001i'm thank you mr wilson we are back from our second executive session for the night at 8 31 p.m and we talked about personnel in executive session we still have a motion um with the second on the table and that is just to refresh everybody's memory to accept with regret the resignation of mr david j barr effective july 27 2022 and authorize the administration to post and advertise if necessary for the position is there any further discussion on that item all those in favor say aye opposed abstentions motion carries you need a motion to accept with regret the retirement of um pamela thomas cafeteria worker for mcguffey school district second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions motion carries i need a motion to approve the change in assignment for mrs
002melissa scovert uh current esl teacher from part-time esl teacher to full-time esl teacher so move second and discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries i need a motion to hire sage taylor as an elementary teacher at masters step one subject to assignments and per the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy board of directors and my gothic education association pending all receipt of required clearances medical exams and afternoon 68 verifications i have a motion and a second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions motion carries yes you may so uh i've had it is with great pleasure that i introduced kaler to the family thank you very much jeff so let's start over again so it is with great pleasure that i get to introduce sade
003kaler to uh to the mcguffey family as the new kindergarten teacher at joe walker elementary sade is a graduate from what she graduated from west virginia university where she received a bachelor's and a master's degree in elementary education she started her career as a head start teacher at bentonwood elementary for five years then she transitioned to the pre-k teacher position at jefferson morgan elementary most recently she has been a pre-k teacher at joe walker elementary for the past two years we are so lucky to have say join the joe walker team as she will be a welcome addition to the team as as she has a positive impact on the community staff and above all the students of joe walker please help me welcome save kaler to the mcguffy family thank you mr wolf thank
004you everyone for this opportunity i am so excited to be a part of the mcguffy family and joe walker team um as the new kindergarten teacher thank you very much congratulations congratulations thank you i need a motion to hire taylor bowman as an elementary special education teacher at bachelor's step one subject to assignment and per the terms and conditions of the agreement between the mcguffy board of directors and mcguffey education association and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and act 168 verifications we have a motion and we have a second is there any discussion all those in favor say aye aye um this is mrs rycheck is online this is ryjek if you want to take over i have there you go yes we can hear you oh great thank you it's my
005privilege to welcome taylor bowman taylor comes to us with experiences at propel charter school and west mifflin school district she is a graduate of slippery rock university and just her experience and love for extracurricular activities especially in the area of theater and community service activities makes us very excited for her to join our team welcome taylor thank you thank you you need a motion to hire kaylee madovich is an elementary special education teacher at bachelor's step one subject to assignment and per the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy border board of directors mcguffey education association pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and act 168 verifications have a motion in a second any discussion always in favor say aye aye opposed extensions motion carries do you have anything to say i do
006um kaylee matavich we're very excited to have her she's a graduate of slippery rock university with elementary and special education she comes to us with experiences from canon mcmullen and then also most recently spent the second semester at kleesbell elementary so her enthusiasm and commitment to our district already makes us very excited to welcome her thank you i see miss madovich is on the um on zoom air do you would you like to say anything [Music] yes can you hear me we can yes yes awesome i absolutely love my time at claysville and i'm super excited and i just wanted to thank everyone for the opportunity thank you and welcome thank you congratulations i need a motion to hire jennifer gavitt as an elementary special education teacher at bachelor's step one subject to assignment and
007per the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy board of directors and mcguffey education association and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and act 168 verifications got a motion and a second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed sentience motion carries anybody introducing jennifer comes to us um as a graduate of iup with degrees in elementary and special education she has experience with a long-term subposition at mount lebanon school district she most impressed us with her creativity and just obvious desire to put student interest first and when she's planning lessons and communicating with families so we're excited to have jennifer as part of our team cause god i see that you are also with us would you like to say something we can't hear you in case you're on
008mute okay if must have an older version welcome and congratulations i need a motion to hire melissa kearney as an elementary teacher at master step one subject to assignment and per the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy board of directors and mcguffey education association and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and act 168 verifications so second second and they waited till i was done thank you you got done that you're getting faster and so there's the pace you've got the pace down yes so we have a um motion and a second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions motion carries uh so i also have the privilege of introducing melissa kearney as a new elementary teacher at claysville elementary melissa graduated from penn state university where she
