{"id":973,"date":"2014-05-02T07:19:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-02T11:19:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=973"},"modified":"2014-05-02T07:19:26","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T11:19:26","slug":"jeannie-ford-wants-zero-school-levy-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=973","title":{"rendered":"Jeannie Ford Wants Zero School Levy Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p dir=\"ltr\">The pro-levy forces were out in force yesterday, with students, parents, and teachers gathered in Berkeley Springs State Park, urging early voters to vote for the excess school levy.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">The rally attracted the attention of the local television station &#8212; NBC-25 in Hagerstown.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"http:\/\/eplayer.clipsyndicate.com\/embed\/iframe?aspect_ratio=3x2&#038;auto_start=0&#038;pf_id=12141&#038;rel=3&#038;show_title=0&#038;va_id=5081974&#038;volume=8&#038;windows=1\" width=\"425\" height=\"330\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">This did not impress Jeannie Ford, leader of the anti-levy forces &#8212; and wife of Morgan County Commission Bob Ford.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford dismisses the the pro-levy forces as \u201cpeople with an agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">For example, when asked about County Commission candidate Joel Tuttle (R) coming out forcefully for the levy, Ford says that Tuttle has an agenda.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">What would that be?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cHis wife works for the school system,\u201d Ford says. \u201cIf the levy loses, she\u2019ll lose her bonus, as they all will. They all have an agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">But doesn\u2019t Jeannie Ford have an agenda?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Yes, she does.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOur agenda is that we are not going to be paying these big bonuses,\u201d Ford says.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">No levy amount is good enough for Jeannie Ford.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">How about a 50 percent levy?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">No.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Thirty percent?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">No.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Try zero.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">She says that there are counties in West Virginia that have no levy and that do better academically than Morgan County.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford dismisses signs of a close race, predicting that the levy will lose by the same margin it lost last year &#8212; 56 percent to 44 percent.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">What about word on the street that the Greenwood School district for example, which voted against the levy last time, will vote for it this time?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">At first Ford says &#8212; people in Greenwood aren\u2019t going to tell anyone how they are going to vote.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Then she says &#8212; if the Greenwood district votes for the levy, it\u2019s because they were told that if they vote against the levy, their school would be closed.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford says that she knows people in Paw Paw who voted for the levy last time, but will vote against it this time.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Like who?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">She won\u2019t name names.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford says her group will not be sending out mailers to every household in the county, as the pro-levy forces did last week.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Not enough money?<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe have enough money,\u201d Ford said. \u201cBut people just throw those things in the trash, they don\u2019t even read them. I get them from Ken Reed all the time. It goes in the trash.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Instead, Ford is preparing her ad for next week\u2019s Morgan Messenger.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cWe\u2019re fighting two battles,\u201d Ford says. \u201cWe have to fight the schools. And we have to fight the Morgan Messenger, which is for the levy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford said her next ad will reprint an article from the April 16 edition of the Messenger titled \u201cHow the state\u2019s school aid formula affects Morgan County,\u201d by Amy Willard, executive director, of the West Virginia Office of School Finance.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">In the article, Willard says that the amount of state school funding \u201cvaries based on the experience and educational levels of the personnel actually employed by each district.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cSince teachers with additional years of experience and more advanced college degrees earn a higher salary, the funding formula is designed to cover those additional costs,\u201d Willard writes. \u201cThis allows districts to encourage teachers to continue their employment and to earn higher degree levels. For the 2013-14 year, Morgan County Schools\u2019 average state funded professional educator salary ranked 55th in the state, which indicates that it had one of the least experienced staff with lower educational attainment among the districts. Morgan County\u2019s average state funded salary was only $39,922 compared to the state average of $42,329.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">Ford says Morgan County is dead last in the state.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">\u201cOur teachers are not educated,\u201d Ford says. \u201cIf the teachers and the staff want more money, go back to school and get your degree.\u201d<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\">There are people on both sides of the debate who agree that school funding should not be based on local property taxes, but instead should be handled at the state level, through a progressive state income tax.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s right,\u201d Ford says. \u201cBut if you think you are going to get (Delegate) Daryl Cowles (R) down there to support that, you have another thing coming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The pro-levy forces were out in force yesterday, with students, parents, and teachers gathered in Berkeley Springs State Park, urging early voters to vote for the excess school levy. The rally attracted the attention of the local television station &#8212; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=973\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/973\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}