Advocate editorialist is a mental and moral underachiever

Yesterday, an Advocate editorial trumpeted the virtues of Keith Richards. It called him “a pretty good example of what's needed to get the job done,” “a wise and savvy leader, “an open and honest superintendent” who “understood the importance of accountability,” calling for “a fresh start from a leader of similar skills and focus.”

It’s painfully obvious to anyone who is still reading the Advocate that good help is pretty scarce, maybe because of layoffs or involuntary furloughs. The editorialist who wrote this is the one who deserves a permanent furlough. She is not merely lousy help, but worse, a mental and moral underachiever.

I gave Keith Richards enough grief before he decided to retire. I was willing to drop him off the list of write-worthy subjects.

I was willing to let the King Richards’ era die a peaceful death - forgetting all the things about his reign that angered taxpayers -  so that Newark could get on with a new life with a new guy.

I was willing to forget that the superintendent told the Advocate ahead of the levy vote that the money would be spent, in part, on raises for employees. This in a system where the average salary for teachers is $53,179, and there’s one employee for every 8 NCS students. Raises for these people, but not a return to full busing, though local taxpayers spend more on the superintendent’s salary than the people of Alaska pay their governor.

I was willing to forget that under Keith’s guidance NCS mustered the third worst graduation rate in Ohio and that Keith blamed Newark citizens for this.

I was willing to forget that NCS failed to admit until after the levy vote that the estimate for increased government funding is $2 million and that it still hasn’t admitted more federal stimulus funding is expected.

I was willing to forget that the school board’s “transparent” search for a new superintendent began with an executive session to talk about it.

But yesterday when the Advocate trumpeted the virtues of Keith Richards, I just had to remember all this crap. 

There is a good side: The Advocate editorialist has clearly demonstrated - in case anyone ever doubted - her lack of support for NCS pupils, parents and taxpayers, while shamelessly paying dues to the local establishment clique in partnership with Keith Richards & company.

What do you want in a new leader for NCS?

One thing is certain about the selection process for a new NCS superintendent: We’ll be watching.

Voter-taxpayers slumbered many years - even long before the era of Keith Richards - not watching, not caring, while NCS bellied up to the trough. Until recent years, the Advocate didn’t publish anything about NCS except sports, PR handouts, and feel-good features. Meanwhile, the budget grew, salaries grew, extras grew, and unfettered greed had a long ride.

We awoke to find ourselves mired in monstrous debt for new buildings and footing bills for an excessively expensive educational machine that can’t fully bus students nor fund extra-curriculars.

It will be like turning an ocean vessel, but that’s the task for Richards’ replacement. It will require Obama-like fresh ideas, vastly different perspectives and values, thorough and honest transparency, and most of all the bringing of people back together - all this, preferably by employing Internet savvy.

“School Superintendency” in Ohio is a caste of its own. Official licensure requirements are long and narrow. To recruit a licensed superintendent seems to imply a small pool of candidates, likely most of them with the caste mentality. From such a pool, the probability of locating the miracle worker needed in Newark could be slim, the process tedious, and result uncertain-to-unlikely.

There seems, however, to be a way NCS might hire a person more fitting to our needs, including those who are not now school administrators, opening the door to consideration of NCS teachers, even local business managers. 

If I’m comprehending Ohio Administrative Code 3301-24-12 http://codes.ohio.gov/oac/3301-24-12 one doesn’t even need a background in education to be hired as an alternative superintendent. Again, this is only my interpretation and I haven’t had verification from anybody.

Wouldn’t it be most rewarding for NCS to first search through Newark’s pool of talent to find a money manager who knows the community, its priorities, and its challenges? One who is honest, who will work for a reasonable salary, who will consider the limitations of taxpayers, who is a saver, not a spender? One who puts students as Priority Number One and considers in all school affairs the well-being and convenience of parents? One who speaks directly to constituents as does our President, rather than through a PR mouthpiece and a newspaper? One who can be so respected and forthright that he can do his job without the help of the Chamber, the Establishment, or the Advocate publisher - thereby eliminating the decades-long tradition of influence by smoke and mirrors? 

Yes it would.

NCS levy signals call to arms

Anyone who considers the passage of the $5.9-million-per-year levy a sign that the community is poised to kiss and make up with the Newark City Schools should go read the outpouring of rage in comments to the Advocate on-line news report.

The NCS tax take has grown by $230 a year per $100,000 value. That’s added to the $892 per year already in place, plus a 1 percent income tax, plus state and federal taxes giving Keith & Company a total of $12,693 per student, per year, plus an estimated 9.3% increase in state and federal aid over the next two years. 

