North Allegheny School Board

We are 30 year residents of the NA School District and I have been involved in the Schools in one form or another all these years. My three sons were educated at NA and they have great jobs now, part of the credit goes to exceptional education at NA. I have been a soccer coach for about 10 years, member of the NA Diversity Committee for another 10 years and I am currently a Member of the Concerned Parents Group.

All along, I have followed the NA Budget and its spiralling increases. The last 12 years have really brought it into focus because of the $50 Million increase in the size of the Budget. That is $50 Million in additional taxes that is being spent to run the schools where the number of students and number of staff has not really changed much. It is now time to look at spending cuts rather than continue to increase taxes at NA. This is the 4th year in a row that NA is raising our property taxes. Enough of tax increases, now is the time to cut spending to balance the Budget.

I have experience in budgeting while running my own business for over 20 years and prior to that I served on the Budget Advisory Committee for Keystone Oaks School District also. I have a M.S. in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and I am a Registered Professional Engineer in Pennsylvania.

Over the years, I have provided analysis to show the School Board where all the spending can be reduced. My exchanges with the School District show that NA would like to continue to raise taxes every year for the foreseeable future rather than cut spending. That is not the way to run the School District. We have to look at the NA Budgets differently and curtail out of control spending.