Trinity's Problems

TRINITY'S PROBLEMS

By Judi Panasik
The Weekly Recorder
July 4 2008

How do you know when you are on the right track when going after a story? You can always tell because the people it involves will slither out of the woodpile and try to put fear in others. That said, Kenny Bonnell who writes for this paper must have been doing one heck of a good job. Bonnell may be the best investigative reporter in Washington County. Recently he has uncovered financial issues that make past and present school boards and administrations look incompetent, which really isn’t hard to do.

Over the last 20 years Trinity Area School District’s school board members have been poster children for why you should stay in school and why everyone needs to understand business. The board that served in the 1990’s put our school district in unforgivable debt. And most of it has been over wants not needs. We didn’t need a football field with Astroturf. We didn’t need to build four new grade schools. We shouldn’t have built one over pyrite. But people had agendas and business deals that needed to be made.

Interestingly enough Board Member Jack Keisling served on the board during this time, and along with Board Member Helen Anderson, opposed these decisions. Keisling has again been elected to the board and continues to fight the same fight for the residents of Trinity.

This time Board Members Tom Bodnovich and Henry Clemens join Keisling. Although they don’t always vote the same way, they tend to stand together on issues of education and economics.

Bodnovich and Keisling have pointed out that the school district is collecting millions in taxes a year they don’t need. They have worked to lower taxes and have been met with the argument that it would be better for the school board to pay down past debt. Their argument is that it is not fair to pay down the debt at the expense of taxpayers that in today’s economic conditions could use the money. With a larger and larger percentage of our tax base consisting of seniors with limited incomes this only makes sense and seems fair since they don’t even benefit from the schools. But looking at recent scores neither do the children.

Board members such as Sam Puglisi have also told them, that they need to get money for future projects. As Puglisi listed the projects, Bodnovich pointed out that none of them were regarding education.

But as Keisling and Bodnovich fight the great fight to improve education and stop all of the ridiculous spending, past administrators and board members are contacting current board members and stating that these members are ruining the school district.

Unless ruin means fixing the mess that has taken 20 years to create and working on improving education and lowering taxes, they need to pick a different word.

I give Bonnell a lot of credit. Sitting through these board meetings twice a month is torture. He then has to deal with the persecutions for revealing the truth.

Bonnell looked through checks one time and realized Trinity was paying $4,300 a month for Trinity South’s water bill, and it has been going on for years. Thousands and thousands of taxpayer dollars literally down the drain. How many administrators and board members have signed off on this? And the story doesn’t stop there, but it’s Kenny’s to tell.

And then he uncovered the fact that Trinity Superintendent Tom Turnbaugh, who left his last job at Bentworth under questionable conditions, had them pay him for sick days that he then asked Trinity to accept as part of his contract. Which means as Kenny put it he “double dipped.”

These problems were also illustrated during the TIF negotiations when they gave up 80% of taxes for 20 years without really looking at the contract and understanding what they had done. To this day they still think they got a deal. But only time and our taxes going up will tell.

Trinity has been negligent in planning but also in forgetting what the purpose of a school district is, getting an education.

The truth about Trinity is their scores keep dropping and so does their enrollment. Maybe it’s time they take a good look at other schools and see what they’re doing right.

I can remember Keisling going to a school board meeting three years ago when he wasn’t on the board and asking them to look into some ideas he had regarding the science program in grade schools. Not one member said a word to him about it nor did they take action.

Of course this is the same board that ignored a mold problem for years and wanted to have parents arrested that brought in proof from the schools.

Although the ex-school board members and administrators have a problem with Bonnell, Keisling and Bodnovich, I would hope that residents realize what they are doing and have the common sense to support them. Next year there will be four positions coming up for election on the board.

Do yourselves a favor, and something the boards have forgotten to do, educate yourselves on who you vote for, unless you like paying more for less. And for those who are angered by Bonnell’s writing, and mine, keep coming out of the woodwork because then we know we’re doing the right thing.