UASB candidate refutes accusations lodged against him
William Rittenhouse Jr., a candidate for Uniontown Area School Board in the Nov. 3 general election, denied recent accusations lodged against him by a daughter of a former 20-year school board member. Rittenhouse, a 12-year board member and co-owner of William Rittenhouse Insurance Agency Inc. in Uniontown, said he does not insure the Southwest Regional Tax Bureau, as claimed by Mitzie King-Nehls, daughter of former Uniontown Area School Board member Herbert King.
Raymond Paris, administrator of the Southwest Regional Tax Bureau, said the tax bureau’s property coverage, workman’s compensation and crime shield insurance policies, as well as an administrative bond, is held by McDowell Associates Inc., in Greensburg.
Insurance Innovations Inc. in Uniontown holds the health insurance for full-time employees, he said. Rittenhouse did insure a personal administrative bond, a state requirement paid for by Southwest, so Paris could serve as assistant administrator of the tax bureau, according to Paris.
Paris said the bond, at the advice of Rittenhouse, was transferred to Karl Eisaman at McDowell Associates after he gained full-time employment as administrator of the tax bureau.
“During my intern period as assistant administrator, according to Pennsylvania law, I had to have a personal bond,” Paris wrote in an Oct. 20 letter to Rittenhouse. “I had obtained a bond from (the Rittenhouse) agency in order to provide proof of this requirement.”
Paris said in Southwest’s search for new insurance carriers, Rittenhouse has always responded that he will not submit an offer to insure the tax bureau as long as he remains a representative of the school district.
Rittenhouse sits on the tax bureau’s executive board. Other board members appointed him to serve in the position at the December 2008 reorganization meeting. The vote to do so was unanimous, Rittenhouse said.
Rittenhouse said a point King-Nehls omitted was that after switching earned income tax collection agencies to Southwest, a move he said he championed, collections of that tax have increased approximately $250,000 over a four- to five-year period.
Regarding bus contracts, Rittenhouse said his agency does insure Spade and Spiker bus lines and has insured the companies since 1986, 10 years before he became a member of the school board.
Rittenhouse said that at the advice of the district’s solicitor, insuring the companies is not a violation of any laws or rules of ethics as long as he abstains from votes affecting the employment and services provided by the bus contractors. He said the accusation that he wrote the last bussing contract is “just plain absurd,” noting that the district solicitor wrote that contract.
Another point he said King-Nehls omitted was that transportation costs, which use to account for 9-percent of the district’s budget, have decreased over the past six years. Transportation costs now make up 7.3-percent of the annual budget, he said.
“During the past year, due to good management of our transportation, the actual cost was down approximately $100,000,” said Rittenhouse.
In response to helping his wife gain an administrative position, Rittenhouse said new superintendents have historically had the option to select their staff based on their needs and the administration with which they would like to work.
Debbie Rittenhouse is employed as the district’s curriculum coordinator.
Rittenhouse also said he abstained from the vote to hire his wife for the administrative position and from Act 93 negotiations, which involve the salaries of administrators, nor did he participate in executive session debates on Act 93 issues so to allow other board members to freely debate the agreement.
Rittenhouse noted that Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) scores have improved as a result of programs implemented by the administrative team and those programs have placed the administration at the forefront of most other school districts in Fayette County.
Rittenhouse lastly denied King-Nehls’ accusation that he, along with other board members, met in violation of the Sunshine Law at now-board President Ken Meadows’ house. Rittenhouse said the only meeting that occurred at Meadows’ home was in July 2007, when three current board members along with four school board candidates who won the May primary election met to celebrate their victory.
This was before they were officially elected to the school board in the November 2007 general election. Susan Clay was board president at the time the meeting occurred, said Rittenhouse.