Christmas in Downtown Edison 2016 - Jingle bells..jingle bells!

Christmas in Downtown Edison – 2016

Twas’ a month before Christmas and those sly little elves,

 Edison’s Mayor Lankey & Super O’Malley again labored to benefit themselves.

Now up to 13.7% and 17.8% in tax hikes during their reign,

one via Dem-Party Oligarchy and the other a Leadership wane.

One has a Council voting themselves 100% Pay Hikes,

and the other a Perfect 10% Merit Bonus for his purchasing likes.

Not remotely caring a wit what the people might think,

they again place their own agendas before the People in spite of the stink.

One has a campaign manager around his neck he constantly awards,

and the other $pends $5M to garner his rewards.

They say campaigns are about winning and elections about governing,

would be nice if either one recognized it is the People they are $mothering.

And putting his thumb to the tip of his nose and Sticking it to You and Me,

Lankey backs Karabinchak, the Biggest EDO Failure Ever, for Assembly.

And O’Malley wastes $1.5M of Your tax dollars on James Monroe,

because of a Leaderless Board that can’t get their ducks timely in a row.

They’re not concerned about disrespecting the public per se,

dubious transparency and misdirection is their Ruling way.

Lankey knows in this one-party town that you have no where else to go,

and O’Malley knows his Safe Haven contract allows him to freely flow.

So while we all scratch our heads and say What the Hey!,

lawsuit settlements are galore and lease vs. purchase agreements are the way.

And then it’s Charlie ‘I Abstain’ Tomaro trying to parachute in a Fav Council Dem,

now we see the Bd. of Ed elections have become the Bd. of EDems.

In this season of giving, Lankey & O’Malley will again be on the take,

Lankey without any checks and balances continues a big mistake.

And O’Malley with his 4,400 purchased Laptops du Mac,

left this Board of Mythomania so far behind, they’ve lost sight of his back.

If in this feeling I’m not alone,

take up your pen or pick up the phone.

Let Lankey & O’Malley know that true leaders pave the way,

not ignore and disrespect the People of Edison with the games that they play.

Elections do have consequences every year here in Downtown Edison,

so I hope You again enjoyed opening Your purse and taking Your medicine.

And I heard them exclaim with another year under hand,

Merry Christmas to Edison, and let all the People paying for it be Scammed!?!

Just an updated salary file for Edison Board of Education

Well, got an updated salary file after salary increases in October, 2016 took effect in November, 2016. Not exactly in the same format that the original file received was in so I'm waiting to see if I can can the updated file done in the same format for comparison purposes.

The original file had Name, Location, Title and Contract Salary and you can see the results of that in the Post dated September 19, 2016. This file only has Name, Guide and Total Salary columns.

Anyway, while I wait to get a file that I can compare to the original file and share the updated salaries by department, title and location - here's a quick look-up for the some 1,800 employees totaling $135.5 million on this current file.


Anyhoo, recognize that salary levels are fluid, constantly changing and are just a snapshot of a point in time. More the reason to have actual headcount change reporting against the budget coming out of Mythomania Lane on a monthly basis.

Edison Board/Super Merit Goals for 2016-17 - Deja vu all over again!?!

Well, here you go. Just received the Board of Mythomania's goals for 2016-17 along with their translation into quantitative and qualitative merit goals for Super Dr. Richard Dr. 'Looking for the Exit Ramp' O'Malley.

Barf!

Forget about the selection of these goals but the language in the qualitative ones they've selected is so vague and the quantitative goals so easy to achieve that they might just as well cut him the check now. Makes you wonder how they define 'expand' and really, captive audience meetings and pilot programs?

And how much is that check going to be for in the 2016-17 school year?

His current salary is $212,334 and under his Safe Haven Contract, he's entitled to a Max 10% Bonus or $21,233.40. He has two quantitative goals worth 50% of his Max 10% bonus and two qualitative goals worth the other 50%.

His Special Ed quantitative goal is worth 33% and the Before/After School quantitative goal is worth 17%. His Visual Programming qualitative goal is worth 25% and the Mental Health goal is worth the other 25%.



You can see the 2016-17 Goals here:



And finally, something that a district which $pends some $235 million a year, has some 15,000 students in 17 schools - that there's Not one academic achievement goal?!?

Anyhoo, what do I know? I still can't figure out why there's no academic achievement quantitative goals and especially any tied to those 4,400 Mac Laptops that they $pent some $4.1 million on.

Super Salary Cap to rise to $191.5k - Can we possibly get more money for Super O'Malley?!?

