and we approved the graduates pending completion of all requirements for graduation. 

Mr. Greg Hallett then shared a proposal to build a campus wrestling room South of the new track.  He asked our permission to begin investigating potential donors of time, money and materials for this new building to be donated to our district.  If he is able to bring it all together, he would ask for the district to donate the land on which it may be built.  The Board gave its approval for Mr. Hallett to move forward with his investigation.

Building reports from each principal had been provided ahead of time to the Board, and it is great to read of the progress happening in our buildings. 

Swanton Recreation had no formal report to share.  A question of the expiring lease agreement with the Village was asked, and Kris Oberheim stated that she has been told by Jon Gochenour that he foresees no problem with it being extended when Village Council takes its vote.

A short discussion was held on the progress of the Ohio Improvement Plan, and of the tweaking that took place at the most recent meeting.  Having teachers and administration working so closely together on this plan for our kids is awesome!

Tim Zieroff had provided two examples of random drug testing policies for our consideration and comment, as we work to finalize our own.  He and Steve Smith have done a lot of work on this, and that is deeply appreciated.  

During the time set aside for Board comment, Mr. Ueberroth thought it important to remind us to be careful when speaking about district-related items to anyone in the public, or to the local newspaper(s) as only the Board President speaks officially for the entire board, and thus we must be careful to indicate that our opinions are only our own and not necessarily reflective of the Board itself.   (like I do on this blog - see above, right)

Some suggestions on board committees and members were given to us by Prez Ueberroth as well.

We were also reminded that the newer board members needed to designate a representative for Sunshine Law training once during their tenure.  Chris Woods was so designated, and will attend the required training.  Any Board member may also attend - I did so during my first year on the Board, and learned a lot. 

We then moved into executive session to discuss negotiations and the superintendent's evaluation.  As it turned out, we never got to the second half as President Ueberroth decided the hour was too late.  So we adjourned, with a plan to hold a special meeting for the superintendent's evaluation.  We have been trying for months to get this finalized, and some of us were a bit frustrated that we weren't able to git 'er done that night.  Oh well - I guess we will at our special meeting set for that purpose.

Error Correction and (Public) Apology

In an earlier post I wrote about the non-termination of Marianne Pearson. 

I have learned that one of my earlier statements was not accurate. 

One particular charge against Pearson fell under federal law and thus mandated the district to report it to the Ohio Department of Education.  However, a "Consent Agreement" was negotiated between Pearson and the ODE whereby Pearson agreed to accept a 30 day suspension of her teaching license without admission of any wrongdoing.  

Therefore, my earlier posting was not accurate with regard to her license suspension, and I hereby (publicly) apologize for that error. 

(I have also corrected the original posting.)  

Lucas Co. Library Tax

School district residents who live in Lucas County have been paying in to the Lucas Co. library system for a very long time.  Few questioned it - but those who did discovered that library taxes were designed by law to be tied into the school district of the residents. 

Translation:  Lucas Co. residents of the Swanton Local School District have paid taxes for years into the Lucas Co. library system which was completely wrong.  

I did not realize how the law was written until the Swanton library decided they needed to place a levy on the ballot a couple of years ago.  That was when I learned that Lucas County residents would end up paying taxes on 2 separate library systems. 

Phone calls were made - discussions were held - attorneys were consulted.  Former school board member Jeff Michael broached the subject with a representative from the Lucas Co. auditor's office, but when he mentioned it a few more times he was told to "leave it alone".  Swanton Township fiscal officer Peggy Michael talked it over with Anita Lopez, Lucas Co. Auditor, who agreed to look into the matter.  My husband talked with Dan McQuade (a fellow attorney who is also on the Swanton Library board) and folks at the Lucas Co. auditor's office about what needed to be done to fix the situation. 

I won't bore you with details - there have been literally months of talks on the subject.  But the bottom line is that this past fall, the official decision was made by Lucas County and their library tax was REMOVED from the tax bills of residents of the Swanton Local School District!!

Matter of fact, the property tax bill from Lucas Co. that was due on December 31st already reflected the removal of the Toledo-Lucas Co. Library tax from our school district residents.

woo-hoo!!

It is so great to be able to share good news!

non-Termination of a Teacher

As most of the community is aware, high school science teacher Marianne Pearson had been on unpaid administrative leave for many months. In December 2009, the former Board of Education voted (4-1) to file an "Intent to Terminate" as per the Swanton Education Association (SEA) contract.  (Mike Wiederman voted "no")  This document included five separate points at issue on the matter.  Ms. Pearson was removed from the classroom as the investigation proceeded.  

One of the charges was required by Federal law to be reported to the Ohio Department of Education (ODE).   The ODE ran an independent investigation of this one charge. Last Spring, Pearson "agreed to accept a thirty day suspension of her license without admission of any wrongdoing" as part of a legal settlement called a "Consent Agreement" between Pearson and the ODE.

During these many months, Ms. Pearson had ample opportunity to resign. Although she submitted more than one proposal for a resignation, they all contained demands for various types of compensation consideration - basically, requesting that she be "paid" to resign. All of these proposals were rejected by the Board; however, the Board did continue to carry her medical insurance throughout this process and for the duration of her unpaid leave.

Under Ohio law, Ms. Pearson had the option of a hearing before a third party referee agreed to by both parties.  She chose to use that option, and presented over a dozen witnesses (including Mr. Wiederman, former Superintendents, and fellow teachers, etc.) and submitted over 90 exhibits to the referee.  The Board also produced witnesses and exhibits.  Ms. Pearson's attorney cross-examined our witnesses as our attorney did with her witnesses. 

The referee was an impartial fact-finder, who granted great latitude to Ms. Pearson in the presentation of her side of the case.  There were many days of testimony, which was appropriate to make sure that Ms. Pearson was fairly heard. 

The referee heard and evaluated all testimony from both sides, reviewed all exhibits, and rendered his decision.  The bottom line was that he found each one  of the five charges to be independently worthy of termination of Ms. Pearson's contract with our school district.  He therefore recommended termination.  A resident of our district asked about the referee's report, and as it is a matter of public record you may read it here, in its entirety (student names have been redacted).

Under the statute in Ohio law, the Board was required to give deference to the findings of fact by the referee.  It could then either accept or reject the recommendation of the referee; however, if the Board chose to reject his decision it needed to provide other evidence of fact.

Instead, at the last minute - literally - Ms. Pearson tendered her resignation without a demand for any type of monetary consideration.  By a vote of 3 to 2, this resignation was accepted by the  Board, which nullified the requirement to respond to the findings of the referee as she was thus no longer an employee.

I was one of those "no" votes - why was that??  I voted "no" because Ms. Pearson had more than enough time to resign prior to putting this district through the time and expense of a hearing (which had cost her nothing, as her attorney fees were covered by the OEA).   She was certainly entitled to a hearing, and I am glad that she acted on that right - but it took a lot of nerve to THEN resign, in my opinion.  Part of what she had done was include students in her wrongful actions, which completely negates her insistence that she is a "nice person".  What she did was anything but "nice" to those kids, who love her.  (Comments shared with me included reference to her number of years at Swanton and that "other teachers" do the "same thing".  Try using that excuse for your next speeding ticket.)  At this point, with the referee's strong and objective recommendation on each of the 5 counts, she needed to be simply terminated.  Period.   

That is not what happened, however.  Now the district will move forward.

I only write about this situation here because there are many half-truths and innuendos in the community at large, and felt it appropriate to give the facts to those who are willing to recognize them as such.