Question: 1. The school board is faced with the likelihood of having to increase the millage rate from 18.569 to 19.35, a rate just .65 mills under the maximum allowed. If negative conditions such as Fayette’s economic downturn have not improved significantly by mid-2009, the board might be faced with deciding to either cut programs or expenses, increase the millage again or all the above. How will you handle those decisions? Are you prepared to cut people and programs if necessary? Be specific. (And please explain — if you don’t have any definite position on this, why should anybody vote for you?)

Answer: 1. I, Marion Key, have been asking for an assessment of program costs and effectiveness for some time. I will support requiring the superintendent to provide this data to the board prior to the FY 2010 budget process with specific recommendations for cuts and revisions to the budget. It is the superintendent’s responsibility to make those recommendations and I will insist to my fellow board members that this process be followed.

Why did the BOE buy an extra 100 acres at Inman? This bond money is now tied up in land we cannot use. Why did we buy the Kiwanis property? To build a bus facility?

There were no plans for such a facility and there are no plans nor money now to build such a facility. I voted against both of these acquisitions.

We had to build Inman at 600 capacity instead of the usual 800 capacity because our bond money is tied up in land. Rivers [Elementary] is also being constructed at the smaller capacity for the same reason.

Question: 2. A number of students attending Fayette schools actually live out of county, yet not a single criminal case has been carried to trial or resulted in a plea of guilty in the past two years. Some allege that school authorities turn a blind eye to illegal students because those out-of-county students bulk up the attendance numbers, resulting in maintaining state funding even while actual Fayette student numbers decline. Why hasn’t more been done about this problem and what specifically will you do to get illegal students out of Fayette schools?

Answer: 2. As a board member I have insisted that out of county students be removed from our schools. It would make no sense to get extra state dollars for out of county students when those funds pay only half the costs Fayette incurs to educate its pupil population. Fayette taxpayers would have to make up the balance of the funds. We have removed many students over the past two years, paying off-duty police officers to verify the residences of new enrollees.

Question: 3. Recent CRCT results indicate that even when teachers teach the test, a lot of students still don’t do well. What local policies will you strive to change or to implement that will change this downward trend?

Answer: 3. The CRCT problems occur because there is little match between what teachers are teaching in the state-mandated curriculum and what the test measures. The state needs to create tests that measure what the curriculum requires. I support the state using technology to allow schools to test later in the term and still get the data back to the school system in a timely manner.

Question: 4. Why shouldn’t school board meetings be videotaped and uploaded to the BOE website in a timely manner for viewing by those who cannot attend the meetings? What will you do about that?

Answer: 4. There is no reason why board meetings cannot be videotaped. Also the board minutes need to be revised to be sure that the major issues are detailed with the pro and con discussions noted. The minutes should also include how each board member voted.

Question: 5. The Fayette school budget is nearly $200 million a year. What experience do you have in either making payroll in a small business on a regular basis or in managing and overseeing budgets containing more than five zeroes in the expense line?

Question: 6. In a similar vein, what makes you competent to oversee a nearly $200 million budget?

Answers: 5 & 6. I have 12 years experience on the board, providing oversight on the system budget.

Question: 7. It looks like we built too many classrooms for declining student numbers. That’s a lot of local tax dollars. Who should be held accountable for that miscalculation?

Answer: 7. I voted against constructing Inman and Rivers elementary schools because enrollment projections clearly indicated the schools were not needed at this time. Prior to the construction of Inman, we had space for 10,000 elementary students and about 9,200 enrolled.

Question: 8. Few people like redrawing school district attendance lines. This year, several candidates seem to focus on that process. Give the current board a grade from A to F for the most recent redistricting plan adopted. And, by the way, should voters elect a single-issue candidate, even if that issue is redistricting?

Answer: 8. Since I did not vote for the last two redistrictings , I would give the Board an F. We have more space system wide than we need, yet after redistricting, we are still using trailers. We are paying twice for utilities at schools with empty space and the trailers.

My position in the redistricting process was for all schools to have enough students to receive full state funding for their administrative overhead. The consultant and the committee had developed a plan to meet that criteria.

The board chose to change the recommended boundaries over my objections. This is the reason we have trailers in some schools while other schools do not meet the state’s minimum enrollment requirements to receive full funding for administrative costs. This leaves Fayette County’s taxpayers to make up the shortfall.

Question: 9. With respect, do you know what you are doing? Can we trust you with our money and our children?

Answer: 9. I have been the lone voice on the board on some of our property acquisitions and school constructions. The decisions are coming back to haunt us in this time of budget constraints. I will always work for fiscally responsible decisions. You can trust me to look out for the welfare of your children. What is best for our children is always my guiding philosophy. My 40-plus years of experience in education, some of it overlapping, makes me well-qualified to watch over the education of all of Fayette’s children.