Neoga CARE Committee

05/04/2016

Remember what we said during the campaign? How soon before this pension mess visits us in Neoga? We urge the school board to get control of our net pension liabilities.

New numbers show that the 7,499 ‘highly compensated,’ six-figure school administrator/teacher retirees cost IL taxpayers nearly $1 billion per year. But in just six years, the problem of six-figure…

04/20/2016

What kind of a future do the kids of Illinois, of Cumberland and Shelby counties, of our community have with schools adding debts upon debts that need to be serviced out of many of these kid's future paychecks? Illinois is now accelerating in the people who are leaving the state because of unbridled debts, state and local pension liabilities and all the new unaffordable taxes needed to pay for it all. Thank you Neoga voters for really thinking of our children's future last month and turning down this recent referendum. We did the right thing.

Illinois' public school districts are roughly $20 billion in debt, a staggering figure fueled in part by decades of special deals in Springfield that have given districts exemptions so they can keep borrowing beyond limits set by law.

03/16/2016

55.25% No vote with a tax asking half of what it was in 2015. Time for the school board to really listen.

NEOGA (JG-TC) -- A property tax referendum to provide funding for the Neoga school district failed to win approval at the ballot on Tuesday.

03/15/2016

WE EXPECT THIS CONDUCT IN WASHINGTON, DC OR MAYBE SPRINGFIELD, BUT HERE IN NEOGA?

Last election (2015) it was vandalism of our signs! This time we received several anonymous harassment calls, some obscene. We don’t believe all proponents for this new tax conduct themselves like this, but we’ve been on the receiving end of enough efforts to intimidate our civil rights that we’d ask proponent leaders to encourage their followers to be more respectful. After all, though we don't see it happening but if this new tax would pass do they want it to be done in part, by threats and intimidation? This would hurt the school district going forward.

Our response? We just get more determined to resist wasteful spending by the school board. If you want to hear one of several calls we received click below. WARNING: It’s graphic, though we bleeped out the most graphic word!

If you haven’t voted yet let such people know you can’t be intimidated either and VOTE NO in the privacy of the voting booth! Polls are open until 7:00pm tonight.

03/02/2016

It comes down to the Neoga School board's poor judgement. How can they determine proper spending cuts any better than they can respond to a student's honest mistake with his hunting rifle? Clearly, the only way to hold them accountable is to Vote NO March 15. Watch our short video.

02/26/2016

OVER $500,000 LOSS IN THE NEOGA CUSD TEACHER'S PENSION FUND IN ONE YEAR? WHAT'S NEXT?

Who's been talking about the exploding teacher's pension liability (retirement checks) at Neoga CUSD? How much will this cost local taxpayers going forward? Consider -

It's kind of backwards, but pension funds are often expressed in terms of their NET LIABILITY - that is, their retirement obligations minus their assets needed to cover them. So a positive number means greater obligations than assets to cover them. A negative liability means there are more assets than liabilities.

We haven't seen the figures for the end of Dec. 2015 yet. But the end of December 2013, the district had a negative liability of $169,000. SEE BELOW. Again that means the district had all the obligations to our teachers covered....it was a positive for the district, teachers and taxpayers. BUT, by the end of 2014 it plummeted to a positive liability of $349,500. That means a real liability.

This was a loss in the pension fund of $518,500 (-169,000 - 349,500) in one year. But worse, the district's own report (off their website) shows they are assuming a 7.49% rate of return on their investments. If they miss that by 1% they admit the fund will be $1,173,000 in the red, they report. But here's the problem. Their own report shows they only earned 6.0% on the fund in 2014. See where they earned $417,000 in investment income on a fund asset balance at the beginning of the year of $6,956,300. That is a 6.0% return. But they are assuming 7.49%

So does this mean they were at least $1,173,000 in the red last year? This is a massive swing in one year. How soon will the board be coming to taxpayers asking for help to cover their collapsing pension fund?

So many taxpayers can barely pay their weekly bills, let alone set aside for their own pension. Is this next?

02/26/2016

It's time to Vote NO again. The yard signs (seen above) will be coming in soon. Call us at 217-294-0692 if you need one or even a few. And we always appreciate a donation to help pay for them. But if you can't donate, don't let that hold you back from putting up a sign. Give us a call and we'll be glad to give you a sign.

02/25/2016

The school's January presentation is confusing. Their slide presentation made a case for $415,000. But the ballot language would only give them $302,000. (See below). Ask the board members if they can explain the difference. You might also ask them if they know for sure what their budget challenges are. They've gone from $800,000 new property tax money needed last year to $415,000 this year, to maybe only $302,000 this year. What's going on?

02/22/2016

It's time to Vote NO again. These yard signs will be coming in soon. Give us a call at 217-317-0643 if you need a few. And we always appreciate a donation to help pay for them. But if you can't donate, don't let that hold you back from putting up a sign. We hope to hear from you.

04/22/2015

More on DELPHI

Not only will we likely see the Delphi Technique being used on Neoga community participants this coming Monday night, it is a common propaganda tool used by all levels of local government to offer the pretense of community input when building up to a large expansion of a government program, tax or spending proposal.

Delphi facilitators and their friends - who successfully had their way with the dissenters - will always argue it is fair and objective and that the process is not abusive. Nothing could be further from the truth.

For example, a genuine Town Hall format would allow suggested needs and solutions to be placed up for a vote with a public show of hands. But Delphi has you break into groups, check off color coded predetermined options and then you hand in your responses to a facilitator who later privately "tallies" them and presents the "findings" to the school board - often at the next meeting. How does this process keep the community's involvement public and transparent? Why are tallies done, later, behind closed doors?

A public show of hands during these community meetings may reveal that a large majority of the community disagrees with the predetermined proposal. Proponents will not take the risk of letting the majority of the community speak. So they 'Delphi' them and they diminish those who object. This is no way to build public unity behind a proposal. Watch for it again Monday evening.

Please see this great summary of the Delphi Technique below. By the way, it is not used just by government but by corporate America too.

Using the Delphi Technique to Achieve Consensus -- November Education Reporter

04/22/2015

Many Neoga school voters attending the public meetings, prior to the vote, felt like they were being ignored, that they were being railroaded and that the outcome was determined before they ever showed up. (We are concerned that the “the community needs to come together” meeting for next week Neoga school officials are going to be more of the same.) Their input was not genuinely wanted. When some of the attendees later read an article on the Delphi Technique of crowd manipulation they instantly identified it as what they went through with the Neoga school officials. They were subjected to group propaganda process called “arriving at a consensus”. Again, it’s called the Delphi Technique. Delphi works to undermine genuine Town Hall meetings, so as to arrive at predetermined outcomes, while offering the illusion that there was community involvement. We’ll post an article on it in the next few days.

Meanwhile, if you want to see the dynamics of how such meetings disrupt local communities, see this fascinating 10 minute YouTube video out of the Bay Area of San Francisco. (Yes, we know it's not in Illinois and it doesn't involve our school budget or PTELL, but it's the process of "railroading" community input meetings that you may recognize.)

Footnote: The people who usually have no objections to the Delphi Technique being used in their communities (or even scoff at the critics of it) are usually the proponents of the costly proposal. Sure they will scoff as it served their purposes. But it is a 'railroad' job none the less.

This video shows the manipulation of the audience to gain public consensus for a regional transportation plan the metropolitan transportation commission was ...

04/08/2015

See our Press Statement on last night's victory for the children, community and taxpayers of Neoga CUSDS #3.