009received her bachelor's degree in early childhood education with a minor in special education she also received her master's degree in elementary education from california university of pennsylvania she started her career at upper saint claire's a long-term sub in various roles throughout the district melissa then transitioned to winchester virginia where she taught third grade for one year then she then transitioned back to pa to be closer to family and that's where she was assigned as an elementary remote kindergarten teacher just take that one in for a moment within the upper st claire school district melissa is passionate about teaching and we are lucky to have her join the mcguffy family please help me welcome melissa kearney to the to the family good evening the guppy community and school board my name is melissa kearney and i'm
010so incredibly excited to join claysville elementary as their family in the second grade classroom i am very appreciative of miss fleck mr wolf dr oberg and the school board members for their trust in my abilities my passion and my enthusiasm for teaching from the very first interview i knew mcgaffey was a caring and a loving place when i first met miss slack and mr wolfe i felt their sincere compassion for their teachers their students and the absolute love they had for the mcguffy community i cannot wait to work more closely with both of them to grow as an educator i am eager to make a difference in the lives of our children and i ask that the mcguffy community join me as a partnership to provide the absolute best educational social and emotional opportunities for
011our children so they can all reach their fullest individual potential i hope to see many of the families in the community and to build meaningful relationships with you all thank you again for putting your trust in me and please know that i will always do what is best for kids i'm very excited to officially become a highlander thank you i need a motion to hire alyssa oanu as a special education teacher at master step one at mcgathey middle school subject to assignment for the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy board of directors and mcguffey education association and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and act 168 verifications i always was there second i have a motion and a second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed abstentions motion
012carries mrs reicheck oh chet has okay sorry mr mr welch oh middle school yeah i have the pleasure of introducing uh alyssa awanu to our middle school staff she is at the uh beach uh so she cannot be with us today but she comes to us from penn state university elementary and early childhood education with a master's in special education she had an assignment at hampton school district and franklin regional school district welcome alyssa awanu i need a motion to hire emily lafferty as a high school english teacher at bachelor's step one for the terms and conditions of the agreement between the mcguffy board of directors of mcguffey education association and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams and 168 verifications second any discussion all those in favor say aye opposed abstentions motion carries
013mr bonus good evening it's my pleasure to welcome emily lafferty to the high school uh faculty um it seems like it's a slippery rock night here not always slippery rock night but i think she's our third higher she's a 2008 slippery rock grad with a degree in secondary english she's just completed this last school year a full full year substitute position at peters township high school she's also done a long term substitute position at south fayette middle school and some work at trinity middle school as well it was a very thorough interview process we had a lot of very good candidates in that pool and um emily really proved herself against some very tough competition so we're very pleased to bring her into the high school english department which is always a very strong english
014department and she's going to make it even stronger so emily i think you're she should be online are you she is hi all can you hear me we can hi yeah i just want to say thank you mr bonus for that very generous opening and i'm so excited to be a highlander i am from trinity area actually so i feel like i'm just coming back to my community you know my brother-in-law is a very proud mcguffey grad and i know and i'm friends with several people from the district so i know what great people that this school produces and i love working with high schoolers they just they bring so much fun to the classroom even if they're reluctant to do so and i just i love getting to engage with them and help them
015as they start you know this crazy path as we call adulthood or at least try to call it adulthood so i'm really excited to help them with this and to be a part of a great community thank you and congratulations you need a motion to hire shannon myers as a para educator subject to assignment and per the terms and conditions of the mcguffey school district and mcguffy education support personnel psei nea and pending receipt of all required clearances and medical exams in act 168 and 126 verification all right discussion all those in favor say aye aye opposed extensions motion carries need a motion to waive policy number 303.2 and hire shan shanda kendall kinsler as a para educator subject to assignment improve the terms and conditions of the mcguffey school district and mcguffy education support
016professionals psea nea and pending receipt of all required clearances medical exams act 168 and 126 verification so move second any discussion what is policy 303 policy 303.2 deals with nepotism and this individual is related to a an employee who is in the district who's also in the district thank you yes any other discussion always in favor say aye am opposed i'm opposed that's two ascensions motion carries [Music] i need a motion to approve the attached list of mcguffey high school club and activity sponsors for the 2022 2023 school year [Music] second discussion i have some questions we're looking at cutting things from the budget and i mean obviously we can't cut correct women programs and i think it's a scenario we can cut i have to agree with you issues you can't touch whoa okay
