SOUTH WHITEHALL TWP., Pa. — Former educator Mike Millo won in the 2020 Parkland School Board primary, but he had to withdraw due to family matters, he said.
Now he's running again.
- Former educator Mike Millo is running for the Parkland School Board again after withdrawing from the race in 2020
- Millo, who has two young sons, said his legislative priorities are listening to resident concerns, fiscal responsibility and transparency, which has become a hotly debated topic at recent school board meetings
- Millo said he opposed last year's tax increase. In response, board President Carol Facchiano said it was the fiscally responsible move
Millo taught at the high school and collegiate level in Texas and owned a math and reading center. He moved to the Parkland area six years ago.
Millo has two young sons — a 19-month-old and a 5-month-old — who would attend Parkland School District. He said he is running for the school board so he can give back to the community.
“This is a way to invest in my kids’ future, and it's a way to ensure that all the children in the Parkland School District have the best opportunity to succeed,” Millo said.
Millo, a Republican, cross-registered for both the Republican and Democratic primaries. He will be on the ballot for a full term, but he said he likely will campaign to serve out the remaining two years of former director Jarrett Coleman's term.
Millo’s priorities
Millo said his main legislative priorities are promoting fiscal responsibility and transparency. Transparency has become a hotly debated topic at recent school board meetings.
Millo cited the board authorizing the purchase of an $80,000 aquatic scoreboard rather than a $20,000 alternative as an example of the current board not being transparent about their financial decisions.
“I want to be able to show responsible spending,” Millo said. “And that would be one of my initiatives on the board, is to show transparency and be accountable to the taxpayers for the spending of their hard-earned tax dollars.”
Millo said he thinks the district should have used money from its fund balance to avoid last year’s 1.2% tax increase.
In response, board President Carol Facchiano said the board did use about $5 million of its fund balance to minimize the tax increase last year. She said it would have been fiscally irresponsible to use more because the district may need the money in the future, and the district earns interest from the balance.
“We don’t arbitrarily raise taxes to cover costs. As long as I’ve been on the board, that’s not the process.”Carol Facchiano, president of the Parkland School Board
Facchiano described last year’s tax increase as “very minimal” — it averaged to about a $17 increase per resident — and pointed out the board did not raise taxes in the previous two years.
“We don’t arbitrarily raise taxes to cover costs,” Facchiano said. “As long as I’ve been on the board, that’s not the process.”
The maximum allowable tax increase for the upcoming school year, known as the Act 1 Index, is 4.1%, according to discussion at the board’s Jan. 17 meeting.
In the previous school year, the Act 1 Index was 3.4%, but the board increased taxes by 1.2%.
The district soon will present the proposed budget for the upcoming school district, and the public will have the chance to learn more about the process of creating the budget then, Facchiano said.
“When you speak, it's like talking to Mount Rushmore. And you walk away with absolutely no feedback."Mike Millo, candidate for Parkland School Board
Millo said that if he is elected, he would try to make people who provide public comments feel that they are being heard — something he said does not happen with the current board.
“When you speak, it's like talking to Mount Rushmore. And you walk away with absolutely no feedback,” Millo said. “So I would like to see a little more interaction where the community members feel like their opinions have been heard and that they're validated.”
The upcoming election
Millo is part of a crowded primary election, which is May 16. The general election is on Nov. 7.
The six board seats that will be on the ballot will be those held by board President Carol Facchiano, board Vice President Marisa Ziegler, and directors Jay Rohatgi, Lisa Roth, Robert Bold and Patrick Foose.
All the board directors whose seats are up for re-election are running except Bold, who agreed not to run when he was appointed in January.
The person elected to Bold’s seat will serve for the remaining two years of Coleman's term, who resigned from the board after being elected to the state senate.
The rest of those elected would serve full four-year terms.
Other candidates include the father of three Chris Pirrotta, former educator Joanne Dillman and former Parkland parent Laura Warmkessel, along with George Rivera, Bobby Lanyon, Beth Finch, Natalie Janotka and Michael Deering, according to Lehigh County records.
