Monday, February 25, 2008

Levy Survey: Results

The levy survey is completed - thanks to the 82 people who made the time to take the survey.

While I'll tell you the results, please understand that with 40,000 registered voters in the school district, 82 responses falls far short of being a statistically valid sample. Therefore this survey is not predictive. It's just the opinion of 82 people.
  • Have you already voted absentee? Only 6% said they have, which suggests that there is still a chance to influence the vast majority of voters;
  • How do you think you're going to vote? 24% said they were unswayingly in favor of the levy and 31% said they were equally against. 50% were undecided, but if leanings are indicative, this set of people would vote 38% in favor and 54% against.
  • How has the concurrent negotiations with the Hilliard Education Association affected your decision? Only 15% said it caused a change of mind.
  • Is the School Board worrying about the right things? 80% of the respondents said the Board needs to pay more attention to the amount of money spent on administrative overhead. 77% want the Board to be spending more time working with the city governments to control growth. 61% want the Board to do better at educating the community on the mechanics of funding, and 57% thinks the Board could better prepare the community for upcoming levies.

A copy of the complete report, which I've also sent to the members of the School Board, can be found here.

7 comments:

  1. I'm a retired union auto worker and I'm all about unions fighting management tooth and nail, but holy smokes. My 1,000 square foot house is worth less today than it did a year ago, but I'm going to have to pay more taxes on it? Doesn't that seem...wrong?

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  2. I was surprised by the number of respondents who thought it important that the district "lobby the state gov't for more money."

    First, if we think there's waste now in the district imagine how much there would be with funding from the state.

    Teachers already get very sweet benefits (such as a solvent retirement system, unlike our social security) AND not having to pay health care costs (until now) AND making a very high per-hour worked salary.

    All of this despite the fact that the Board has to come to the voters for money. Just imagine if they didn't!?

    Money is wasted proportionate to how centralized the source of it is - which is why there is more pork in the federal gov't than in the state, and more in the state than locally.

    We'll ultimately end up paying more for Hilliard schools if the state pays for it than in our current system. To paraphrase PJ O'Rourke, "If you think education is expensive now, just wait until it's 'free'!"

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  3. I couldn't agree with you more. This is exactly the point I've been making for months.

    However, both our Superintendent and our School Board disagree with us.

    I'm really glad people are starting to connect the dots!

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  4. Mr. Lambert, thank you for posting the results of the levy. I truly believe that the levy is going to pass (60-40) next week because most of the voters have been misguided by an unknowledgable School Board. Although teachers used to be on the lower end of the pay scale, they aren't any longer. A teacher in Hilliard can make over$70,000 per year! (http://www.hilliard.k12.oh.us/district/salarySchedule.cfm) It took me 3 degrees and almost 25 years in the workforce to make that much!

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  5. Did anyone notice that the predictions Paul's survey generated for levy support was 57% NO(31% plus 50% of the 54% leaning against)to 43% YES???

    hmmmm, what was the final results of the actual election?

    Seems those 82 people we are very accurate representation of the March 4 voters. Interesting!

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  6. If we say that all voted the way they said they were leaning, the survey indicated 42% FOR and 58% AGAINST. The actual result was 43% FOR and 57% AGAINST.

    While that's pretty close, we'll have to be careful to not overestimate the significance. It's a pretty small sample size, and would have produced different results had only a few survey takers indicated that they would have voted FOR.

    I'll rerun the survey sometime during the summer and see what happens.

    PL

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  7. I know. I just thought it was cool that it worked out that way.

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