While assuring the community the final 2010-11 budget will look quite different in June, the Octorara Area School Board Feb. 15 unanimously approved a preliminary $47,609,008 budget which will increase property taxes by 2.69 mills for Lancaster County residents and by 5.65 mills for Chester County residents.
However, both administrators and school board members said the budget will be trimmed before June.
“This is a starting point,” said board president Lisa Bowman.
The millage in the preliminary budget is 37.88 for Chester County, and 30.37 for Lancaster County.
The board also allowed administrators to apply for Act 1 exemptions due to high increases in health care benefits and retirement contributions.
“This is a starting point,” said board president Lisa Bowman.
The school board plans to use $508,000 of the district’s $1,174,250 in reserve funds to meet expenses.
The school district is facing many large line item increases including: a 57 percent increase, to $606,000, in retirement contributions to PSERs; a 20 percent increase, to $437,000, in medical insurance; a 20 percent increase in tuition to area vocational schools, to $175,000; a 10 percent increase in tuition to Pennsylvania charter schools, to $531,000; a 10 percent increase in debt service, to $531,000; a 7 percent increase in transportation, to $193,000; a 6 percent increase in salaries, to $1,151,000; and a 5 percent increase to IU services, to $124,000. These line items alone total $3.8 million.
On the revenue side interim real estate taxes are down 30 percent, earned income tax revenue is down 6 percent, and unemployment is causing some families who formerly sent students to private schools to instead choose charter schools. Charter school tuition is paid by school districts.
Superintendent Tom Newcome warned the district is facing a $3.4 million difference between expenses and revenues and presented the school board with a menu of programs it could cut.
These include: cutting the $70,000 building budgets; saving $100,000 by cutting supplemental contracts; not automatically filling vacancies to save salaries and benefits; dropping a bus route to save $50,000; and reducing energy consumption.
Newcome also presented a menu of self-coined “bad ideas”: cutting salaries of staff not under contract; discontinuing athletic and extra-curricular activities; not sending 75-80 students to area vocational schools; cutting conferences and travel; cutting the summer reading program; closing buildings at 6 p.m. to save utilities; using more of the fund balance; and selling ads on the district Website.
While struggling with what to cut, school board members were also asked by parents of students from Avon Grove Charter School to add a bus. Some of these students, who receive district transportation, have bus rides of approximately one and a half hours.
The proposal was not warmly received.
“We do provide transportation and abide by the law,” said board member John Malone. “We don’t have the money.”
Board member Brian Norris said if the board met this request, some community members would ask, “Why are we spending money of mine for a choice they made?”
“We need to cut the budget by about $500,000,” said board member Sam Ganow. “The best solution is to meet with parents, find out why they are going to charter schools, and win them back.”
West Fallowfield resident Eric Stuehrmann spoke to the board and introduced himself as a charter school parent. He said he made the switch for several reasons, including a better math program and earlier foreign language instruction.
Stuehrmann said he would also like to see better communication – more of a school board/citizen debate – at school board meetings.
In personnel matters the school board made several administrative position changes. Jon Propper was moved from middle school principal to interim high school assistant principal. Cliff Blantz was moved from high school assistant principal to interim middle school assistant principal. Elena Wilson was moved from middle school assistant principal to middle school principal.
“It was a decision of the superintendent for personnel reasons that will not be discussed publicly,” Newcome said in an email. “The positions will be interim until June 2010, at which time long-term decisions will be addressed.”
Finally, by a 6-3 vote, the school board approved spending $49,190 (the lowest bid) from the capital account to install a cable television distribution and video-on-demand server for the district from ATV Digital Media.
Some board members argued the purchase is frivolous at this time, while the majority said the purchase was agreed upon during Facilities Committee meetings and is necessary now while district schools are under construction.
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