An educator named Robbi Shranz of Waupun, Wisconsin wrote a letter to the editor of USA Today that ran in Thursday’s edition. He pointed out the irony between two previous articles. One cited the soaring pay for college coaches and the other focused on fundraisers for education overall.

One story told of a middle school principal selling grades to raise money for the school. She said, “Being in education for nearly 30 years, I’m certainly not endorsing selling grades, but I understand the dilemma that we in education face daily about having enough money to educate our students.”

She then goes on to ask the questions much asked in many ways. “When was the last time you saw a Wall Street worker having a bake sale to raise money or a Bank of America employee selling candy bars to help out customers?” She points out that our government has given billions to financial institutions while educators spend hours to raise but a few hundred dollars.

I read this article on the heels of a discussion with our treasurer, Mr. Combs, about various lines of figures contained in the current five year forecast. The two concepts were not suited to be in one mind at the same time. Admittedly the forecast is just that, a forecast. Not a budget. As such there are many assumptions built in to it that are based on past experience and observations about future events. Some might call it guessing or betting and perhaps justifiably so. But it is a requirement of the state that such a forecast be generated twice each year.

The much talked of monies coming from federal sources the past year have been a considerable help. We were able to pick up the salaries of six employees and ease demands on our general fund. However, when those funds dry up those dollars must come again from the general fund. So it really was just a temporary respite and a shuffling of money. Out of pot A, into pot B. And back. Financial chicanery enabled and encouraged by the government.

Then there is the cutback in state level funding to education necessitated by current economic conditions. We are expected to receive federal replacement funds of $521,000 in fiscal year 2010 and then $761,000 in fiscal year 2011. The assumption made is that by 2013 the state will be sufficiently healthy that those federal funds could disappear and the full measure of state funding will return.

Anyone willing to take that bet?

One of the known future events is the expiration of current union contracts this coming June. The unknown factor is the costs of any negotiated raises. For each negotiated 1% raise in wages, the cost to the system is about $155,000. There are medical insurance costs which are always on the upswing and the best one can do is look at claims experiences and national trends and hope to come close in the estimate.

One of the finer pieces of guesswork has to do with the earnings on money collected and held until spent over the year. If you pay your property taxes in one lump sum, the district receives the income and can bank the unspent portion until needed. The interest on those funds makes a difference in the overall picture. That is strictly a guessed at number based on past experience.

Finally, if you are interested in seeing the entire forecast and the assumptions that lie behind the numbers you can go to http://www.mariettacityschools.k12.oh.us/assets/5yearreport.pdf and examine these for yourself. Have a look at where your money goes.

Bake sale anyone?

Jack Moberg
Marietta City Schools Board President

Dear Readers,
We did respond to Mr. Mitchell to alleviate his fear that his absentee ballot was not handled in a way that assured the confidentiality of his vote.
 

While it is true that you do fill out the name, address, and a form of identification; that is done to assure you are a registered voter in Washington County and that you are indeed the person filling out the forms. At this early point in the process, we do not handle your ballot in any way. The ballot is handed to you (the voter), you vote it, fold the ballot in half, seal the ballot in an envelope, and drop the envelope in a ballot box that is sealed. This box will not be opened until the process for tabulating begins sometime in the 10 days prior to an election. By this time, we have thousands of votes. Throughout the entire election period which starts once our ballots are developed prior to an election and for about 10 days after the election when the final count is held, the ballots are under double lock. This means there is a Democrat and a Republican, each with a key. Neither of these people can get to the ballots without the other key. We hire part-time, experienced election officials to handle the tabulating process. They are trained to take a quick look to be sure you did fill in and sign the envelope, slice the envelope, and lay the envelope face down on the table. If you did not fill out any of the information or failed to sign the envelope, these would be fatal flaws according to the Ohio Revised Code. Your defective envelope would be pulled for board review at this point. We do not do any further checking on those that are filled out properly and signed. At the next step someone is taking your envelope that was placed face down and actually removing the ballot; straightening it a bit along the way so it will go through the scanner. The ballots are then separated to go through the proper scanner. This is done by checking the number at the bottom of the ballot, not by looking at the envelope; as the envelope and ballot are now separated.
 

With all the recent negative research on touch-screen ballots, Washington County is very happy that those before us made some very wise decisions to stay with paper ballots and run them through a scanner. We hope this assures the voters of Washington County that nothing will ever be manipulated. There is a ballot to backup every count.
 

The Washington County Board of Elections has developed a process that absolutely insures the confidentiality of the vote. After your letter to the editor, we did have people who stopped to review our process from a distance. This extra scrutiny did serve to comfort their minds. We welcome the review of our processes as we have put much time and effort in to a process that will work the best for the voters of Washington County.
 

Respectfully,
The Washington County Board of Elections

On the political front, all factions have something to be grateful for this Thanksgiving ...
 

Thanks to the Democrat penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, Republicans get to brag about winning
recent gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. Thanks to overbearing rightwingers like the publicity hungry former Governor of
Alaska, the Dems did well in California and in New York's Twenty-Third Congressional District, where overconfident neocons dumped the
moderate Republican candidate and handed the seat to a deserving Democrat.
 

Progressives can be thankful that the "all-or-nothing" rightwingers continue to turn against Republican moderates like
Lindsay Graham and Bill Crist - thus cutting their chances for victory in 2010 by half. Double-crossing is part of the nature of the
uber-reactionary right All Americans, by the way, can be thankful that the current occupant of the Oval Office has a more far-reaching outlook than his
"cowboy" predecessor. Despite a few setbacks - caused mainly by his administration's underestimation of the ultimate sleaziness of the
troglodite opposition - the President is on the way to finding intelligent solutions for at least some of the problems created by
eight years of Bush-Cheney incompitence ...

Local residents can be thankful that, with a couple of exceptions, the "teabagger" movement lost its bid to seize total control of
Marietta City Council (FYI, the term "teabagger" is now acceptable due to its recent inclusion in the New Oxford American Dictionary). The
losers can be thankful that they won't have to strain themselves thinking about complicated problems of city administration. They are
free to occupy themselves full-time with corporate-backed "9-12 Project" activities like disseminating whacko conspiracies theories
about Obama and Al Gore ...

This Season offers blessings for everyone!

Fred O'Neill

Marietta, OH