017we're gonna have to take turns here um i heard mrs mrs lie part i heard mr ross and mr um laser so mrs liper i'm going to start with you go ahead i have to agree with mrs on this one okay mr ross according to our contract um we're required to have these the contract says that it's offered if the program runs if the club runs if we can't afford to pay them then the club doesn't run i'm not saying that every single one of them but that's a chunk of money and of all the things that we can cut this is something so which clothes do you want to cut wait a second we're gonna i'm gonna go back first to mr laser we looked at cutting some clubs before and due to the
018contract nature of the language we was not able to do it so i would assume it would still be the same i believe the contract that we just reviewed with everyone says if the clubs run and there's a sponsor yes they that's in their contract i don't think it says you have to you have to run that club to have that club solicitor would have to review the contract well then i make a motion to table it i second that motion any discussion on that but there's no discussion on a table oh sorry we're tabling it until next week what would be automatically tabled to the next meeting okay all those in favor of tabling i let's do roll call bye so this would be voting yes to table this item mr hardin yes mr
019kern mr living here no miss live yes mr ross no miss shingle yes mr banana no mr hames no miss jackson yes so it fails because it's an even vote i have so we go back to the original motion i have asked for years what is the diff what determines unpaid versus paid like i look at some of those and i think that is a could be argued to be a clear discrimination as to paid or unpaid i would agree with you you know what i mean yeah but yes cannot be a club i have that straight from the director from michael bremer that that is not a club it has to be something in their contract what i'm sorry fa is not it's not even a club it's not classified as a club we
020have it listed there but it's that's it's on page it's not classified it says yeah so i just i have questions about that i i don't understand that um you could get real specific but look at those look at that list and i mean you're talking about fifteen thousand nine hundred and four dollars and fifteen cents on activity club and activity sponsors that's a lot and when you look at that and you have others who are unpaid meaning they're volunteering their time and i look at those some of those are time heavy i don't get that i just don't get that oh i don't either and it almost looks to me like it should be two separate items like the unpaid should be separate from the right well well the unpaid is not an issue
021exactly so as far as i'm concerned we're really here to approve who the advisors are for this coming year right and and the ones who are paid it's because of what our contract says yes if that program if that club is offered but the club doesn't have to be offered and if we're looking at a budget that needs some work then you know what when everybody wanted that big bonus they reminded us well you have money in your fund balance so well money's got to come from somewhere i say we need to redo that and our solicitor had said she would need to review that as to what the client you review the contract and i know the language to be able to tell you what are you exactly saying but if you look at
022the asterisks at the bottom of the list the ones that are unpaid are all not in the contract i understand that my question is why i don't know it doesn't matter it's still a lot of money but i still think what what i'm hearing though is that there are members of the board who would like to um know whether we could as a board decide not to offer clubs and activities or by the contract if we are bound to offer them because they're contract well i don't know the answer to that our solicitor said she doesn't know the answer to that so i think that's something to keep in mind as we're looking at this um this motion so which we've already had a motion to table and was and failed if the motion would
023fail tonight you can re-bring it into the next legislative session so with the next week so even if you would vote this and it would fail you can bring it in i personally would like to have more information before i would vote for that it's almost the same yeah you know the crazy thing you know it ends up being like two bucks an hour yes well let's be honest most of the sponsors are agreeing to be sponsors because they have a commitment to whatever that particular club or activity and to me i want to be clear it's not even for me a vote i know that you're saying mr ross that it's a vote on these particular sponsors but i feel like it's a vote that's bigger than that for me this is i the
024financial part of it i'd like more information as to what we are bound to buy the contract any other discussion i i hear what betty's saying and you look at this list and we're saying that well yearbook staff is important i heard betty say that i believe that's true okay so which one of these children do you want to tell that they're not as important as anything else that's where the problem comes in the yearbook is a little bit different than an arts club or a french club or whatever tell them which group do you want to tell they are not as important as x well i think they're all important but if you put it that way then don't have any i'm sorry uh we have to cut somewhere if we don't want to
025lay people off and we don't want to cut then where what are we going to cut we should have raised taxes at last meetings what we should matter okay well you know what we're just past that i well that's my opinion any other discussion so as of right now this is a vote to approve the attached list of mcguffey high school club and activity sponsors for the 2022-2023 school year and i will just add to that that our solicitor has said um that we could always if it gets voted down we could always bring it back next month so that's where we are all those in favor say aye aye opposed i'm a pentecostal i'm opposed and the abstentions okay three opposed yeah i just want to make sure do you want to do roll
