Archive for Thursday, March 19, 2009

School board candidates aim to tackle budget

By Melissa Treolo

March 19, 2009

Troy Thompson

Troy Thompson

Jeff Tinberg

Jeff Tinberg

Two candidates for the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Board of Education would like to tackle the budget crisis as it relates to the USD 204 district, and they both have somewhat different approaches as to how to do that.

Troy Thompson, who has lived in Edwardsville since 2004, is a technical writer for GE Oil & Gas in Mission. He is the father of a seventh-grader, a first-grader and a 3-year-old, and said he was inspired to run for the Board of Education because of them.

“I decided to run for the school board because I know what it’s like to be a parent of children in the district,” Thompson said. “I consider myself to have a good grasp of the issues that parents have to deal with in the district.”

Thompson said what the board needed most during the economic crisis is to not only be fiscally responsible, but also fiscally independent. He said outside funds, such as those coming in from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, were essential to keeping the schools afloat. But the district also needs to explore ways of how to be as financially self-sufficient as possible.

“If you receive funds from the state and federal government, often those come with strings attached,” Thompson said. “There’s a certain amount of funding that you just need. If you can keep those (funds) as minimal as possible, than you can retain more control over your local district.”

One way for the district to be more self-sufficient, Thompson said, would be to create stronger partnerships within its individual schools and with area businesses to, as he puts it, “offset some of the funds we might need from the state.” He said the district was already doing this to some degree in the construction of the new concession stand at Bonner Springs High School. Instead of using an outside builder, the concession stand was built by BSHS students in an industrial arts class.

“This actually ended up saving the district quite a lot of money,” Thompson said.

Thompson said he brought to the table qualities he has acquired through his job with GE, such as being able to manage projects, being able to communicate effectively and being able to adapt quickly to changes.

Jeff Tinberg, of Bonner Springs, said that efficiency in spending is needed when dealing with the budget crisis.

“The more efficient we are, the more money we can spend to directly educate the child,” Tinberg said.

Tinberg is a system support specialist at Comprehensive Professional Resources, a physician management and billing company in Kansas City, Kan. He said he decided to run for the Board of Education after reading an article in the Chieftain about positions that would be open and up for vote in the April 7 election. He was looking at getting into some more volunteering and believed that a position on the board, which is uncompensated, would be the best fit for him.

“I thought, this is something (where) I could actually make an impact on the community in a positive way,” Tinberg said.

Tinberg said his work with the billing company, which involves accounting and condensing large amounts of numbers down to spreadsheets, will make him more than capable of handling budgetary matters and helping the board spend more efficiently.

“They’re looking at ways to be more efficient, and I do that in my personal life and, to some degree, my working life,” Tinberg said.

Efficiency isn’t the only goal of Tinberg’s, however. He said he would also like to see parents and teachers in the community having a more active voice in the decision-making process.

“I want more involvement from the community, so we get more feedback on how we’re doing in the schools and input for some of the pending decisions,” he said. “I don’t just want the board to make decisions, I want input from the community as we’re making decisions.”

Tinberg said bringing the board and the community together would be a great advantage to a decision-making body that may not be as attuned to the needs of the schools as it should be.

“I had somebody say they thought the board was disconnected from the schools,” Tinberg said, “and I don’t know if that’s true. But I would want to make sure we remedy that if it is true.”

Comments

  1. edwardsvillemom (anonymous) says…

    Good article. I wouldn't say that these two candidates are that much different in their views. Troy Thompson has made a similar point regarding communication between the district and families. You can get a lot more information at his website: http://www.votefortroy.org