Still NCS will not have enough, they say, to fully bus students, or fully fund the extras for students, but they do anticipate having enough for staff raises which are needed because the NCS classroom teachers’ average salary is only $55,331 for nine months’ work before benefits - and NCS has only one employee for every 4.9 students, and the superintendent makes more than the governor of Alaska.

That Keith & Company strategized a winning shell game on property owners comes as a call to arms. Sitting in front of a computer screen screaming insults back and forth may be therapeutic, but it’s a lousy solution. 

What has to happen next is state intervention into the rape of property owners. It has to happen before Keith & Company come back to rape again, and they will because it’s never enough no matter how much it is.

There are three people who are responsible for doing this, but who won’t do anything meaningful for property owners unless they are made to do it. One is State Representative Jay Hottinger, another is State Senator Tim Schaffer and the third is Governor Ted Strickland.

Jay Hottinger has practically grown to adulthood as our link to state government. Because of that, I think he is as responsible as any member of government for schools’ rape and re-raping of property owners in Newark, Licking County, and Ohio.

So here’s a suggestion for you guys sitting there moaning about having to pay yet another $5.9 million each year on top of an already-excessive tax bill:

Call Jay Hottinger’s office - 614/466-1482 - and ask him precisely what he’s going to do to solve the problem. If you don’t understand his answer, ask again. 

Then call Senator Schaffer at 614/466-5838 and ask him the same thing. Ask the same question as many times as it takes until you understand it.

Then call Governor Strickland at the constituent helpline 614/644-4357 and ask him what he’s going to do to solve the problem. Make sure you understand exactly what he intends to do before you hang up.

When you have done so, please leave a comment here about your experience. The number and kind of comments received will indicate how serious you are about dealing with the problem, rather than whining about it.

More BS from NCS

This rat-a-tat-tat in the Advocate letters-to-the-editor column promoting the Newark school levy appears to have been written by the same person. You sort of get so you can spot the same writer if you read enough of anyone’s prose. If I’m right, that person could be the Newark City Schools new $59,000-a-year spin doctor. If I’m wrong it doesn’t change the rat-a-tat-tat aspect that I know is coming from her.

I predicted in an essay 11/12/08 the product taxpayers were buying in this $59,000-per-year investment is more BS from NCS.  

Also, I answered in advance those letters currently appearing in the Advocate in an essay 1/19/09 when I said: The "more taxes for the kids" song doesn't play anymore. The reason is that the public is no longer slumbering and leaving their voting responsibilities up to parents of students. The public has recognized that the money isn't for the kids; it's for the accumulated and ever-growing fat content of Newark City Schools. The public has at last demanded a reckoning.

NCS has, in other words, failed taxpayers, the employers who have no more fat to donate.

That’s one thing Tuesday’s vote is about, but it is about much more than just that. It’s about a school administration that has failed students and parents. It’s about a school administration that has proved - time after time - itself unable serve constituents or take a new direction. Therefore, Tuesday’s vote will be the only way in which the direction of NCS can be influenced. 

This is not about whether Newark should support its schools. Total revenue for NCS has risen from $52.8 million in 1999 to $70.3 million in 2008, while student population has dropped from 7,433 in 1999 to 6,468 in 2008. You can get links to all the financial info in the essay at this link.

We are, indeed, financially supporting our schools. So letter writers and conscripts of Keith Richards, quit talking as though people who aren’t voting for school levies are somehow ignorant or defective or selfish.

If voters want more of the same crap coming out of 85 East Main Street, then they should indeed vote “yes.” If not, the only way they can say so is to give this levy another good thumping. That’s what the real issue is.

NCS has one employee for every 4.9 students

The second-largest employer in Newark in 2007 was Newark City Schools with 1,367 employees, according to the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, City of Newark Auditor’s Report 12/31/07, Page S31

Newark City Schools that year served 6,716 students, according to the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, Newark City Schools 6/30/08, Page 167.

That is 4.9 students per NCS employee.

NCS is asking for you to raise your property taxes during Tuesday’s election so that you might donate more of your money to such an awesome make-work machine.

You might also find interesting a comparison of the NCS superintendent’s pay with that of the Alaska governor and others. Here’s the link.

