Round Lake District 116

…the rain came!

We had planned on showing you all the participants in Round Lake Area’s Memorial Day Parade and got ourselves a perfect location at a bend in the road that allowed a clean shot down Main Street in Round Lake. As we visited with other families who started to gather we couldn’t help but notice the changing skies and dark clouds moving in from the West. Hope went up as they appeared to be breaking up and moving North but as you can see from the photos in the slide show below, it didn’t last long.

As the old fire truck went by you will see some sprinkles on the windshield. When the R.L. Area Rescue Squad vehicles went by, you will notice that their wiper blades are still not on but the firetruck behind them appears to have turned theirs on.

Then we ducked further under the big tree that we were under to get out of the downpour and snapped a couple more photos of the poor participants getting totally SOAKED from the sudden rain storm. Look at those poor little tike’s being pushed by their Mom’s in their strollers wondering WHY ME!. Once the biker brigade went by we decided to save our new camera from damage, tucked it into a plastic bag that a guy gave me, and headed for the car about a block away. At least I had the ability to get out of the downpour but I sure felt sorry for those who were in the parade with no place to go. I circled around to get home which is close to the final destination of the parade at Round Lake Beach’s Memorial Park but since they no longer blast the sirens, I had no idea whether or not they completed the balance of the parade or quit part way. Like many others, I was soaked through to my underwear and everything went right into the dryer!

We hope you all had a wonderful Memorial Day as we take a moment to acknowledge the sacrifice of the countless Americans who died while protecting the freedoms all Americans now enjoy.

Mother Nature has finally answered our calls and given us some beautiful weather so that we can all enjoy WHY we moved to the Round Lake area.

Bob Susnjara from The Daily Herald reported today that our neighboring District 46 School Board voted 7-0 to terminate their contract with Edward Towle, the newly hired finance chief.

However, we doubt that this will be the end of their dealings with Mr. Towle. His attorney has asked for and hopes to receive ‘written’ reason why the contract was negated. Seeing as he is already suing the Brown Deer School District I’m sure that we can expect to see the same happening with District 46.

Neither Brown Deer School District Administrator Deb Kerr nor Edward Towle disclosed that he had been on paid leave for almost 15 months, but instead Kerr wrote a glowing recommendation on his behalf which District 46 took at face value. Now they will be reviewing how they interview candidates in order to prevent things like this from happening in the future.

It was reported in the Daily Herald and the Grayslake Review that the Avon Township Food Pantry was the recipient of about 3 tons of food items from the recent U.S. Postal Service’s ‘Stamp Out Hunger” program. A big THANKS goes out to all the residents who put non-perishable food items by their mailboxes last Saturday to make this possible. With this type of community involvement it will allow the food pantry to continue helping over 2,000 local residents who are in need due mostly because of unemployment.

The Avon Township Food Pantry serves the Greater Round Lake Area as well as Grayslake, Hainseville and Third Lake. They are located at 433 E. Washington St. in Round Lake Park (inside the Township/Assessors building). Hours are 10-3 M-T-W, 2-6 Thurs, 10-2 Fridays, and the second Sat. of each month from 10-12. and can be reached at 546-1446.

It seems like the stakes got even higher for our neighboring District 46 when it comes to honoring their new financial chief, Edward Towle’s, contract. With the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel obtaining information under the freedom of information act, more details have come out regarding why Mr. Towle’s was put on administrative leave.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that:
Brown Deer School District business manager Edward Towle allowed the school system’s checking account to become overdrawn by about a half-million dollars and cost the district thousands of dollars from financial missteps……………READ MORE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can’t help feeling sorry for our neighbor, District 46, who seem to be caught in a ‘Didn’t Ask, Didn’t Tell’ predicament. We are referring to recent reports in the Daily Herald by reporter Bob Susnjara that indicate the newly hired finance chief, Edward Towle, has been on paid administrative leave from his current employer for over a year! It seems as though he got a glowing referral from his current employer, Brown Deer School District in Wisc., so the question was not asked “Are you currently on paid administrative leave?” Who would have thought to ask after receiving such a positive employer referral?  What better way to stop the drain on your payroll than to give a glowing recommendation but leave a very important piece of information out. Kind of like a landlord who would like to get rid of a bad tenant and ends up giving a great recommendation to potential landlord inquiries just to get rid of them. More than likely, very few Wisconsin taxpayers actually knew they were paying for a non-performing business manager for the last 15 months.