026calls yeah ok yes yes ms no mr ross yes miss shingle no mr venata yes mr hayes yes mr hardin yes miss jackson no so motion carries i need a motion to hire the following list of 2022 fall sports assistant coaches for the terms and conditions of the agreement between mcguffy board of ed board of directors of mcguffey education association pending receipt of all required clearances in act 168 verifications and completion of the 2022 respective seasons in the event of a partial season salaries will be prorated any discussion all those in favor say aye opposed abstention motion carries i need a motion to hire mr john leisure as assistant football coach for the fall 2022 season for the terms and conditions of the agreement between the mcguffey board of directors and the mcafee education association
027and completion of the 2022 respective seasons in the event of a partial season salaries will be prorated okay any discussion i had one question didn't he did he do this last year yes i thought he did i thought he did i'm just asking i thought he did thank you um i'm going to ask for a roll call on this one slide part yes mr ross yes ms yes mr venata yes mr haynes yes mr hard yes mr leisure abstain jones my son miss jackson yes motion carries and in a motion to approve resolution 2022 2023 number one as presented providing up to a 384.61 homestead farmstead exclusion for those residents of the mcguffey school district that have been approved for the property tax relief by the washington county assessment office second um we're gonna need
028a roll call vote on this by the way so any discussion there okay welcome mr ross yes miss jingle yes mr monada yes mr hayes yes mr hardin yes mr leisure yes ms lipart yes miss jackson yes motion carries i need a motion to approve the pennsylvania school-based access program uh local education agency agreement to participate fy thank you fiscal year i was my mind was just not there 2022 2023 as presented second any discussion all those in favor say aye aye a post okay extensions motion carries i need a motion to approve the agreement to purchase navigate 360 as presented the annual subscription cost is 4 725 for the 36 month term august 15 2022 through august 14 2025 so any discussion annual subscription rate is that 4 700 i'm a year or for
029three years that's a year you're buying so you're saying we need to actually amend the motion yeah the total amount has to be on the agenda yes i think it's spending money it should also say 46 or 47.25 annually for 36 month term it says okay my understanding is that we're saying we'd like we need to have a motion read to approve the agreement to purchase as presented with the one-time service for site mapping for elementary schools at 7 000 in high school building at 3 500 and an implementation fee for 375 dollars and a total of 10 875 dollars and an annual subscription cost at four thousand seven hundred twenty five dollars for a 36 month term from august 15 2022 through august 14 2025. so yes okay what she said is what he
030just said do we have a second for that second okay so on that amendment we do not discuss amendments right so we have that motion to amend on the floor all those in favor of of amending this of amending the wording uh say aye any opposed extensions that motion carries oh sorry i need to abstain i'm previously employed by navigate 360. okay so we have one abstention previously previously it don't matter [Music] well but if he feels that he wants to to yes to avoid any appearance of impropriety i don't think there's anything wrong with that okay so the motion to reword has passed so now we need to vote on that correct we don't need to restate it the one that we just approved thank you now we need any well we already you
031already read it oh yes so you're moving to yes thank you now discussion on we can discuss that any discussion on that so my understanding is we're getting two hundred thousand dollars for safe schools or whatever that grant is this money could be used for that i believe the general sentiment is we think so yes clarify 100 000 of that would probably be able to be used for some of the mapping which is the major cost and some of the other fees i don't think you can use those grants for software licensing and stuff like that so any kind of licensing fees would be but it would reduce the cost yeah it would definitely reduce the cost some of the stuff would definitely qualify i just want to be clear my understanding and chiefy maybe
032can answer this this is not anything that the students will have access to it's not going to be on their devices or anything like that thank you no and i talked to miss fry um briefly during one of the breaks that um some of her concerns that that stuff is all a la carte so this is the emergency management piece everything else is separate so you would have to purchase that individually to access anything from alice training to visitor management to social emotional learning to their bullying stuff to their suicide awareness stuff so so to be clear what we're voting on is the emergency management thank you any other discussion all those in favor say aye opposed distinctions abstain again motion carries i need a motion to approve the pennsylvania school board association membership renewal
033in the amount of 13 525 and nine cents which is an increase of 346.67 less than three percent second discussion okay i we have had spent some time looking at this and again we need to cut some things i looked and we actually there are 60 different approved sites by the department of education that we can get our training from as far as policy review that's why we pay a solicitor and i will tell you this particular month the only thing on their agenda on their events was solicitor information i mean i have some updates but they're really ideal i really do not think it is if i think that's a cost that we could cut i think that's and to be clear board docs is not operating program it's not operated by the um
034i i've said this before and i'll say it again i think psba has lost sight of their original mission they no longer want to it appears that they're not just satisfied with guiding school districts when it comes to policy but they want to be a driving force behind it seems that they want to be a driving force behind policy and quite frankly some social agendas that aren't consistent with our district's core values in addition to that most school solicitors are also members of the attorney portion of psba so we wouldn't be losing any valuable update information for policies or even legislative updates because we would be able to get that through other means as well as the training through other means but i know there are 60 approved sites approved sites for uh training for