Well, just saw this piece here on NJ.Com and looks like the increase from the existing $175k will go into effect next year. Of course, in our situation over there on Mythomania Lane - the cap never came into play for us since the Board hired him before the cap went into law and renewed it by going for a waiver.

You remember that saga with Señor O'Malley. The Board of Mythomania brought him in on a cold night back in November 2010 to give him a contract at $210k. That contract ran from 2/7/11 to 7/1/15, with the caveat of 'or earlier' to the 2/7/11 start date. You all remember why 2/7/11 was an important date - it's the date the new Super Cap law went into effect. They beat the Cap. The cap law wouldn't take effect until his next contract.

And you remember how and when they renewed his contract in 2015. Seems it didn't matter that Super Dr. Richard 'Looking for the Exit Ramp' O'Malley was out publicly interviewing for another Super Gig in another state. Unfortunately, he didn't get it.

So, what does our Board do? They reward his loyalty with a Safe Haven contract renewal in 2015 and since he now falls under the new cap law, they went and got a waiver of the $175k for his new contract that runs from 4/1/15 to 6/30/19.

So, let's see how they treated Super O'Malley. Under his original contract, his $210k salary grew to $223k in 2015 when they went to renew his contract. Under the new cap law, with more than 10,000 students they went for a waiver of the $175k and got it. His new contract in 2015 had a salary of $209,000 but with bonuses ranging from 8% to 12% over the life of the contract.

Now remember, he was making $223k up until 4/1/15 of the 2014-15 school year and $209k for the remaining few months. However, he got an 8% bonus of $16.7k on top of the $209k so his new annual compensation was $225k. Just a shift from salary to bonus in real dollars (though bonuses don't enter into pension considerations). Then in 2015-16 they gave him another 10% bonus of $20.9k, apparently for his purchasing acumen.

His current salary is now sitting at $212k and he is eligible for another 10% bonus for this school year.

Don't want to bore you with anymore details so if you're interested - you can just type in 'O'Malley Contract' in the Search box and you'll see all the previous posts including his contracts.

So much for salary caps over there on Mythomania Lane:

Moral of this story - if there's any way that this Board can turn this increase in the Super Cap Max into more money for their favorite Super, they will certainly try. After all, who knows how much more it will cost us if he goes out for another Super Gig and doesn't get it!

Anyhoo, still waiting on the 2016-17 Merit Bonus criteria but given how these things are written - safe bet with this Board is to chalk up another $21k in the bonus column for Señor O'Malley.

Edison Unofficial Election Results by District - November 8, 2016

Well, just received the unofficial results from the Edison Clerk's office for the November 8, 2016 election. Please recognize that this breakdown by district received does not include mail-in votes.

With respect to the Unofficial BoE results - Ward, Peng & Brescher won the 3 open spots with votes of 11,154, 10,519 and 10,210, respectively. With write-in votes, the total votes for Ward, Peng, Brescher and Araujo were closer to 13,128, 11,988, 11,819 and 11,680, respectively.

Here's a pic of an Excel file with a dropdown box which will show the Votes by District along with the %'s:

And for those who wish to see all the Votes for all candidates by District, here's what was received from the Clerk's Office:




Anyhoo, anyone who wants the BoE Excel file by District, just drop me a note and you're welcome to it.

Edison BoE Election Results - November 8, 2016

Just saw the unofficial results of the above election here in the SL. The People of Downtown Edison have spoken and in a very close race, Incumbent Theresa Ward, Shannon Peng and Richard Brescher have won the 3 open spots.

Congratulations to all.

Photo credit to the candidates websites - Shannon Peng for Edison BoE and Building Futures for Edison BoE:

Anyhoo, let's wish them all the best of luck in their new roles.

Geez - it only Cost You $5 million for Super O'Malley to get his $20,900 Bonus?!?

Silly me, what am I thinking? The Board of Mythomania hasn't yet learned that $pending is an activity and Not an accomplishment.

But hey, what do I know? I always thought performance bonuses had to be based on more than just purchasing items with Our Money.

Geez, buy some gym equipment; pay for an outside student transportation study and then buy some buses; buy enough Mac laptops to wallpaper the buildings and you get $20,900 for your purchasing efforts?!?

And let's not forget to have a bunch of meetings with the captive audience, the parents, and have them fill-out a survey when they're done - you only have to get a 75% approval rating from your captive audience!

