Meet School Board Candidate Thomas McLoughlin

 

Thomas M. McLoughlin

Age: 51

Family:  Married (Rebecca), Three Children (Ryan 22, Aidan 18, Keelin 13)

Political party affiliation:  I am a fiscally conservative registered Democrat.

Tell us about your educational background:  Johns Hopkins University, BA, 1984; Duke University School of Medicine, MD, 1988.  Attended public schools throughout primary and secondary education.

Tell us about your professional/business background:  Physician; Chair, Department of Anesthesiology, Lehigh Valley Health Network; President, Lehigh Valley Anesthesia Services.

Why are you running for school board?  

Working with the School Board is one of the key ways I volunteer my time for the community, and it fills my sense of service.  I do not serve with any particular personal or group agenda, and rather I believe that a healthy school district is one which enhances the lives of all our citizens: from the students, to the families who raise them, to the community members whose surroundings and property values are improved by the fine reputation of our District.

What qualifies you to serve on the board?  

I am an incumbent School Board member and have further served as President, Vice President, and currently as Treasurer of the Board.  I have served on the Policy and Budget/Finance Committees of the Board.  In my professional capacity, I oversee a clinical department of over 150 physicians, advanced practice nurses, and technicians.  I serve on the Senior Management Council of Lehigh Valley Health Network, which is the largest employer in our region.

What do you see as the board's primary role and responsibilities?  

Our challenge is to maintain the quality, rigor, and variety of curricular and extra-curricular programs while respecting the limited capacity of taxpayers to provide funding.  This is our civic obligation, and supports community health and the value of our homes.  Our system assesses peoples’ obligations by property values, but most people pay their taxes from wages or fixed income.  We must limit educational expense growth to no more than our taxpayers’ growth in resources.

Tell us about 3 major challenges facing the school district and how you would address them. (Please be as specific as possible):   

1) Sound fiscal governance and tax policy, 2) Student-centered program maintenance and enhancement, to include resource management, 3) Adaptation to dynamic student demand.

1. We have judiciously, and with the partnership of the Administration, primarily found opportunities to reduce spending in support and administrative functions, which has allowed us to avoid layoffs and curricular program cuts, and to sustain the arts and our athletics. However, our ongoing operational deficit cannot reasonably be corrected with cost reductions alone.   In combination with the fund balance, our District’s tax policy has been very respectful of the limited resources of our taxpayers, especially during the difficult economic conditions since 2008/09.  Our millage changes in the last four years have been 0, 1.5, 0.25, and 0.5.  We fully anticipate a zero millage increase this year.  That sums to 2.25 mils over five years, or approximately 5% total.  In dollars to the average taxpayer in our district, these millages translate into $0, $141, $23, $47, and $0, or a total increase of $211.  However, when one goes further to include the mitigation to taxpayers from the credit derived from gaming revenues, the actual dollar increase over that span reduces to $96 (due to $115 in gaming revenue credit to the average taxpayer bill).  This is LESS THAN 0.5% PER YEAR.  By any reasonable judgment, taxation in our District has been very restrained over several years.

2. We have managed our budget, as above, with no layoffs to our employees or program cuts for our students.  I am struck that several candidates for the Board with this cycle have expressed their opposition to the decision supported by this Board to lease resources allowing laptop access for all high school students.   the administration did an admirable job finding a way to increase a resource at reduced cost.  In other words, to do MORE WITH LESS.  This is EXACTLY what we should be hoping for our administrators to seek throughout the district, and hardly what they or the Board should be criticized for.  It should be clear to any voters – the current lease arrangement for laptops made available to students was completed at a SAVINGS to taxpayers versus the units we previously owned and which numbered fewer. Arguments about computer type and numbers are distracters from the above bottom line facts, and are fueled by personal beliefs about brand and about technology's role in education.  We had numerous public meetings on this topic and the comment offered by both administrators and teachers was uniformly in favor of expanding this resource in the classroom.  Increasing technology resources was supported as part of embracing concepts of 21st century education and curriculum, which had been discussed broadly and explicitly in the reports given publicly by Ms. Christman for months, even years.  We have entered an age where computer literacy is an assumed and essential competency for even entry-level positions requiring a high school diploma.  Supporting our students computing resource needs, equally and uniformly while reducing costs, represented a win-win for our students, teachers, and taxpayers.

How much are you spending to run? How is your campaign being funded?  

I will not spend any money on behalf of my candidacy, and thus my “campaign” is not funded.  I feel campaigning would not be consistent with my view of school board work as service.  I have no plans ever to seek further elected office, and I will happily continue my service on the Board, or step away, at the will of the voters.

What, if any, endorsements have you received?  

I have not received any endorsements of which I am aware.  I am not a part of any slate or coalition, and I promote no specific agenda.

I will say that I believe our District has been very well served by the current Board, and I would personally endorse the other incumbent candidates, William Hayes, Dorothy Mohr, and Elizabeth Stelts, for re-election.  Each of these people serves, in my estimation, with the most sincere and worthy intentions and effort, and each labors in great measure with our District and in ways that are not always highly visible, but are of great importance, with our affiliated organizations in the mission of public education such as the Lehigh Carbon Technical Institute, the Intermediate Unit, and the Lehigh Carbon Community College.

Do you use social media? If so, please provide links to your Facebook and Twitter.  I do not use social media.  My home email is tmmjrmd@ptd.net