035director training and that was a big thing because that's the one thing i think we do need we need the director training so if you look at that right we can get the director training elsewhere we can we already pay a solicitor for guidance on policies um as well as legislative updates right i don't know why we would need a membership with them where does our insurance come from liabilities liability yeah thank you this was your recommendation right dr robert [Music] sorry i was on movie that is my recommendation yes we could hardly hear you dr oberg but i think you said that it was your recommendation to go with what was presented right correct yes can you hear me yes no any other question the solicitor if they're if you are reviewing these policies
036that's in addition to your monthly fee right we're paying you for time to do that yes right so we do that anyway we i to my knowledge i don't believe we've ever passed a policy that we haven't asked the solicitor to review you know correct so yeah that's correct so i mean i understand your point we don't draft them currently correct we would have to pay to be drafted well have we not taken policies from psba in the past and adapted them to meet her or other schools and we don't at current time we don't have all the policies that psba recommends which i would not there are some that i would not right here any other discussion okay roll call please miss jingle no mr banana yes mr names yes mr harden yes mr
037lasher yes miss lifeheart no mr ross yes ms jackson no motion carries [Music] you need a motion to approve the district's student and athletic insurance coverage with bollinger insurance for the 2022-2023 school year august 1 2022 through july 31st 2023 with an annual premium of nine thousand six hundred and three dollars and that's no increase second any discussion it's nice that there's no no increase exactly no no it's covered is that is that help is that an accidental insurance call accident insurance supplemental to their own health insurance i believe if it's on if it's in a school setting in the sense of support this is their first use this is their first insurance yes any other discussion all those in favor say hi opposed abstentions motion carries i need them wait did i skip something
038no no okay i need a motion to approve payment to anderson price for the invoice date of june 30th 2022 and the amount of 1790 dollars is submitted so move second all those in favor say aye opposed ascensions promotion carries there is the facility use report madam president uh this last quarter or this last time we had 22 uses of the facility 14 were schooled 10 were community related community related were booster groups youth and girls basketball thank you budget expenditure report for the month of june 2022 is there you move on i just want to remind everybody i know we've seen it this out on the uh board but that uh relay for life that's going to come up before our next our next board i mean it's the beginning of august august 6th
039i think i just want to remind everybody that's taking place here do you know the times mr shingle on the thing it says 4 to midnight thank you yeah okay so the budget expenditure report was there the cafeteria report for the month of june is presented for your review do we have a solicitor's report no you do not madam president do we have a western area career and technology report we do yay i'm happy to report that we have hired a new director his name is michael milanovich he came to western area career technical center from lawrence county career and technical center where he is the principal lawrence county runs their uh center up there quite differently than we run ours they are a uh lawrence county is a full full sending in other words
040the students choose to leave their district their sending district they spend one week doing academics and one week doing their chosen then they flip-flop the next week he's been up there he was there for five or six years from aliquippa and uh i'm excited he's brought he's sounds good mentally he's not young he's not old he's in the middle someplace been breaking um he's taught 13 years at uh i'll equip i believe on his resume but i'm really excited to have him we have a new principal uh don't ask me his name um i wasn't in on the interview process for that we do have a new principle and i believe it was reported at the last meeting at the time that we have all of the educational programs staffed so that's wonderful we did
041lose our perkins director that we had just hired isn't this their big annual year they had i heard that they was having something they had a celebration in the spring 50-year celebration yeah yeah that way i thought it was in the fall no no they had it this spring okay they had their graduate zone and i told sony they had a graduation this year she'd ask me that but it was drive-up still so it was one of them there were two and the one was on the night we were having yeah they had multiple days of drive up they kids drove up and got their diplomas and drove away uh psba report legislative report i just have a couple of things this was a big a month for attorneys and had solicitor conferences and events
042but as far as what's going on out there the general fund budget was passed at senate bill 1100 and it was 525 million dollar increase in the basic education subsidy to be run through with the formula and giving 225 million level up supplements for 100 school districts and there is a list of where this money is going i don't know you probably know what we're going to be getting but we for special ed and basically we're getting 105 000 over what i budgeted because i did kind of increase together 21 for 1 and for the other it's a total of 105 well good uh the other thing um there is also a a special note on there about school code amendments i i think that's probably something that probably our solicitor would want to look
