School Board Budget Passes, No More Pay to Participate

In what was a very long and at times contentious meeting on June 30th, the Phoenixville Area School District Board was finally able to pass the 2013/14 Budget.

The meeting started with the same three amendments that had been presented previously.

The first amendment, once again put forth by Mr. Paul Slanika requested that funding to the library be reduced. The amendment failed to get a second.

The second amendment put forth by Mr. Kevin Pattison, was to end the Pay to Participate fee. Mr. Pattison explained his reasoning; that the program has very little impact on the overall budget, that there are fees and costs that aren’t being accounted for, and most importantly, the fee impacts families who may be struggling and asks families to pay twice. After initially failing to muster the necessary 5 votes, the amendment was reintroduced and did pass.

The last amendment, drafted by Mr. Irfan Khan, was to remove a line item from the Operating Budget. This line item is for the “5900” account and is basically a contingency fund according to Dr. Fegley and Administration staff. The amount, at over $1,000,000, is in essence a built-in surplus, that if not used, would then be transferred to the Unreserved Fund balance, which currently has an available balance of almost $6,000,000.

Mr. Khan wanted to eliminate this line item from the budget, saving taxpayers this money and resulting in a 0% tax increase for this year. The amendment failed, although a later amendment did reduce the fund first by $100,000 and later by a further $200,000, resulting in a line item of approximately $704,000 and a 1.42% tax increase for taxpayers.

I think the debate and discussion that went on was very beneficial and illustrates why it is so important that we engage and understand what is going into our school district budget. We all have questions, but so often we don’t understand why a certain decision is made or policy is implemented, well, this is how it is done.

We can all be more involved, simply by coming to the School District Board Meetings, which are always listed on the PASD website (www.pasd.com).

Personally, I am glad that there was some reduction of this particular line item, which I also questioned and when I addressed the Board, I explained that in financial terms we call this a “slush” fund.

I understand the need to have healthy and properly funded reserves, particularly for health care and PSERs, but we also need to balance that and spending with our responsibility to taxpayers.

I believe there are ways to achieve this balance, and the three areas I believe we need to focus on are energy spending, transportation costs, and food service expense.  As we look at building two new schools, I’d like to see us plan these projects with a long-term view of reducing spending.

First, I’d like to see us build schools that utilize natural light and passive solar as much as possible. This is a very cost-effective method of cutting energy costs. We simply won’t need electric lights. We can also investigate passive solar heating options and geo-thermal.

We can include other simple ideas, for example windows that open, ceiling fans and other cost-effective ideas. I would love to have some outdoor classrooms, and an area where students could go outside for recess and lunch.

We have an opportunity before us, to be a part of the process and decision-making as we develop the plans to build two new schools. I hope you will add your comments and suggestions and feel free to contact me directly.

Starting this month, I will be scheduling monthly events to meet with members of the community and answer questions and discuss ideas. The first Saturday of each month I will be at Steel City Coffee House from 9 to 11, and most other Saturdays I can be found at the Farmers Market. I also hope to schedule a monthly Happy Hour and reintroduce the “What Matters Most” potlucks, Sundays at Reeves Park. More information on these two events coming soon.

You can follow me on Facebook at Lisa Longo for School Board.