Elk Konnected Hand out at County Commissioners meeting on 4/25

[proelkco]

What in the world does this have to do with Elk Konnected?

[Ross]

What in the world does this have to do with Elk Konnected?

Well proelkco since you seem to have trouble following the thread, I'll do my best to try to clear it up for you, Okay.

At the very beginning of Elk Kon nected claimed to be weeding out the people she knew were associated
with the "Old Guard" !

Now based on all the non-answers from Elk Kon nected and their secretiveness in their organization I find
it very simple to determine that Elk Kon nected is in fact the "Old Guard" in a new dress. That is my opinion
and until proven otherwise it will remain my opinion.

Also since some of the people that were associated with Elk Kon nected have served as county commissioners and school board members and declared to be Elk Kon nected,

From that point it is easy to assume that the some of the so-called elite of this county are also a part of the  "Old Guard" !

And that to is  my opinion !

I sure hope that is as clear as mud for you.
The puzzle is not really difficult to put together is it?

I am entitled to my opinion, thank you!
And I do believe most common people fully understand the concept!

I am beginning to believe that Elk Kon nected, LLC and Public Squares Communities, INC,
have become extinct as failures, but i don't have any proof of that!

Have yourself a happy evening.

[Ross]

I borrowed the following from a recent article and although taken out of context they portray a lot of information.

Specifically that the common person is waking up, that is as it should be.

The common people are being lied to and are learning the truth through proper sources on the internet.

Such as the amounts of money provided to West Elk USD from the State.

Here are those tid-bits of information:

We predicted that a public awakening would lead directly to a conflict with elite trends and intentions.

Are Western elites going to have to take a step back?

The ultimate solution to what has occurred in the 20th and now 21st century will evolve from individual action and people literally find new ways of addressing and rejecting elite control.

By 2018 the composition of Congress will look very different, the aisles strewn with Little Trumps replacing failures in both parties.

Ad all of this is happening on the local levels as well. The common folk are tired of being ignored and abused financially !

The so-called elite need to pay heed.

[Ross]

I have the Opposition Petition to the West Elk USD-282  Resolution that states an 8 mill increase in property taxes,
pretty much ready to go!

It may take 5 to 7 days to get started collecting signatures of registered voters in the West Elk USD-282 voting area.

And quite contrary to what Superintendent Moore's stated in the news paper about petitioners not understanding
the finances involved, we do understand ! We pay the property taxes.

We understand they have been raising our property taxes by 4 mill every year.
They just raised our property taxes by 4 mill this last fall.
And you can bet they will again this coming fall.

We plan to have documentation with us, for you to read about the financing of West Elk, when we ask you to sign the petition!

I say we because this time i will have a few volunteers to help collect signatures.

I was approached, and asked if i could use some help !
I said definitely and I would appreciate all the hep I can get.1

I really appreciate the fact that people are willing to help property owners and taxpayers in this fashion.

Please discuss these continuous tax hikes by the West Elk School Board !

Just a little reminder of what I posted about a year ago.
The President of the School Board stated during a Board Meeting that he does not care how mad the taxpayers get !

I hope to bee in touch with some of you fine people over the next few weeks.

[Ross]

   

Okay, I'm gonna come clean.
It sure has seemed like West Elk has been raising our property taxes every year, well I was wrong!
And because the School Superintendent at School Board meetings has repeatedly said they were limited
to raising our taxes legally only by 4 mill each year, I believed that too!
It seemed like every meeting I attended they spoke of raising property taxes, at any rate the subject
was broached numerous times.

I never ever heard them discuss operating more efficiently and effectively !

Here i am listing the tax increases of West Elk USD-282 for the last 10 years!
These were acquired by submitting a Freedom of Information Act form with the Elk County via the County Clerk.
I wanted to know the truth!

USD 282       TAX LEVIES   PREV. YR      YEAR        CHANGE
                         2006            37.385           26.176       -1.209
                         2007            36.176           43.955         7.779   
                         2008            43.955           50.687         6.732
                         2009            50.687           54.195         3.508
                         2010            54.195           49.7167      -4.4783 
                         2011            49.7167         48.338        -1.3787
                         2012            48.338           46.491        -1.847
                         2013            46.491           47.06           0.569
                         2014            47.06             45.893        -1.167
                         2015            45.893           52.277          6.377

They raised our property taxes last fall by 6.37
not the 4 mill often referred to by the Superintendent as the prescribed legal limit !

In a civil society is where elected officials should honor their fiduciary responsibility to provide
the same or better quality service at the best possible price. And I don't feel we have this in our school board.

Why?

The school board shut down two schools on the pretense of saving money !