Here’s a list of essays which describe some ways in which NCS has been failing to listen to its constituents and failing to serve its students and their parents; also some information about the funding of NCS and links to other sources. These should be fresh in your mind before you go the the polls Tuesday:  

11/12/08 - Newark Schools, get a grip, not a spin doctor

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2008/11/newark-schools-get-grip-not-pr-spin.html

11/14/08 - NCS thumbs its nose at the community

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2008/11/ncs-thumbs-its-nose-at-community.html

1/19/09 - Why did we let schools get so fat?

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/01/why-did-we-let-schools-get-so-fat.html

1/23/09 - Superintendent Richards is not a good manager

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/01/superintendent-richards-is-not-good.html

2/16/09 - NCS, hire someone who will spend wisely

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/02/ncs-hire-someone-who-will-spend-wisely.html

2/19/09 - How to stop the war between NCS and Newark taxpayers

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-stop-war-between-ncs-and-newark.html

3/15/09 - NCS superintendent makes almost as much as the governor

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/03/ncs-superintendent-makes-almost-as-much.html

4/15/09 - NCS revenue up $17.5 million from ’99 to ’08

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/04/ncs-revenue-up-175-million-from-99-to.html

4/17/09 - Ohio House Dems break out school funding revise

http://observationsfromnewarkohio.blogspot.com/2009/04/ohio-house-dems-break-out-school.html

Salaries compared

Compare the salary of Keith Richards, Superintendent of Newark City Schools with those of public officials and celebrities at this link.

Taxpayer interests go unprotected during negotiations

In comments to my Advocate essay yesterday, spacemonkey9000 said he believed the constant spending increase by schools “starts with mandatory pay increases for all teachers, regardless of their ability, simply because they have a contract that dictates the same. I have always thought that teachers unions are the downfall of troubled school districts ...”

Amythirdward compared teacher unions to “the UAW and the outrageous pay and benefits autoworkers collected.”

PEARL52 believes “they'll raise themselves right out of a job.”

I agree with the thrust of these comments. I also believe that the fault is ours. We have let government and schools out on a long leash; we haven’t paid attention to what goes on when they line up at the trough. Now, taxpayer-voters waking up a little bit, thanks to the Internet, and learning more and talking more.

Because we’re learning about the excesses that are occurring, we’re sensing the need to put the brakes on these people by questioning their wisdom and ability in spending public money, rather than voting yes for “the kids,” for “higher property values,” for “attracting jobs,” and other babble from bobble heads whose only objective is getting the wherewithal to pay public employees more.

We should also be sensing the need to learn how this all comes about, and exactly which elected officials are giving away the farm, so we may have the chance to vote them out.

In my recollection, it’s been many years since the Advocate has reported details of new contracts and who negotiated them. We learn only about their cost - long after the fact - when these government and quasi-government representatives are asking for more money to pay the bills.

This is exactly why we have a superintendent of city schools making about twice as much as the mayor of the city and about $2,000 less than the Ohio governor - the one who currently “needs” more tax money to pay the bills.

The day when taxpayers are free to sit in on negotiations regarding pay and benefits for tax-paid employees is the day when the taxpayers’ interests will be protected. We need a law to provide that protection, but until then we need a full public report on what happens when our employees line up at the trough.

NCS superintendent makes almost as much as the governor

That Newark City Schools graduation rate is the third worst in the state was reported by the Advocate 3/12/09. Two days later, NCS Superintendent Richards, in another Advocate article, blamed the community for this; a day later, so did the Advocate.

Naming citizen-taxpayer-parents as villains in the abysmal performance of NCS is about a cheap a shot as might be made. Such an excuse from Richards is to be expected. But woe to whatever shred of credibility Advocate editorials ever mustered. Prostituting the institutional opinion page to Richards and his PR lady is a foolish mistake that’s easily recognized - and long-remembered - for the deception it is.

The many failures of King Richards are common knowledge and there are too many of them to list here. (Go to the box above and search “Keith Richards.”) In general, he has failed to manage taxpayers’ money wisely, he is deaf to constituents and oblivious to their needs. He is the third worst in the state at enabling students to graduate and he blames us for it.

For this prodigious performance, King Richards is paid about $2,000 less per year than the Governor of Ohio. The governor's annual salary, according to the Dispatch, is $133,292; Newark's superintendent makes, according to an Advocate report 10/5/08, $131,382 before benefits, a difference of $1,910.

Meanwhile, School Board Bobble Heads, who should have dethroned Richards eons ago, sit there and provide the man with the lifestyle of a pharaoh and their rubber stamps as a reward for having the third worst graduation rate in the state.

