The impact of the property tax debacle is drifting to ever more local levels. The history is long and cumbersome, and I’ve documented no small part of it here. But, now it’s starting to look like it’s going to mess with my kid’s education, so I’m starting to take it a little personally. Today, as reported by Meranda Watling in the Lafayette Journal & Courier, our school corporation announced a reduction in force of about 20%.

Several of those teachers — the youngest and the ones in specialty areas, including elementary art, music and physical education — will soon receive “reduction in force” letters stating that their jobs may no longer exist in TSC this fall. Those 150 teachers represent 20.5 percent of all TSC teaching staff.

That was the unanimous decision of the TSC school board. The vote came after the board tabled the decision earlier this month and then listened Monday to more than 90 minutes of discussion and questions, both from the audience and from board members.

The reduction is expected to help TSC close a $7.8 million budget gap in its general fund this year.
. . .
Heather Brooks, co-president of the teachers union, said after the meeting that she continues to be disappointed by the lack of openness on the part of TSC’s administration. It wasn’t until last week, she said, that TSC administrators formally asked for negotiations with the teachers. And it wasn’t until the board meeting Monday that she heard any dollar figures put to the teachers union’s alternative budget cut proposals.

I suspect we can look for the usual suspects to deflect criticism about school programs crumbling in the wake of questionable tax policy decisions with some version of “teacher’s unions are to blame.” It’s an evergreen, all purpose, floor wax/dessert topping issue.

For my kids, it means bigger class sizes, less preparation time for the teachers with the bigger classes, and less instruction in “non-core” subjects like art and music (but what role have art & music played in human civilization, really?) Which is too bad, because Cole has really been showing an aptitude for such things.

Update Specifics having to do with the proposed cuts are here (pdf).

Pretty much a universal rule of messes is that they flow downhill. That means, to a large extent, when the economy is in the tank, and government is tightening up, it falls to the township trustees office to provide poor relief to an increasing number of people. Dorothy Schneider, writing for the Journal & Courier, has a good article about the increased demands being placed on township trustees in Tippecanoe County, even as the legislature is considering eliminating that office.

The article provides a primer on how the poor relief system works:

Residents must file a written application upon first visiting the township office. Only under special conditions will poor relief assistance be granted without an in-person request being made at the office.

Applicants have to provide information about income and assets, use of other community resources, relatives capable of providing assistance, past or present employment, pending claims or medical conditions.

The township trustee is required to investigate the circumstances of the applicant and each member of the household.

If emergency assistance is granted, payments can be made to the applicant for clothing, food and household necessities.

In my experience, township trustees have a greater sense of what’s going on with poor relief applicants than governmental entities that are farther removed. Are there efficiencies to be had by centralizing government? Sure. But there are trade-offs. In particular, I think a poor relief system administered by, say, the State would result in either more denials of people who qualify for assistance or more approvals of people who don’t qualify (or both.) The ability to make case-by-case determinations will suffer.

A comment to the story captured something special about people’s attitude toward government:
“Get rid of the trustees, they hinder more than help. . . . I have tried to receive help from them before with no avail. Even with my health issues, they still turned me down. What a waste of local government.”

The person apparently wants less government in the form of elimination of the trustee who denied him or her assistance for whatever reason, and more government in the form of assistance to him or her personally.

An article by Curt Slyder in the Lafayette Journal & Courier reported on the release of a report by the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It ranks community health at a county-by-county level:

The County Health Rankings show us that where we live matters to our health. The health of a community depends on many different factors – ranging from individual health behaviors, education and jobs, to quality of health care, to the environment. This first-of-its-kind collection of 50 reports – one per state – helps community leaders see that where we live, learn, work, and play influences how healthy we are and how long we live. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is collaborating with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute to develop these Rankings for each state’s counties. This model has been used to rank the health of counties in Wisconsin for the past six years.

The main website for the project is here and the Indiana-specific results are here.

Hamilton County is ranked #1, Tippecanoe County is #12, Scott County appears to be #92. Some of the information provided, using my own Tippecanoe County:
Mortality (18); Morbidity (17); Health Behaviors (7); Clinical (75); Social & Economic Factors (14); and Physical Environment (49).

Tippecanoe County really goes off the rails in terms of uninsured adults – 23% versus 14% statewide – but the speculation is that this is significantly influenced by the presence of Purdue and a number of uninsured, but generally healthy, young adults.

Looking at Perry County (just because I like the doctors there), Mortality (74); Morbidity (91); Health Behaviors (43); Clinical (51); Social & Economic Factors (47); and Physical Environment (90). Air pollution and low access to health foods seem to be a real problem in Perry County.

Could be some useful information in there for local policy makers who can maybe look at what is going right in other counties with similar resources and try to take notes.

Sylvia Smith has an article for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette on state party chairman Dan Parker’s search for a “moderate” to step in now that Bayh is quitting. What really caught my eye was the notion that “moderate” means “more likely to break with the Democrats and vote with Republicans in party-line votes” and “siding frequently with the GOP.”

So, by that definition, would it be accurate to state that there are no moderate Republican Senators? Including our own Sen. Lugar? Or are the standards different depending which party you’re in? Because my sense was that Sen. Lugar had a reputation of “moderation” because he simply talked about it before voting with his party to filibuster legislation to make sure it never even got to a vote. Or were there occasions in the past year when he, or any Republican Senator, voted with the Democrats on a party line vote?

My complaint is not about working to find common ground but about the Bayh/Broder/Village style of “moderation.” It’s bipartisanship for bipartisanship’s sake and only seems to matter when there is a Democratic President.