043at but there are several different things in there that are being adjusted uh school safety and mental health special education formula changes reconstruction and special education and funding commission new commissions on education and economic competitiveness i mean it's all the things we already know but the codes are being amended so we really do need to keep up with it and see what what it is that we're responsible for the only other thing is there were some amendments that were uh stated has changed in the fiscal code so that's something that we would want to look at to and make sure that we're following everything that we're supposed to there's some other notes in there about taxpayers about homeowners and the tax bills as we've been talking about we've had our own tax issues there are
044some things on there that are changing i think that's really all our solicitor has something to say about the changes to the school code okay and mrs shingle just so you know our office is preparing an action paper on all those changes good just so you can say what what what has changed what's going on so yeah that's in the works oh that's wonderful thank you very much thank you [Music] public participation non-agenda items chief out of prison we have three called justin coppola all right five minutes justin capulet from south franklin um just wanted to go back to the last school board meeting mr ken laser made the statement we should have raised our taxes so uh just going back to a couple of the statements that i said the last school board meeting
045was um the about the real estate tax assessment appeal program um some of the questions i asked i won't have to go over all of them uh how much will the appraisals and legal fees be for these cases um who pays if the assessments actually get lowered and um i mentioned that allegheny county does this and uh i said we're not allegheny county or washington county uh and there and i also stated that there has been litigation over um tax appeal programs like this too and it's a good way for solicitors to make money and i also stated at the last school board meeting that there have been school districts violating state constitutional uniformity clauses because of tax appeal programs like this so um it was actually a blessing that you guys voted it down
046because something happened in allegheny county if you were watching the news so um the school districts who chase the property like owners to try to get to raise their taxes to um to get more money for their districts it they got pretty crushed in allegheny county and i remember mr laser saying i know you said not here it hasn't happened but in allegheny county 10 000 property taxes actually got lowered so the school district actually has to accommodate for that and i think it's interesting that you you can't you still have to pay those legal fees so it's like you're even losing even more money so i'm actually going to read an article it's not that long but this this just happened this week an allegheny county judge's decision may put an end to the
047new comer tax allegheny county common police judge alan hertzberg shook a blow tuesday to the newcomer tax local school districts appealing the assessments on new home sales to reap higher property tax the decision could reduce the tax bill for thousands of new home buyers in quotes it's like the whack-a-mole game they look at sales and whack your taxes go up in some cases your taxes will double and you didn't see that coming it's just not fair said mike sully a tax assessment consultant uh a couple from allegheny county bought their house in wilkinsburg only to be told that their taxes would be more than double from 3 500 to 9 000 a year the couple sued the county and they won this was just this week in his ruling judge hertzberg has ordered the county
048to roll back its assessments and others i'm really excited that one it's going to help us out jeffrey said two it's also going to help lots of people across allegheny county lower their taxes the ruling will immediately impact 10 000 recently bought homes who assessed values have been challenged by the school districts in a practice hershberg's called sales chasing some new buyers who were who were looking at a big tax increase may now actually get a tax break including a house appealed by the wilkinsburg school district looking at a 22 270 increase but now stands to get a 945 a year tax decrease the decision appeals to the most recent home buyers whose assessments have been appealed but the judge has asked all parties in court on back into court on august 2nd to discuss
049uh broader applications so usually in in the rule of law if something passes like in the courts you know other counties try to pick up on it so it's actually good that we didn't raise our taxes the way they did because it would have actually backfired which i stated that the last school board meeting that their assessments got lowered so um i just wanted just to just to state that and also about that book policy i did look in the the policy district policy 108 from like 2004 uh you guys do actually have a book policy and when you guys approve those books you actually violated your own policy which was policy 108 so i would hope that you would like amend it uh to be more up to date obviously with the email that
050i sent you guys i think that would be great language to put in there and just amend it so certain things like that don't happen again but um as for the the psba i'm a little bit um disappointed in the board considering that you could have amended to possibly even go with the standard version like middle of the ground it's unfortunate that we have to spend an extra three thousand two hundred dollars for things the community didn't want and it's more the lines of government of by and for the people that's who you represent you don't represent a superintendent you don't represent the state you don't represent anybody else you represent us so um other than that thank you again for not raising our taxes thank you bless you guys i'd just like to clarify
