John P. Riley

John P. Riley

Education

Bachelor's

University of California, San Deigo

Personal

Profession

Teacher and business owner

Contact

Personal website

John P. Riley was a candidate seeking a seat on the Poway Unified School District Board of Education in the general election on November 4, 2014. John P. Riley lost the general election on November 4, 2014. He ran against two incumbents and five fellow candidates.

Elections

2014

See also: Poway Unified School District elections (2014)

Three at-large seats on the Poway Unified School District Board of Education were up for general election on November 4, 2014. Incumbents Marc Davis and Todd Gutschow ran against challengers Charles Sellers, John P. Riley, Katie Newbanks, Michelle O'Connor-Ratcliff, T.J. Zane and Jeannie Foulkrod. O'Connor-Ratcliff, Sellers and Zane won election to the board by defeating Davis, Gutschow, Newbanks and Foulkrod.

Results

Poway Unified School District,
At-Large General Election, 4-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Michelle O'Connor-Ratcliff	16.9%	19,921
	Nonpartisan	Charles Sellers	14.4%	16,921
	Nonpartisan	T.J. Zane	14.4%	16,958
	Nonpartisan	John P. Riley	12.5%	14,680
	Nonpartisan	Todd Gutschow Incumbent	12.1%	14,294
	Nonpartisan	Marc Davis Incumbent	11.5%	13,511
	Nonpartisan	Katie Newbanks	9.2%	10,837
	Nonpartisan	Jeannie Foulkrod	9.1%	10,663
Total Votes				117,785
Source: San Diego County Registrar of Voters, "Gubernatorial General Election," accessed December 23, 2014

Funding

Riley reported $7,260.00 in contributions and $5,677.41 in expenditures to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, leaving his campaign with $1,582.59 cash on hand as of October 27, 2014.

Endorsements

Riley received endorsements from the Poway School Employees Association and the Service Employees International Union. He also received endorsements from several local officials and community leaders, including Poway Unified School District board member Kimberley Beatty. A list of his supporters can be found here.

Campaign themes

2014

Riley highlighted the following four-point plan on his campaign website:

“

Point #1 Prioritize the Classroom Educating our Children must be Priority #1 Poway Unified School District offers some of the best schools in our region. Our top-notch schools reflect well on our community, greatly enhance our quality of life and make our neighborhoods wonderful places to raise a family. But we can’t remain idle. We need to make the leap from good to great. This includes hiring the best teachers, being open to innovative teaching techniques and making classrooms laboratories of success. Resources for Teachers Teachers must have access to the necessary resources to offer the highest level of education possible. Unfortunately many of us have attended Back to School nights where teachers are literally begging for financial contributions from parents to pay for basic school supplies like paper and white board markers. Teachers often have antiquated computer systems in the classroom while district administrators get brand new computers. This makes no sense. PUSD has a finite amount of financial resources and we must ensure that the classroom remains the highest priority. Point #2 Fiscal Responsibility The School Bond The Capital Appreciation Bonds fiasco is an outrageously irresponsible policy enacted by the PUSD Board. This bond borrows just over $100 million and requires approx $1 billion in payback. Thus, only about 10% of our investment is actually going to kids. The remaining 90% is going to big banks and other monied interests. We take great pride in our schools. We want to invest in our schools. But we can not make investments like this. This school bond is also not callable. In other words, it can’t be refinanced. Would you sign a mortgage on your home that prohibits you from refinancing the loan when rates go down? As a result, our community now has its hands tied on this terrible deal. This bond will begin payback approximately 20 years from now. During that time interest will continue to accumulate, compound and grow exponentially. Then taxpaying families 20-40 years from now, who will be using schools likely in needs of additional infrastructure improvements at that time, will be financially burdened with the irresponsible decisions of today’s Board. This is a classic case of the School Board kicking the can down the road and forcing future generations to pay for the needs of our community today. I will explore all potential avenues and consult with advisors to investigate this matter further. If there is an opportunity to refinance this bond measure in a more fiscally responsible manner then I will pursue it. I will also vote against any future bond measures that are constructed in such an irresponsible manner. Balanced Budgets PUSD is currently running very large deficits with no strategic plan to balance the budget. This is bad policy and not sustainable. PUSD has also made the poor decision to sell off land to help cover up deficits. Operating budgets need to be fixed structurally, not with one-time sales of assets. 2013-14 Deficit (estimated actual) = $21.4 million>br> 2014-15 Deficit (adopted budget) = $28.4 million 2015-16 Deficit (projection) = $13.1 – 26.0 million The solution is to build a process that gains input from the community, prioritizes spending initiatives, and then trims the lowest priorities to balance the budget. The City of Poway is one of the most fiscally sound, well-run cities in the region and offers a Best Practice process to emulate. One example is the Citizen Budget Review Committee. This group of individuals, appointed by the city council, works directly with the administration to go through the budget with a fine tooth comb. This process ensures that the highest priorities are fully funded, waste is driven out and low priorities are identified and managed appropriately. The committee delivers optimized, balanced budgets and saves money for a rainy day. The committee ultimately makes recommendations to changes of the administration’s budget and then submits those recommendations to the council for approval. This is a very healthy process as it gains community input and provides necessary transparency to the budgetary process. The City of Poway also has a town hall event to get input from citizens on budget priorities. The City of Poway does this for a $78M per year budget. Meanwhile, the school district budget is 3.5x the size and has no such committee or process. We need these types of processes in place to make sure there is broader input on budgetary decisions for the school board. Point #3 Apply Sunshine Competitive Bid Process An open and competitive bid process is absolutely necessary in our district. When done properly this will provide the greatest value for taxpayers and also apply necessary sunshine to current business relationships. Crony corporatism, the rigging of the system to benefit special corporate interests, is something that all levels of government must be diligent to prevent. PUSD is no exception. Sadly, I have discovered that RFP (Request for Proposal) processes have been pushed aside by the Board in favor of expediency. There are also other cases where certain vendors have such deep relationships with PUSD that they have avoided any competitive bid process for over 10 years. This can not continue. All new projects and existing vendor relationships should be held accountable in an open, competitive bid RFP process. Taxpayers demand it. Mello-Roos Taxation The entire Mello-Roos system is remarkable. It is a very deep and convoluted system to fund schools as well as infrastructure like roads and parks in newly built communities like 4S Ranch. It is extremely difficult to understand where a particular taxpayer’s money is going and how it is being spent. PUSD has been playing fast and loose with this revenue stream. There are cases where Mello-Roos taxes are taken away from taxpayers in a specific Community Facility District (CFD) and then used to fund schools outside of Mello-Roos areas including even the district’s own administration building in Carmel Mountain Ranch. We must come up with simplified ways to show taxpayers how their money is spent and ensure it is spent in their local CFD. Audit the Bond With the controversy over capital appreciation bonds issued by PUSD, it is necessary to ensure this process was handled ethically and legally. An audit by an independent entity, not selected by PUSD administration, should be conducted. Findings should be presented in a public forum with community participation. Point #4 Local Control. Local Choice. No to Common Core Schools should be managed locally to achieve greater accountability, parental involvement and performance. School curriculum should also be managed locally to meet the unique needs of the children and the local community. A top-down approach to education, whether it is Common Core or No Child Left Behind, is not the right solution for local schools. Poway Unified has 39 different schools offering 39 laboratories of innovation that can potentially take Poway’s excellent academic reputation to even higher levels. PUSD is already one of the highest ranked school districts in the region. We should be innovating and pushing to excel based on our own standards rather than conforming to one-size-fits-all programs that brings our high standards down. Attend Your Local School There are cases in our school district, particularly in the 4S Ranch community, where students are unable to attend the local school in their neighborhood. There are even cases where a family with two children are required to have one child in one elementary school and the other child in a different elementary school. This is particularly outrageous given that these families are spending thousands of dollars per year in Mello-Roos taxes with the specific understanding that their children would be able to attend their local school that the parents are paying for. Clearly these parents are being treated unfairly. We need to create a better system that expands parents’ ability to send their child to the PUSD school of their choice.

”

Recent news

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See also

• Poway Unified School District, California
• Poway Unified School District elections (2014)

External links

Suggest a link

• Poway Unified School District
• Campaign website
• Campaign Facebook page