School Board Bobble Heads will, if they act as expected, also blame parents and taxpayers and bloggers because they are, you see, followers and not the leaders they were believed to be when elected. If they fail to acknowledge the cause of citizen discontent with NCS, as expected, they will only prolong the war between the community and the pharaoh, but likely they will not be back after the next school board election.

How to stop the war between NCS and Newark taxpayers

The news that Newark City Schools officials say they will restore some bussing if only property owners will provide them with another 7.5 mills was met with predictable anger in the Advocate comments column (2/19/09).

This demonstrates to my satisfaction that school board members, the superintendent, the strategizers and counselors, the cheering section, and the Advocate, after all this time, have learned nothing about voter mentality, nothing about what has everyone so angry and rebellious. Nothing at all.

The reason they haven't learned anything is simple. In order to deal with it, they would first have to deal with their own egos. They have to admit they are wrong, that they have been wrong and that they are offering no real relief. Only more phony theatrics. They're still playing games and everyone knows it and they're not smart enough to know everyone knows it.

The community is at war with its school board and its superintendent and the war runs deeper than the tax burden. The war certainly isn't about whether or not we all want good schools, good and well-paid teachers, and adequate facilities. No. The war has to do with trust.

The community feels it is being blackmailed and bullied and lied to, and in my opinion it dislikes the superintendent because taxpayers perceive him - accurately or not - as the blackmailer, the bully and the liar.

So, what's it going to take to end this war? I think it's going to take two things. The first is Keith Richards' departure. That means A) school board members must either admit they are wrong in their blind support of him, or B) we're going to have to elect a new school board, which will take some time.

The second is the assurance by whomever replaces Richards that our tax burden is being spent wisely - and that, too, is going to take some time. This person must be a good listener and a saver rather than a spender and taxpayers have to believe that. It's pretty simple.

Once the slate has been cleaned and once the school administration has listened to taxpayers and once the new superintendent has revamped and cut and cleaned house - and most of all demonstrate honesty and transparency - the war will end.

We will get back on track, the Newark City Schools will regain the entire community's good will, its cooperation, and its pride - just like the old days. I really want that to happen and happen quickly.

NCS, hire someone who will spend wisely

Just when I get the notion that the Advocate is half-way concerned about the condition of taxpayers, along it comes with another editorial right out of the local chamber of commerce play book (Support Newark levy now and in May).

Property owners were counseled to spend 7.5 additional mills because this would somehow "restore our pride in Newark."

The Advocate's bongo player forgot to mention that Governor Stickland's plan for Ohio schools would send a few more million tax dollars to NCS and federal stimulus money, some of which is for schools, is in the pipeline.

The Advocate failed to justify the fact that NCS is sucking from our property taxes 69%. This compares to Newark city government, 9%; Licking County government, 7%; JVS, 6%; and 9% total for Senior Citizens, Children Services, Mental Retardation, and Mental Health levies.

The Advocate editorialist failed to ask what has gone wrong in this community that schools should operate on such a disproportionate budget. Never mind how important are our kids. Just what ask what is causing this.

Well, for one thing the superintendent is making more than twice as much as the city mayor, figuring benefits. That, obvious to everyone except school administrators, is a travesty in use of public money.

As I pointed out 11/12/08, "The Newark median earnings for men is $32,542/yr and for women $24,868. Median-wise they have a $566/mo mortgage payment, plus taxes and insurance. The average property tax in Newark is, according to Rates.Banks.com, already $1,321.539/yr, and Keith Richards - making $201,433 a year with 30 days vacation - is asking Average Joe go out to dinner one time fewer each month so he can pay more in property taxes "for the sake of the kids."

Not only did the Advocate fail to get into that, but it also failed to mention that NCS administrators added 83 employees to the teaching staff between 2006 and 2007, resulting in a pupil teacher ratio of 12.79. Am I the only one in town who thinks this might be excessive? Or is this perhaps one factor in the chain of levy failures?

Forgotten too was the fact that Newark City Schools will pay $4.37 million dollars this year in interest on debts totaling $109,750,905 because voters were boondoggled with a lot of construction and renovations that might better have been spread out in a long-term plan. Taxpayers are staring down the barrel of $109.7 million debt to pay for Richards' Folly over the next 25 years, even if during that time they never spend another nickel on construction or renovation.

These are the kinds of decisions that have been made by Superintendent Richards, and taxpayers are being asked to bail him out with 7.5 mills added to the 69% of our property tax bills. And don't forget the wage earners and pensioners who are donating part of their income to keep NCS afloat.

