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Four run for three seats on Poland board
POLAND
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Four candidates, including two incumbents, are vying for three seats on the Poland Board of Education.
Challengers Agatha “Aggie” Van Brocklin and James Lavorini and incumbents Robert Shovlin, elected in 2007, and Elinor S. Zedaker, first elected in 1991, are running for the board in the Nov. 8 election.
The winners will have to contend with a five-year district forecast that looks bleak, with only $200,000 in carry-over in 2013 and projected deficits beginning in 2014.
“That ink turns red in the next couple of years. It’s black right now,” Zedaker said. “... We need to be very careful about the budgeting.”
Zedaker voted in favor of placing a 3.9-mill five-year emergency levy on the November 2010 ballot and a 4.9-mill, five-year emergency levy on the May 2011 ballot.
Shovlin voted in favor of the 3.9-mill five-year emergency levy, but was the one dissenting vote on the board when the 4.9-mill, five-year emergency levy was put on in May.
“If 2,500 [people] voted against the levy, I have to imagine 2,500 would vote for me,” he said, referring to the May levy defeat.
Shovlin said he did not want to put another levy on the ballot for at least the next two to three years, but the interview was conducted before the district’s treasurer released the most up-to-date five-year forecast.
After receiving the new forecast, Shovlin said: “I have more homework to do.”
The board has considered pay-to-participate fees as a way to offset costs, a discussion Shovlin said “really wasn’t worth the trouble.”
Zedaker, however, said she thinks the fees are “something we’ll have to seriously consider.”
“The reason we tabled it with the right to call it back to the table is we know we have to deal with it,” she said.
Zedaker said she should be re-elected because she has “served without personal agenda” and “brings a breadth of experience” to the post.
Shovlin said he kept his 2007 campaign promises: to improve the stadium facilities, focus on all-day kindergarten and add more high-school electives. His promises this year are to be transparent and show residents the district’s full financial picture.
Although Van Brocklin and Lavorini declined an interview at The Vindicator, both filled out candidate questionnaires.
Van Brocklin said her top priority is for the board to develop a three-year strategic plan and that she supported and will continue to support levy efforts but said the levy failure was a signal for the board to “dig deeper.”
Lavorini served as treasurer of the Citizens Committee for the Poland Schools during the district’s failed attempt to get voter approval for the 3.9-mill levy. He is advocating “sound fiscal policies and disciplined spending.”
In 2007, Shovlin narrowly defeated Lavorini in the school board race, winning by six votes, 1,818 to 1,812.