Our family has lived in the Hilliard City School District since 1979 - back when it was called Scioto Darby Local Schools. As is true for many of us, Terry and I settled here to take advantage of our excellent school system. Our daughters attended Hilliard Schools from kindergarten through graduation.
In the past few years, I have grown increasingly concerned about the economics of our school district. The more I have studied and investigated, the more I understand that we are on a spending trajectory that cannot be sustained. There is no "white knight" who is going to ride into our community and present us with the tens of millions of new dollars that our school leaders claim we'll need in the next few years.
Did you know that our Superintendent and Treasurer have estimated that the cost to run Hilliard City Schools will increase from $132 million in 2006 to $189 million by 2014? Take a look at the Treasurer's Five Year Forecast.
Where will that money come from? Certainly not the State of Ohio, as our Governor and General Assembly struggle to find a way to operate our state government with significantly reduced revenues.
If we allow our school leaders to spend all that extra money, it will have to come from the pockets of the homeowners and businesses of our community. We can expect a levy similar in size to the last one (~7 mills or $200/yr+ for each $100,000 in home value) every two years if we allow this spending pattern to continue.
Things are seriously out of control. I know how to attack the problem, and have tried for several years to advise the school leaders without success. It's time to drive change from within, and I am eager to do so as a Member of our School Board.
I had the great fortune of spending my professional career as part of the CompuServe team who developed our company from a small computer timesharing firm to a billion dollar global enterprise that pioneered many of the online services we now think of as "The Internet." During that time, CompuServe provided information services to millions of members worldwide, and also was one of the major providers of data communications services to corporations large and small.
My journey took me from being a Computer Operator while I was an engineering student at Ohio State, through roles in marketing and product development, and culminated as the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Network Technology, responsible for the engineering and operations of our global telecommunications network, leading a team of nearly 1,000 associates with an annual operating budget approaching a quarter-billion dollars. Along the way I collected a business degree, gaining formal training in accounting, finance, economics and management.
It is my honor to have been asked to serve in a number of volunteer capacities in our school district. I have been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hilliard Education Foundation, the ACT Committee, the Treasurer's Committee, and the most recent project to redefine the attendance boundaries of our schools. I have served on the Board of Directors of multiple for-profit and not-for-profit entities, and understand the proper role of a governing body.
I also understand what it means to be a business owner, as one of the founding investors/executives of RivetDigital, a high-tech start-up here in our school district.
My interest in school economics was stimulated by my involvement with developing the 2005 update of the Comprehensive Land Use Plan for Brown Township. That is when it became clear to me that our community was being mismanaged by allowing residential development to radically outpace commercial development, seriously undermining the cost versus funding balance. I could not understand why our school leadership was so quiet on this critical issue. I still don't.
I have been writing the SaveHilliardSchools website and blog for several years now - documenting what I have found in this fascinating and alarming journey of discovery. Perhaps you have been one of the thousands of readers who have visited these sites. If not, I invite you to check them out.
Other pertinent experiences:
- Board of Directors, Pinnacle Data Systems, shareholder owned public corporation (AMEX:PNS) (2000-2005)
- Board of Directors, National Black Programming Consortium (2002-present)
- Strategic Planning team member - American Baptist Churches/Ohio (2004-2007)
- 23 year member of Mountview Baptist Church, currently serving on staff as Director of Leadership Development
- Board of Directors & Treasurer, The Ohio State Chapter of Triangle Fraternity - a 100 year old national fraternity of engineers, architects and scientists. Named one of the Men of the Century.
- Pollworker and Presiding Judge, Franklin County Board of Elections
- Eagle Scout
- Extensive travel, both personal and business, including all 50 US states (30 on a motorcycle) and a dozen foreign countries.
| Next > |
|---|