Advocate, don't come at taxpayers like we're a bunch of child abusers and ne'er-do-wells because we have said enough is enough; we're spending all we're going to spend on the lavish lifestyle of NCS. The programs that are being cut and should be cut are programs that never should have been started in the first place.

It's past time for the Advocate and all the other accusers to admit that what NCS needs, instead of more money, is someone at the top who can be trusted to spend it wisely. We need a superintendent less versed on bullying and boondoggling. We need a superintendent who can take the money we're sending to NCS and use it to get the job done.

Superintendent Richards is not a good manager

Newark city schools is again talking about a tax issue for the May ballot. I agree with Advocate editorialists who say Newark city schools can't win any kind of new tax at the polls. (Read it at this link.)

Had they tried for an income tax earlier they might have won it. Now, it's too late for any kind of tax for two reasons: The economy has a lot of folks scared and they aren't buying much of anything, least of what they will buy will be new taxes; and the other reason is that confidence in the NCS superintendent and board has eroded even further to a very deep and well-deserved low.

Superintendent Richards and his gaggle of school-board puppets failed to hear soon enough the very clear feedback given to them, if they heard it at all; and they all failed to act quickly and decisively when told over and over that taxpayers are tapped out. The argument that some folks are too selfish to "give to the kids" patently ignores the incredible property-tax and income-tax burdens already in place. Taxpayers are giving mightily to local schools, but some parents/teachers/administrators still can't see new tax requests as new taxes piled on top of these already-excessive taxes.

It's a never-ending treasure hunt for NCS and Superintendent Richards, so it is now suggested we somehow owe "the kids" another whopping 14.5 mills, which is the amount suggested for the May ballot.

Superintendent Richards is not a good money manager, though he's paid more than twice the amount paid to the city mayor by a public that expects a lot more for a lot less. If you need further proof of his lack of fiscal finesse, go take a long look at the NCS treasurer's pages and click on the 2008 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report - posted January 5, 2009.

On page 151 you can see that the cost per pupil has risen over the past 10 years from $6,092 to $11,696 - almost doubled - while enrollment has dropped by nearly a thousand students - from 7,433 to 6,538. During those same years the teaching staff has risen from 427 to 511, changing the pupil-teacher ratio from 17.41 to 12.79.

This is the kind of management - of guarding the public's money - that we're getting from Newark city schools and Superintendent Richards.

Now there's yet another factor that enters Richards' bottom line. He sold the community a few years ago on the notion that we should construct new school buildings and renovate others. Voters were sold an incredible load of debt, the lenders of which now expect to be repaid.

How much debt? As of 6/30/2008 the outstanding balance on long-term debt stood at $75.6 million. But wait. By the time the library bonds are paid off in 2023 and the school improvement bonds are paid off in 2034, Newark city taxpayers will have been milked for $109.7 million dollars and while we're paying on this, we're also paying for school operating expenses. And in 2034 - or earlier - guess who will be needing more money for buildings now needing repair or replacement?

So now, the debt load for Richard's folly is a big part of the vice being felt by NCS, or so it seems to me.

As I've said before, it's past time for Superintendent Richards to retire again. He is no longer believable, he is no longer seen as competent, he is in the eyes of many citizens the opposite of a community asset.

His departure would not solve the financial pinch which he has created. But it would clear some air if we were to have a skilled manager and a good communicator at the helm. In the interim I would indeed like to see the state come in and reset NCS priorities and expenditures. It would be a good launch pad for the future of our local schools.

NCS: Now, let's find out why we spent $79,061

Newark City Schools hired a PR person at the cost of $79,061 in salary and benefits. For that amount taxpayers have been assured they will receive more frequent newsletters mailed to them at a cost of $2,100-$2,200 per issue.

And what else are taxpayers going to receive for $79,061 each year?

Well, here it is in the Advocate report "New PR director's duties still being shaped." The lead sentence is: "Frances Russ’ first task as Newark City Schools’ new communications director will be to figure out what her position will entail."

In other words, NCS hasn't even a notion about what this person will do, so taxpayers will finance a study to learn why the school administration will annually spend 79,061 public dollars.

After all, it's only tax money. I love that King Richards announced in the Advocate report headlined "Richards: I'd leave if position isn't filled" that "this has never been about Keith Richards.”

In the same report, Richards said he'd quit if he doesn't get his way about filling the assistant superintendent position.

You'd think he have insulted taxpayers every way imaginable - but no. He had the gall to add that he didn't want his $201,433 job if NCS were required to operate as "the cheapest, least costly district."