051i voted to eliminate that program that you're talking about yeah he did yes i did he did vote to eliminate so then you stated we should have raised our taxes did you make that statement it's two different two different things he's talking about the resolution he's talking about passing the budget with no tax increase the tax appeal was a separate issue so he voted he voted to eliminate the tax appeal program based off of what you just stated we should have raised our taxes but i have to go back to look at the actual vote but just considering public comment that i overheard is you stated that it's never happened like where they have actually raised their taxes but the way that you voted made it look that way but i it's not the truth
052yeah please two separate issues that you're talking about because it's two separate issues so that one's a tax increase based upon that how would you do the budget one is what would the budget consist of they were two separate issues is really what they were two separate votes so the tax appeal was one vote to approve that program which was a resolution and we voted that down which was a resolution correct uh no it was a it was a motion it was an actual motion there was a tax appeal there was a tax appeal program resolution though was it before the budget went through it doesn't matter yeah i'm just saying like just considering i know that they're two separate issues so the main thing i'm trying to draw the connection to is how would
053you have raised the taxes would you have implemented because i believe mr lucas made the statement of how the tax appeal program would be implemented is that in connection to how their taxes would be raised for mcguffy's no they're choosing the way that it's processed it's very clear that you have no idea what you're talking about there's two separate issues the school district can raise taxes based upon a minute there was also a motion for over 20 000 which that would be the tax appeal program that i told about in the article correct okay and we voted that down which is good so there's two separate ways of raising our taxes that way and including the budget you're saying that they're two separate things yes so you've always voted that down mr laser the tax
054appeal program so that that stack right there for tax appeals that that means that that was a no vote right [Music] i disagree with that appeals process okay for a simple reason that the buyer of a new home for an existing home did not have any idea that if they okay it is not right to not let the public know and the realtors would not tell anybody because that reduces their chance of selling a house got it was a non-published issue for instance you could have bought a house and let's say the taxes was appealed okay account put one up by 100 or 200 or 300 or hard to what months per month you may not be able to afford that so it was a knowledge thing nobody know that their taxes was going to
055hit the peak mr lucas made a statement about how the process would go down is taking 30 percent so you're saying that that has no why would he already ha like you're he why does it look a certain way in in the invoices when i had a right to know that's that's what i'm i'm i'm just trying to connect we didn't have that yeah which i can understand at this time as well but i just wanted to make sure that you understood that they were two separate issues so mcguffy has never voted for that resolution no no no no no okay we had it up for a revo got it it was obvious so you guys have done it in the past but this year you have not three years correct correct got it correct
056from the budget so then that would explain that which would have been the same thing that happened in allegheny county but we're not doing it we're not doing that anymore fantastic thank you for your patience that's correct but in the past yeah but not this time no he's never he's never voted for it for the i i'll apologize publicly mr laser i apologize that i misrepresented you hey justin i i don't want to continue to rain on your parade but that policy 108 you referenced is about textbooks not supplementary no but if you look closer into it it's actually for any and all okay again i'm going to cut that there that's not what this time is for no which i understand i i appreciate it so i would imagine that you you would disagree
057with it with a policy like that the one that i would present either amend that or not for this time but thank you i mean i had to at least appreciate it i appreciate it ken also in regards to students of victory jordan ken in regards to the uh taxes uh realtors whenever they list a home they would based on they will report what exactly that they are paying in taxes at that point right the realtor doesn't know what the house is going to sell for right they don't know and they don't know even if they did know they wouldn't know what the assessed value it just was a cluster nobody know what was going on so again i don't think it matters at this point for us because we voted it down so moving
058along to mrs jordan victoria excuse me victoria jordan buffalo township i just wanted to bring up the reassessment tax appeal on a different total level mr leisure i'm with you i know you did not vote for that uh but i would like to say during the discussion about the tax appeal process mr luke is presented a dollar amount that he stated came into the district when questioned further by mr van ada mr lucas admitted the firm keeps 30 percent of that dollar amount now i know you're wondering why i'm bringing this up and my process is first of all the dollar amount that came into the district was never made clear because of the discrepancy over the 30 percent and i found his initial comment to the board and the stakeholders deceptive because he threw
059out a dollar amount that he said he came into the district we would have all believed that dollar amount had mr van adden not pressed him and then he openly admitted that they keep 30 of that and i'm just wondering why what happened and what he said and how he represented himself doesn't make you all question our arrangements with our current solicitors it was just it was presented and it was done in a deceptive manner and i think you should all recognize that and the last thing i want to say is when i sit in a seat i watch you all and i watch your responses i watch your facial expressions and i find it very disrespectful when you have people speaking and they're coming from their hearts and you're staring at clocks behind their