Here's what they $pent Your Money on:

Anyhoo, use to think that the Board of Mythomania was Leading from Behind over there on Mythomania Lane but Not anymore. Sure seems they lost total sight of him.

Edison's election for BOARD of EDems!?!

Well, on Tuesday Nov. 8th we get the chance to decide which of the 4 candidates get to fill the 3 open spots and have an impact on the Board of Mythomania for the next 3 years.

I say 'decide' because those who show up to vote are the decision-makers - so, regardless of who you support, if you don't want someone else deciding for you here in Downtown Edison, then it's important that you get out and vote.

Make Your Voice Heard! The People of Edison are better than its politics!

As with any election, You should vote for the candidate(s) that you believe will best serve Your interests and not be bound by partisan party lines or affiliations or by listening to anyone else telling you how you should vote.

Now before I go any further, let me recognize Lori Bonderowitz and Veena Iyer - the 2 sitting board members not seeking reelection. While I may consider the former a loss to the cause and the latter a lost cause, the fact that I disagreed more often than not with them doesn't diminish the fact that these are volunteer positions which take a lot of time and effort and both of them deserve a Thank You for their volunteered service on the board and to the community.

Now, moving on - clearly, if you ever read this blog and its many posts about what this Board does and doesn't do, what they say and don't say etc - then you'll understand why I'm not a fan of this Board (and why I refer to them as the Board of Mythomania), it's ineffective Leadership, its lack of Oversight over Super Dr. Richard 'Looking for the Exit Ramp' O'Malley, its Misdirected and Out-of-Control $pending, its Bloated Buckets of Money they call School Budgets, its lack of Transparency and General all Round Disrespect for the Stakeholder that Pays 90% of their bills - the Residents and Taxpayers here in Downtown Edison.

This board has been and still is in dire need of change and these elections are an opportunity for me to see if any of the candidates who wish to fill the 3 open spots recognize any of this and wish to open up the closed club for the selected few who want to keep the status quo over there on Mythomania Lane.

So, with that in mind, I looked at all of this year's candidates websites and links to their FaceBook pages, read all their material including their letters and endorsements in the local papers and listened to them at the ETEA Candidates' Night. I also understand and respect the ETEA's position of Not endorsing candidates this year since they believe they are all viable candidates for their Union.

That being said, the 4 candidates are:
William Araujo
Richard Brescher
Theresa Ward
Shannon Peng

William Araujo, Richard Brescher and Theresa Ward (Incumbent) formed a ticket together and Shannon Peng is running alone.

While I'm sure that they're all well-meaning people, given all their printed material, listening to them at Candidates' Night and for the reasons in previous posts about this upcoming election, I don't believe any of them will be successful in serving the interests that I have and laid out above. I get the sense they're acting more out of calculation than conviction.

As a result, and although not on the ballot, I'll be casting my vote via write-in for None of the Above.

Anyhoo, as I said above, you shouldn't care who I or anyone else votes for - You should Vote for Who You Believe Will Best Serve Your Interests - but while you're doing that, you should care if things go on for another year the way they've been going on, which it certainly looks like now no matter which 3 get in.

Edison PARCC 2016 test results

Saw this PARCC data table for the state that you can sort by town in the Star-Ledger here with all the caveats that explain the data. They also provide you with the ability to compare to last year's test results. The original source data can be found here on the DOE website.

Just took the 2016 data and summarized it by Grade, District-Wide for Edison. You can go to the Star-Ledger link above to see the schools within the Grade or you can drop me a note and you're welcome to the file I used to summarize the data below:

Anyhoo, broad opinions about the PARCC testing but here's the data being reported for Edison for what it's worth. Good thing though that the Board of Mythomania didn't have a quantitative District/Superintendent goal for these test scores!

Edison BoE election is Unprecedented all right - it sets an interference Precedent a la Political Party Poo..Poo?!?

Well, this is interesting. Just saw this joint Letter to the Editor here in TapintoEdison from the Chairpersons of the Edison Democratic and Republican parties.

Seems we now have a new definition of Non-Partisan by both local political parties here in Downtown Edison. Maybe it's me but I always thought nonpartisan meant being unbiased, impartial or neutral - not introducing politics into the process by jointly picking a slate of candidates over another.

But here you have both Chairs of the local political parties asking you to join them in supporting Araujo, Brescher and Ward from the Candidates (below) in the upcoming BoE election on November 8th.

From left to right - Araujo, Brescher, Ward & Peng.

So, let's see what they have to say:

'As with any election these days, stabilizing taxes is one of the most important issues with any voter and this year's Board of Education race is no different.'