And then:

Time after time they spent thousands upon thousands on contractors and architects thinking they could force the
voters to accept a multi-million dollar bond issue and raise our property taxes, even though they knew the people
had, had enough! They blew some where in the neighborhood of $300,000 that way.

They follow that up by putting off repairing the roof and replacing the A.C's even though being advised by those
high paid contractors and architects advised them that construction prices were going to go through the roof.
Had they listened the roof and A/C's could have been done for $1,000,000,000 versus the $1,500,000,000.

Then instead of keeping their verbal contract with a local man to professionalize the football field for a mere
$7,000 they told him to remove his many,many truck loads of dirt from the football field and they
hired a contractor outside of Elk County to do the same job for some where between $25,000 AND $30,000 !

I think it is time for the School Board Members to start considering their fiduciary responsibility to the
taxpayers and the school children and start thinking about improving educational standards.

Do any of the school board members even know whether, sight reading or phonics or if both reading
skills are taught ?

[Ross]

There is an Opposition Petition that will soon be making the rounds!
It's totally up to you is you want your property taxes to continue to rise and accept the waste of your money
by a school board that wastes money.

You must be a registered voter in the West Elk School District to sign the petition, that is all that is required.
We will not be asking for proof of registration, we will take your word that you are a registered voter.
The list will be checked by the County Clerk against the Court House records. Non-registered voters will be
scratch from the count. No harm done.

As I said in an earlier post I received a call about a few people wanting to help me this time.
And it was suggested to ask if anyone in the Severy area would like to volunteer to collect signatures
in the Severy area. I like the idea.

If anyone is interested in helping please Private Message me.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ross]

Mr. Moore is sticking to his story that the State of Kansas shorted West Elk USD-282 on their state aid !

Well when he first started that story the last time they were asking for 8 mill on a resolution last fall, I contacted the state
about the situation.

I received the following information in an e-mail and forwarded it to the Prairie Star for publication and it was published.


-------Original Message-------
From: Prairie Star
Date: 09/14/15 16:39:26
To: Ross
Subject: Re: West Elk USD-282 State Funding

Yes, this is how I have it prepared for publication:
Editor's Note: The following was submitted by L.W. Ross of Moline. It is in response to an inquiry he made to the Kansas Office of the Governor regarding a letter published in the Prairie Star on Sept. 9 from West Elk USD 282 Superintendent Bert Moore. This is the response from the Governor's office.

Mr. Ross, I'm happy to respond to your inquiry. These are the state funding numbers for West Elk.
USD 282-West Elk received a $259,033 increase in the first year of the block grant (14-15) and a $351,570 increase over the life of the block grant (3 years.) Of this $351,570, only $64,052 is an increase to KPERS. That means that only 18.2% of the total increase is in KPERS. If the school board claims that the increase is only to KPERS, then they are ignoring 82% of the new money we are giving them.

Teacher pensions are a legitimate education expense, so we are creating greater transparency in school funding. However, in order to prevent schools from using teacher pension dollars for operating costs, the money is routed to a separate KPERS account shortly after it arrives in the USD general fund. This way, we can show with greater transparency the total level of support that the state is giving to the district, but we also can make sure that KPERS dollars are used for KPERS.

Ian Fury, Policy Analyst
Kansas Office of the Governor
Ian.Fury@ks.gov

Thanks!
Jenny
Jenny Diveley, editor
Prairie Star
620-330-7828 (cell)

I believe what Mr, Moore is most likely covering for is over spending the budget and not wanting to disclose that information.

$25 to $30,000.00 for the football and God only knows hao many $10;s of thousands for sprinkler system.
And other poor financial decisions.

They can budget to make up for those over expenditures without raising our property taxes again.
Yes, they just raised our property taxes by 6.377 mill this last fall. which should cover that over spending real well.

They need to understand why they have a budget in my opinion and they won't as long as they have your wallet to pick.

Ask Mr. Moore to have the finances of the West Elk School District posted on the School's Web Site and see how willing he is to be transparent?

It is a public school and that information is public information !
You should not have to submit a  Freedom of Information Act Form to know what they are spending your money on !

Per-pupil funding from taxpayers at the state, federal and local levels. State-mandated 20 mills of property tax for school support had been erroneously reflected as Local aid until it was corrected by the Legislature in 2015; on average, the 2015 transition increased State aid and decreased Local aid by roughly $1,200 per pupil.
Local = Property Tax.

Year USD # District Name    County        State              Federal       Local         Total
2015 282       West Elk              Elk         $12,182     $5,271      $7,597      $25,050 per pupil per year.
From Web site:
http://www.kansasopengov.org/kog/databank#report_id=35&Year=2015&USDNumber=282&DistrictName=West%20Elk&County=Elk

You can go and compare this information against any schools in Kansas at:
http://www.kansasopengov.org/kog/databank

[Ross]

 


I was handed a couple of pages of paper and was told it pertained to Kansas school funding.
I didn't get around to reading it until an hour later.
I will not disclose where I got the paper from but I was told it was just sent out today
and I assume a few school administrators received it by e-mail today.