You look at the Indiana General Assembly, and you see plenty of votes where you have a mix of parties in the roll call. Working together without regard for party affiliation is even more prevalent at the local level. I have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, I like it. There is some give and take based on regional preferences, personal beliefs, or any other number of variables aside from party affiliation. This strictly tribal “my team” versus “your team” in the U.S. Senate is unhealthy. But, if you’re compromising in good faith and the other side is not, you are always going to lose. It’s basic Prisoner’s Dilemma type stuff. And that’s what has been so frustrating about Bayh – that he has been willing to defect from his party even without evidence that members of the Senate G.O.P. were also willing to bargain in good faith and weren’t just going to filibuster at the drop of a hat.

Earlier, I posted, and have now deleted a post about former Sen. Katie Wolf based on my misreading of an e-mail. She is still very much alive. Her husband Charlie, however, has passed away.

Here is the information for him:

Visitation will be on Wednesday, February 17th from 4:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Springer Voorhis Draper Funeral Home (574-583-5777), 202 S. Illinois Street in Monticello, Indiana. There will also be a one
hour visitation before the memorial service on Thursday, February
18th from 10:00 – 11:00 a.m. at St. James Lutheran Church, 110 N.
Kenton Street in Reynolds with the memorial service beginning at
11:00 a.m.

Memorial Contributions can be made to the Monticello Kiwanis Club
earmarked for Riley Children’s Hospital or to St. James Lutheran
Church in Reynolds.

My apologies for the first post and condolences to Sen. Wolf for her loss.

Didn’t see this coming. Evan Bayh won’t run for re-election.

In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision.
. . .
“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned,” he said.

Thanks for the fair warning. I wonder what this does for the state Democrats’ ability to get a replacement candidate up and running. It will also be interesting to see if he cashes in with some big lobbying money.

Update A couple of thoughts – 1) What is the process for getting a candidate on the general election ballot if no one makes the primary? Nomination at the State Convention? If the state party machinery controls the general election candidate, I’d think that would increase the chances of Evan Bayh attempting to select his own successor. At the moment, it looks like there is a Tamyra d’Ippolito who is at least trying to gather signatures. I believe February 19, 2010 is the deadline.

2) I don’t know if he could win a state wide general election or if he’s even interested, but I’d certainly be content with Joe Kernan as a Senator.

Happy President’s Day, everyone. I was thinking about the Presidents I admire, and I noticed a trend toward the somewhat anti-Democratic “strong President.” With that bit of insight, I can see the appeal of the “man on horseback” to whom citizens might gravitate in times of trouble, resulting in a diminishment of democratic institutions.

That said, my two favorite Presidents are Abraham Lincoln (even named my son after him) and Teddy Roosevelt.

So, who do you folks like?

At some level, I believe I’ve gleaned most of my notions about life from pulp culture in one form or another. One of those, from the Robert Redford movie, Jeremiah Johnson, is the notion that you can measure a man’s stature by the greatness of his enemies.

In any case, that was the synapse that fired when I was reminded of the FDR speech (Madison Square Garden 1936) wherein he welcomed the hatred of his enemies.

For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me – and I welcome their hatred.

That speech was delivered a little over 73 years ago – almost as long as the Indiana Toll Road lease! – and much of it sounds like it could have been delivered yesterday:

#[The American People] “sought escape from the personal terror which had stalked them for three years. They wanted the peace that comes from security in their homes: safety for their savings, permanence in their jobs, a fair profit from their enterprise.”

#They wanted peace in the community, the peace that springs from the ability to meet the needs of community life: schools, playgrounds, parks, sanitation, highways‹those things which are expected of solvent local government. They sought escape from disintegration and bankruptcy in local and state affairs.

#They sought fairer wages, an end to long hours of toil, and the elimination of wild-cat speculation.

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

As I say, much of it could have been delivered yesterday, except that there are precious few politicians on our national landscape who welcome the hatred of such enemies. If you measure their worth against the power of those they stand against, you will find most wanting. The triangulation and political calculation of the Bayhs, the Liebermans, the Nelsons, Landrieus, and Specters, and – to a certain extent – President Obama himself, you find a group of politicians standing for nothing, falling for anything, and allowing the country to drift back into the control of the policymakers who (aided and abetted by that honor roll of Senators, I suppose) brought us America’s lost decade of 2000 – 2010.

John Cole has an impressive rant describing how a bill just about everybody likes could flame out, die and cause political wreckage through a combination of political nihilism and the right wing media/thinktank wurlitzer.

For some reason, it reminds me of the Subgenius rant “Hateword” by Nenslo.

So glad Indiana decided to shift school funding from property taxes more volatile sources of revenue just before my kids hit the public school systems. Here is a look at some of what our school district is looking to cut to cope with the sudden shortfall in funds:

A 3 percent salary reduction for administrators and support staff – essentially all nonteaching staff. The same employees will also have their health insurance benefits rolled back to 2008-09 levels.

• Eliminate of two assistant principal positions – one from each McCutcheon and Harrison High School – for next school year, and the elimination of the assistant principal position at Mayflower Mill Elementary School after the 2010-11 school year.

• Reduction of art, music and physical education instruction from those special teachers at the elementary schools by 50 percent. Classroom teachers will corresponding additions to their duties.

• Increase elementary class sizes.

• Reduce librarians to 20%.

• Eliminate world languages classes.

• Reduce the number of or frequency of elective courses offered at the high school level and eliminate Japanese altogether. This will result in larger class sizes.

• Reduce the number of summer school courses offered.

• Eliminate three to four remediation teaching positions throughout the district.

• Eliminate TSC’s adult education program.

• Discontinue funding for the early college program. Students will still be able to attend college classes but must pay for them themselves.