With that he revealed, precisely, why he is not qualified to manage public money nor to keep his ego in check.

Congratulations to Mark Christenberry

It isn't easy to stand up to the power structure in public as Mark Christenberry did during the recent school board meeting when he stood up against King Richards and fellow board members.

Mark voted to table the motion to hire a city schools' PR mouthpiece that the superintendent insisted on hiring, even in the face of a tidal wave of opposition from the community. Mark said the board should listen to what the community is saying.

The resulting rant by King Richards was caught on video by the Advocate, along with the incredible rationalizations for his support by the Three Puppet People on the school board.

Mark was clearly uncomfortable the whole time and he gets lots of points for just sitting there without saying some of the stuff that he might have liked to say.

There could never be more revealing statements about who cares most about what than is captured in the Advocate's video at this link.

NCS thumbs its nose at the community

The insolence of the Newark School Board and Superintendent Richards has been the subject of many Advocate reader observations and last night they proved to be on target: NCS machinery thumbed its collective nose at a community clearly telling it to save money, rather than spend an additional $59,000 a year for a PR spin doctor.

Nobody tells King Richards what to do. That is now established as fact. There will never be a better display of a single institution trying to bully taxpayers.

The most serious fault of NCS is, and has been for many years, the inability of the board and administration to listen to, and accommodate the needs of, the people from whom support is needed. With them, it is a one-way street - their way or the highway.

No PR spin merchant is going to fix that. Get a man at the top who cares about the right things, and the community won't need to be ministered to and preached at by a professional mouthpiece.

Such a clear demonstration of Richards' superiority complex may, in the long-run, turn out to be what's best for the community: I think he just nailed whatever support remained for his regime.

So, yes. Bring in the state to administer our schools. It will be better in the near term to just dump what we have and start over. And a bare-bones financial plan that presumably would result from state administration is a good jumping off place to begin rebuilding.

This community desperately needs its schools repaired, and the place to begin is at the top.

Newark Schools, get a grip, not a PR spin doctor

The Advocate's on-line announcement that Newark City Schools plan to hire a PR expert for $59,000 salary brought a slew of negative comments, many bordering on outrage. Presumably that figure didn't include benefits, and presumably Keith and Company still don't get it.

The proposal is similar to Superintendent Richards and the school board giving staff and teacher raises immediately after the defeat of a previous levy request.

It is a continuation of NCS leaders unwillingness to acknowledge that citizens are seriously telling the schools and the state to loosen their stranglehold on property owners - and also get a grip on their spending practices.

Still they think - and this new hire proves it - that no request for more money will be refused by voters if the proper PR spin can be sold as truth.

That philosophy has traditionally worked because the superintendent and the newspaper cheerleaders who write editorials didn't have to counteract the free flow of speech by citizens using the Internet.

While this PR spin doctor would cost taxpayers $59,000 a year plus bennies, the mayor of Newark isn't making a lot more - $70,634. Add the mayor's benefits and his cost to the city is about $97,000, but no vacation or sick leave.

Compare that Keith Richards' $201,433 total compensation plus 30 days vacation. Then compare all this to the average salary in Newark of about $29,000, as I reported here in How to improve Newark City Schools, and you'll understand exactly what the problem is with spending $59,000 in taxes to purchase more BS from NCS.

How to improve Newark City Schools

The largest player in community perception of Newark City Schools is the superintendent, as it should be. Under his leadership, with school board backing, city schools have morphed from a once-admirable community asset into something feared, a constant problem against which taxpayers must defend themselves.

On August 6 I called for the superintendent to be replaced and for the schools to stop bullying the community.

Neither has happened. Meanwhile I've delivered sermonettes here on "Ask not what your school district can do for you ..." and "Newark Schools: No more sucker punches, no more B.S." and"Keith, the invincible. Or not." and "Latest levy request is insolence"

Next week NCS is coming back at voters with yet another levy request, and if that doesn't pass, the promise is to bring it again.

Over and over property owners have decisively told Keith and Company that we are tapped out. There comes a point where self-survival kicks in and real-estate taxpayers reached it long ago. Still, NCS/Keith can't trim their professed "needs" enough to balance with the burden on homeowners already place, in addition to the healthy tax on citizens' income.

Moreover, I wouldn't be surprised if parents and other voters aren't wondering why they ever let NCS/Keith close our neighborhood schools in favor of new buildings out in the boonies without school busses and where few can get to by foot and parental auto traffic can be aggravating. This is an example of how NCS constituents are being served.