Really, you think? Perhaps you should ask them where they were on stabilizing taxes over the last few years when Mayor Tom 'Now 13.7%' ChoiLankey increased Spending by $9.8 million or 8.2% and the Muni tax rate 15.3-cents or 13.7% - and the Board of Mythomania under the leadership of Super Dr. Richard 'Looking for the Exit Ramp' O'Malley increased Spending by $35.4 million or 17.8% and the School tax rate 44-cents or 17.8%.

'Most of you are probably not aware that the Board of Education budget is $234 million dollars or $5.198 cents per $100 of assessed value. Compare that to the Municipal budget of $128.1 million of $2.120 cents per $100 of assessed value and you can see the majority of your tax bill goes to the Board of Education.'

Really, while the School tax is some 56% of your total property tax bill, if the School tax rate were $5.198 per $100 of assessed value, then we'd all have to move out of town. The School tax is $2.932 per $100 of assessed value and the Muni tax rate is $1.269 per $100 of assessed value.

 'Until last year the school board election was held the third Tuesday in April when voter turnout was minimal and much easier to influence. As of November, 2015, your school board election is now held on Election Day in November where voter turnout is much higher, harder to influence and at the same time as our municipal mayor and council elections.'

Really, harder to influence? Isn't that what they're trying to do with this endorsement? Moving the election to November so more more people can vote comes at the price of being able to vote on Bloated and Out-of-Control School budgets that exceed $230 million a year. Let's see, which is better - voting to Stop Out-of-Control School Budgets or letting Political Parties influence the election?!?

'As the Democratic Chairman in New Jersey's fifth largest municipality along with my counterpart Chairwoman Sylvia Engel of the Republican party we are proud to endorse William Araujo, Richard Brescher, and Theresa Ward as part of a bipartisan effort to stabilize your local taxes and put your children ahead of partisan politics. Each of these candidates has a unique skill set that collectively will allow them to stabilize the largest portion of your tax bill, fight for increased state aid and put your child's future ahead of partisan politics.'

Really, that is so bogus that it's actually funny. Bipartisan just means introducing political influence where it doesn't belong and seriously, Ward's going to stabilize taxes? She's part of the problem with the Misdirected and Out-of-Control $pending that causes the school tax rate to be so high over there on Mythomania Lane. Change from an incumbent, good luck with that boloney. And Brescher, the Dem-party committeeman is going to stabilize taxes in this Dem-party Oligarchy town where his Party lives for Tax and Spend and taxing you by ambush? And then there's Araujo, well - he's just too odd a candidate.

Anyhoo, it is what it is here in the 'DemBadLands' of Downtown Edison because we keep letting them do it without consequence - hope You Like it!

'Edison board wants more N.J. school aid' - Double Duh!?!

Just saw this above piece here in the Sentinel. Seriously now, isn't it bad enough that the Local Dem-party oligarchy is invading the so-called non-partisan school board election this year but now we have to see a sitting board member up for reelection hyping up her single campaign theme - more state aid?

DuH!

For the gazillionth time - we've never gotten our fair share of state aid and it doesn't look like we will anytime soon. So, while this Board continues to try and divert your attention away from the real issue, which is what they're doing with the $234 million they do have and funded 90% by us - don't waste your time listening to it.

If they spent half the time they waste chasing down something that has had no success for years and on concentrating on the real problem - their Misdirected and Out-of-Control $pending that happens every day over there on Mythomania Lane - then they'd have  something to report and send to the residents and taxpayers.

You can't listen to the hyperbole that comes from this Board or Ms. Ward. Even if we got more state aid, do you think you'd see any of it in the form of taxpayer relief? If you do, then think again.

This board is famous or rather infamous for hoarding taxpayer relief money and using it to Increase $pending and not for taxpayer relief. If you recall when the governor gave us an additional $1.7 million specifically for taxpayer relief, they kept it and added it to Increased $pending.

Here's an example of what they do in hoarding taxpayer relief money and moving it to Increased $pending:

So, with all due respect to Ms. Ward, it's not the lack of state-aid that's hurting our kids - it's the lack of  productive and efficient use of the tremendous amount of money they do have right now. Until that's addressed, any fictitious idea of additional state-aid is just a misdirection effort on their part and about as silly as reelecting someone, who by her own admission, is running on an issue that she has failed to accomplish. Guess she wants more time to fail again.

Anyhoo, it is what it is over there on Mythomania Lane and until we change it - you'll continue to have to put up with this type of campaign silliness .