There is nothing mentioned about dollar amounts that any district receives, it just how money
and accounts are manipulated by the state government in a deceptive manner.

What I base my decisions on are not about the manipulation of money and accounts, but what I
see as wasteful spending locally and poor management and poor planning of the use of school funds.
And the fact that financing and budget of the school which is public information is kept secret from the taxpayers.

Last fall Mr. Moore told us the school board had no intent of taking the 8 mill in the Resolution that
was stopped by an Opposition Petition. He in fact made it a point to state that the board voted to only take 1 mill of it.
Talk is cheap, it is the amount in the Resolution that counts. Sure they voted to take only one mill BUT
there was absolutely nothing to keep them from voting again to take more, nothing at all. It's all politics and
smoke and mirrors. And Mr, Moore has proved exactly that by stating on the front page of the paper
for this present resolution that they only want 4 mill with this present Resolution, while the present Resolution
states they are asking for 8 mill. It's politics as usual ! Why write a Resolution for 8 mill if all you truly ant is 4 mill?
If you want to write a check to someone for $400 you don't write it for $800 do you and say just take only $400, do you?

After spending ungodly amounts of money on building a professional football field for a dinky little school now they
want to replace the track and rebuild the pole vault area.

I for one am tired of getting my wallet robbed ! And I know there are many, older people than myself in this county that have
been on a fixed income much longer than i have. By that i mean their fixed income is much lower than mine.
Which means that the School Superintendent that is making in excess of $100,000.00 a year does not understand the burden
he is imposing on the elderly and probably does not care. It's just politics and their bank accounts are open to the school board.

Any way here is the letter I was referring to at the beginning of this post:





I have also uploaded a copy of this letter in PDF form to my box.com account for those that prefer to read it that way or download to your computer.
simply click this link: https://app.box.com/s/6u3vz2pc20hqauetgioefjmvx7g8vivc[/color]

I am not with holding any information I come across, but it is up to you to decide which politician or local or state politician or employee to believe.
Personally I chose to believe to much of our tax dollars are being wasted through incompetence. That is why I drew up and ran an Opposition Petition last fall
and why I am working on another Opposition Petition this time.

Just remember how many times the school board hounded us about multi-million dollar bond issues. And remember they just raised our property taxes 6.3 mill.

The school administrators and school board need to start thinking smarter and operate more efficiently and effectively.
What I believe the real reason for this tax increases is because after June of 2017 they will not be able to raise property taxes so radically.
Meaning they will have to stick the CPI or come to the voters for more money.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services.Sort of cost of living increase.

[redcliffsw]

The government schools are socialist - or communist if you prefer that description.  We're servants to the government.  That's been the American tradition since 1865.

Remember how the Soviets and Eastern Black were big on athletics?  Title XI or whatever, we're right there with 'em except they're already gone.  Enjoy your new football field and track and cheer 'em on. 

Even if you get taxes down or limit the tax increases to government schools, you're still losing.  How can you maintain liberty when you're really losing it or by voting to the taking of the liberty of others?







 

[Ross]

If you read the newspaper last week, you read where the West Elk USD-282 School Superintendent
said to call your School Board Representative !

I'd like to suggest you do that if you know who your representative is !

And I'd like to suggest that you ask why the School Finances are not readily available to the citizens of
the West Elk School District?

It is public information and could easily be posted on the expensive web site at West Elk that we pay for.
They will provide all kinds of excuses but there are no excuses for public information.

you might also ask why they don't want the people to know and why there is no transparency.

The School Board could also very easily live stream the Board meetings and post them on the web site.

And contrary to what Mr. Moore told me about having to hire someone to do it. We already have a paid employee
that has already recorded a presentation for them. It was not a board meeting but it involved 3 Board Members
and Mr. Moore.

Mr Moore also told me they would have to hire someone to edit the video. No, they would not !
It is a public meeting and does not require editing, in fact I believe the law disallows editing Board Meetings.

So, there would be no extra cost to provide the citizens with this technology, except for the expense of a few
memory cards for storage.
A SanDisk 128GB Memory Card at Amazon cost $43.55, however the School could possibly buy them much cheaper.
A SanDisk 128GB Memory Card operated at High Definition-Standard speed will hold 1920 minutes/ 32 hours of video.
That equates to approximately 8 months of School Board meetings.

I asked Mr. Moore personally and the School Board personally to provide this information.
Mr Moore provided excuses and the Board president said they could do that!
But it has been two years and nothing has been done for the taxpayers, nada.