With a legal mouthpiece hired by Towle and a reported resignation issued to his old employer recently but effective June 30th, District 46 finds themselves in quite a pickle. Since they didn’t ‘Ask’ the right question and Towle was not forthcoming on ‘Telling’ about his situation prior to being hired what are their options now? Will the mouthpiece sue them if they renege on the hiring contract? Will they keep him for the 2010-2011 school year and then cut him loose at a cost of $98,000? Will they honor the contract and immediately place him on administrative leave?

His mouthpiece says ‘He didn’t make any false statements in applying for the District 46 job” He also said Towle “looks forward to the entire community understanding the entire situation”. If that is true, then why not tell the entire community NOW about the entire situation instead of waiting for the Board’s decision, expected around May 15th. Shouldn’t the taxpayers and parents be allowed to ‘understand the entire situation’ before he takes over the reigns? After all, he WILL be handling the taxpayer’s money!

The Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reported yesterday that Towle has now filed suit against Brown Deer schools for placing him on leave and telling others about it, thus making it difficult for him to find work elsewhere. Supposedly an outside independent audit found Towle had engaged in a “pattern of performance” that violated legal requirements and accepted accounting procedures” which Towles disputes. You can read the entire article as well as several Wisconsin taxpayer comments at: www.JSOnline.com/news/education/93356739.html

Brown Deer District Administrator, Dr. Deb Kerr, wrote in a press release that she wrote the letter of recommendation on Mr. Towle’s behalf as part of an agreement with Mr. Towle and his attorney and upon the advice of their legal counsel. Dr. Kerr went on to say that she was willing to speak with leaders of the district that recently hired Mr. Towle (District 46) to describe her experience in working with him. Wouldn’t her hands still be tied, even if District 46 had called her? In a May 10th press release the District stated that it intends to release, on Wednesday, documents which have been requested by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that ”will show a pattern of professional behavior by Mr. Towle that put the Brown Deer School District at risk and jeopardized the financial security of the taxpayers’ monies”.

Most management training nowadays teaches employers to simply offer the time that an employee worked for the company and nothing more, especially if there were any issues. In hind sight, Brown Deer School District probably wishes that they had followed that procedure. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just what you weren’t hoping for! Another bill in your mailbox! But we aren’t talking about a little utility bill, we’re talking about a bill that makes no sense based on current property values. Most of you will agree that nobody would pay you the amount that the Avon Assessor’s office says your home is valued at. Even though they continue to say that the ‘value’ is based on a three-year range, there is no way they can warrant such valuations. The biggest problem is that in order to win a tax appeal is that you must find at least three comparable properties that they are taxing for less. It doesn’t matter what those properties sold for, it’s what the assessor has them valued at.

So, let’s say that your assessed value is $240,000 and not one single real estate agent will take the listing priced above $199,900 because they have NO COMPARABLES to show an appraiser who will also be coming in low. It does you no good, though, when it comes to protesting your tax bill. If the assessor can continue to inflate your properties value along with the comparables you chose for your defense, you will lose your tax protest. The game that is played is that you MUST find properties of equal size and amenities that are taxed LESS than your property. Understand that YOU must show that YOU are being unfairly taxed compared to your neighbor with an identical property. It’s most often an impossible task since the bulk are ALL over-assessed in value.

We were expecting to see some relief now that year 2006 fell out of the formula but that was just wishful thinking.