Another is the raise that Newark Schools staff employees received just after the defeat of the last levy request. You'd expect the schools to begin tightening belts, but in this instance they didn't.

Yet another is the subsequent raise given to teachers. You don't have to be very perceptive to recognize that these raises are not what citizens mandated when they overwhelmingly put down the schools' most recent request for more money: a genuinely frugal, cut-spending-to-the-bones management plan. Giving more raises was an act of defiance on the part of NCS/Keith.

I was dismayed - as must have been most taxpayers - to learn by what amount Keith Richards is overpaid. His $201,433 and 30 days vacation is an obscene extravagance for a community in which the average salary is about $29,000, according to SimplyHired.Com.

The Newark median earnings for men is $32,542/yr and for women $24,868. Median-wise they have a $566/mo mortgage payment, plus taxes and insurance. The average property tax in Newark is, according to Rates.Banks.com, already $1,321.539/yr, and Keith Richards - making $201,433 a year with 30 days vacation - is asking Average Joe go out to dinner one time fewer each month so he can pay more in property taxes "for the sake of the kids."

Keith Richards has already retired once, almost surely with an income that beats the Newark median by far. So it is that we who own property in Newark and we who live here and have an income are contributing as serfs (required by our taxpayer status) to pay for the enhancement of Keith Richards' lifetime estate.

Meanwhile, there should be a stable full of talented school managers willing to work for a lot less and be a lot more accommodating to the people who are paying the bills, managers who can balance income with expenditures. I say go find one, and do so quickly - because I really want to again become a supporter of our once-admirable city school district.

Latest levy request is insolence

Newark city voters twice in two elections have said no to more property taxes. Just after the most recent vote - an August sucker-punch election that cost taxpayers $40,000 - Keith Richards and company return to their world of make-believe and give the administrative staff a raise. Then they put another levy request on the November ballot and back it with a threat of closing Miller School in the wealthiest part of town.

This clearly demonstrates that power-play politics is all they know. As for the threat to close Miller, I say go for it if that's what it takes to get you in line with your income. What would be so different about moving Miller students than it was when Keith was reported by WCLT (Ask not what your school district can do for you ...) as saying: "We had all of Ben Franklin going to Wilson next year. We need a substantial portion of Ben Franklin to go to Heritage School next year and not to Wilson. That almost by itself balances out the middle schools. The elementary, we had too few a students planning to go to Cherry Valley, too many going to the new Legend school and about the right number going to Miller, but if you take some away from Miller and put them at Cherry Valley, you have to make some adjustments. There is a change between Cherry Valley, Miller and Legend Elementary."

Like we're talking about cattle being assigned to various feedlots, instead of families getting jerked around. So the closing of Miller is somehow a greater loss than the closing of Conrad? Not to me.

Because citizens are so full of this ham-handed treatment, the Advocate news article about the latest levy request lit up the comments column with more angry writers than any other I can remember.

Keith and Company are dancing to their own bongos when they should have been researching the comments columns. Public opinion - at least as I read it - was already boiling before the last vote. To come back at taxpayers with yet another property tax request is nothing short of insolence.

Keith needs to retire again and for real. That would be Step 1 in getting the school district and its patrons together on budgetary problems.

Next is for the schools to get off the property-tax breast. From my last property-tax payment Newark Schools took 67 percent. Compare that to 9 percent for the City of Newark and 8 percent for Licking County.

Property-tax payers are tapped out. Period. So why doesn't someone begin talking about more sales tax or more tax on earned income? Earned income tax, as I said here before (Replace Keith and stop bullying us) does not rely on sacrifice by pensioners. A sales tax would be more equally shared by all of us.

The mantra "give until you bleed - it's for our kids" isn't working. Taxpayers have long ago begun to believe that it's not for the kids, it's for the regime, the invincibles, the bongo dancers who simply will not listen.

Keith, the invincible. Or not.

Some will call it gutsy, some will call it stupid, but the fact is Keith Richards has announced yet another pay-raise proposal for administrative employees of Newark Schools. He did it only days after Newark citizens signaled him - with a resounding defeat in a levy vote - that NCS is already spending too much.

Instead of gutsy or stupid, maybe it's an invincibility complex.

I think Mr. Richards believes that his invincibility is guaranteed by his mastery of propaganda; that it only takes the right spin in combination with the right pressure points, and minions will believe as they are told to believe, and voters will vote as they are told to vote if the propaganda machine is fine-tuned and well-oiled. That, in combination with the right degree of parental pain.

