League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area Education Fund
Hamilton, Clermont County, OH November 6, 2007 Election
	Randy Smith Answers Questions Candidate for Board Member; Forest Hills Local School District

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of the Cincinnati Area and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. What are your qualifications for office? (50 word limit)

Board member past 4 years

Attended over 50 Ohio School Board Association training meetings

OSBA Master Board Member status 2007 (only 9 of over 3500 Ohio Board members received this designation)

Grew up and attended school 12 years in the Forest Hills School District

28 years of P&G management experience

2. What plans do you have to address your top three priorities? (100 word limit)

Maintain and hire the best teachers and administrators. Maintain our excellent treasurer. Maintain current class size limits. Continue to upgrade our curriculum to keep it excellent. Make necessary improvements to our buildings to get closer to having excellent facilities. Deliver excellent special needs programs.

Make changes in the State funding system that are advantageous to Forest Hills. Maximize existing local property tax levies to delay the need for new levies.

Identify clear criteria for what the school district wants in a new superintendent. Field a nationwide search to identify the best superintendent to replace Dr. Patzwald when he retires in July.

3. What is your position on amending the Ohio Constitution with regard to the funding of public schools? (150 word limit)?

There is no doubt the current process that has evolved to fund K-12 public education in the State of Ohio is not working. I support the value of getting the funding mechanism on the table for discussion so that a solution to the problem can be found.

Overall I'd like to shift the majority of the tax burden away from the local property owner and back to the state. The State legislature should have addressed this issue after four DeRolf Supreme court rulings.

Amending the constitution is risky and virtually permanent. The governor and legislature should act to fix this problem. I have met with the leadership of the State constitution consortium including Mr. Jim Betts to suggest that the education community use the potential amendment as leverage to convince the governor and the legislature to finally take action to correct some of the key shortcomings of the current funding system and formula. I would like some inflation component reintroduced into the state funding model to reduce the number of local tax levies and see phantom revenue eliminated from the current funding formula.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. Word limits apply for each question. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 12, 2007 11:58
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