060backs and you're rolling your eyes and raising your eyebrows you don't have to be disrespectful to us you don't have to agree with us but you need to listen to us and be respectful about it so thank you for your time thank you spider-present last in person is monique frye [Music] good evening monique frye morris township um i wanted to touch a little bit on on a on a book policy justin read it to us last month i agree completely i think we need to have a policy in mcguffey school district to allow for parents and students if they would wish but i don't think they care enough to really look at something like that but parents especially and the rest of the community to see what's coming in and out of the classrooms last
061month the last couple months with the book the books coming into the school district was just an eye-opener as to um [Music] what could possibly be happening um one of the books i've not found this book let me just share this i have not found this book on the book list that i've been reviewing from a mcguffey school district i've been reviewing the mcguffey middle school high school book list and there are some books that have been challenged at other school districts in in other states and so on and so forth for their content either it's too mature for the age group that it was being presented to or the content there's too much graphic content for the view for the reader i think we need to have a policy in place not just for
062books to be reviewed coming into the school district through teachers for their personal classrooms through other other ways of funding but i think we need to have a process in the school district for books that may be of older content judy bloom comes to mind she speaks she writes books for middle school girls that's what they're geared for but i don't want my middle school daughter reading her books because of some of the content that's discussed in the book the content should come from mom speaking with her daughter i recognize that not every student has that but we should have a policy in place that certain books there should be permission slips is what i'm getting to there should be permission slips if there's books that have a higher age level of content in them
063parents need to be aware of that they also need to be aware of what their students are reading um there is a book i'm not going to read what can what is con oh my goodness i'm not going to read what is in this book but i would be more than happy to share it with all of you and i most likely will after the board meeting there is a website that um it's called destiny discover i put in you can search the school districts and books that have been purchased there i searched mcguffy in pennsylvania and the one that came up that was alarming to me was me and earl and the dying girl a novel the description of it 17 year old greg has managed to become part of every social group at
064his pittsburgh high school without having any friends but his life changes when his mother forces him to befriend rachel a girl he once knew in hebrew school who has leukemia sounds like a great storyline the name is a little bit weird but the story line sounds great if i had copies of this i'd pass it around because i think it's very important for all of you to see what is in this book it's very graphic pornographic actually the only thing is is i haven't found it on our school book list in the mcguffey school district but this database is saying there's a copy of it in mcguffey school district so that leads me to think there's a teacher either now or prior that purchased this book and possibly brought it into the magazine school district
065through donations or what have you like last the last couple months and how this got past anybody sitting in one of your seats is beyond me because if we're actually reviewing the content in these books there is no way that this would have gone through and the fact that it had is really really disturbing because it only tells me that we really need to have more in place to protect our students specifically from pornography thank you anything else mr wilson anyone online [Music] at this point there is nobody online for public comment madam president i would like to clarify something for the public okay this tax appeal process okay i'm sorry but i just want everybody to get that horse i want everybody to understand what it is and what it wasn't it was to
066appeal any house that got bought in mcguffey school district for over twenty thousand dollars that was a threshold twenty thousand dollars over the assessed value over the current assessment and it was twenty five twenty five sorry i would just like to say that once again it no longer matters i understand but i need to i want to uh explain something the way the process worked is the solicitor appealed them and they got 30 of the first year then after that they didn't get anything so the money came into the district as additional revenue that we really didn't have to pay the solicitor for they did get their 30 of it so they got to pay but we got money that we would have never gotten that's all i wanted to try and explain and then
067the next year they didn't get anything and we reap the benefits of it and i that's all i wanted to explain thank you um before we motion to adjourn um i did want to ask the board for um consensus um i as a member of the board um can't just go off and represent the board on my own without your um your permission to do so i would like um the board's um consensus to meet with state um education committee representatives um to discuss i would like for them to i would like to take like copies of our budget from the last three years and talk with them about how the decisions that they're making really affect our district i think sometimes it's hard for them to put faces to the decisions that they're making
068and you know when you're talking about even cyber school reform you know they're taught they're normally looking at that through kind of a vacuum of not understanding when you look at us our last three years i know of in particular wherever a million dollars in money that we're paying to cyber school that in the last three years has also been very close to our deficit so i just would like permission uh or a consensus from the board to to reach out to them and have that conversation go forward i'm good with it okay at that point then i need a motion to adjourn so move all in favor we are adjourned at 9 37 pm you didn't say a post and i was going