If he believes this, he's correct, but only up to a point. That point arrives when the man on the white horse spins too hard and too long in the wrong direction. That point arrives when voters see propaganda and parental pain for what it is. That point arrives when taxpayers have no more to donate to schools, particularly for administrative pay increases.

All this describes anybody who refuses to acknowledge the feedback Keith Richards has received recently from this community. I rather think he's not so invincible.

Newark Schools: No more sucker punches, no more B.S.

A sucker punch is to hit someone who's not expecting it. The recent vote on an exorbitant levy request - held in August - was designed to catch the majority of voters off-guard, to marshal parents and employees, and to win the vote by deception. It cost taxpayers $40,000 and it was in every sense a sucker punch by the schools to the community.

It was the latest entry on a list of ways the Newark School District has alienated the community.

I believe this sucker punch will be long-remembered as a symbol of the District's disregard for the community from which it solicits support - and also the District's unwillingness to play from the top of the deck.

It is also my opinion that this sucker punch will stay associated with the name and history of Keith Richards, superintendent.

Though it may not have been his brainchild, though he may not have supported it privately, though he may have privately been dead-set against it, the fact is that he acted out the part of being the engineer of this sucker punch. In view of all that has come before, it is too much for him to overcome.

As I said before (Replace Keith and stop bullying us) "Against this backdrop his other mistakes in community/taxpayer/parental relations add up to a conglomeration of errors he will not outlive."

The school board should immediately begin consideration of ways in which the District might cleanse itself of sucker-punch disposition. It must find ways by which to assure the community that its days of trying to deceive and bully us are over; that it is working with us to find ways to bring property-tax relief and not make it worse; that it intends to begin acting as servant and not master to citizens it is supposed to serve. No more sucker punches, no more B.S.

All this would be a 180 turn and I hold no hope that Newark School Board is up to that task.

Replace Keith and stop bullying us

That Newark voters have said "no" again to their city schools is no surprise to anyone except those who masterminded an August vote at a cost of $40,000. What part of "no" didn't they understand last time? And how many more "no's" is it going to take before we see changes in ...

1 - Newark City Schools administrators and administrative techniques?

2 - City schools' bullying attitude toward the people it presumes to serve?

3 - A commitment by schools to serve its customers to the best of its ability, rather than to apply what one commenter in the Advocate called "use of threats and selective parental pain-points?"

4 - A commitment to help bring financial relief to pensioners by reducing, not increasing, property taxes?

5 - A strong and committed leadership by this community for state funding reform?

1 - There is much in the recent history of NCS about which Keith Richards is to be praised, but to little people like me he symbolizes the stuff about NCS that turns me off, and that grows progressively worse the longer he stays. This most recent fiasco - the $40,000 August tax vote - has capped it. Against this backdrop his other mistakes in community/taxpayer/parental relations add up to a conglomeration of errors he will not outlive. Cut the cord now.

A demonstration of good intentions by school board would be replace Mr. Richards with an interim person who is 1) much lower on the pay scale, 2) exceedingly charismatic, 3) in sync with the mentality of parents and taxpayers, and 4) determined to make the least painful budget adjustments, especially for the short-term.

2 - An about-face by NCS on who is supposed to be serving whom. Schools - Newark and elsewhere - have morphed into these quasi-governmental big boys for whom customer service is last on their list. Read it over and over in the Advocate comments sections; read it in Newark Tea Party Observations.

3 - Taking away bussing and hitting at school sports were, in my opinion, the most ham-handed of NCS mistakes - parental and student pain-points at their rawest, an obvious attempt to browbeat the customers into a voting frenzy. How can these customers be proud of the city schools?

4 - The property tax burden has long been excessive. It reached the breaking point when the last gold mine was extracted by taxing homeowners. What should have happened is taxation upon sales, corporate profits, and/or EARNED income. Taxes on earned income, like Newark City Income Tax (and unlike the present school tax on income) does not tax pensions. Taxation by these methods is more equitable and more likely to win voter approval, particularly from the older folks.

5 - It's time to stop whining about "state funding for education" and start demanding it. We have Jay Hottinger as a resident of Newark, one of the most influential state legislators we could hope for, particularly in the way tax money is being spent. It's time for him to be more than the poster boy for the Chamber of Commerce and start getting the school funding mess straightened out. He should also be leaning on Governor Strickland, who was elected in part on the promise to fix school funding, but has not and apparently does not intend to. Jay Hottinger needs to hear it loud and clear from Newark residents. Newark - a city buffeted by school and government ineptitude - needs to lead the way.