Library Issues and Prevailing Wage Bill Dominate School Board Meeting

Thursday's Phoenixville Area School District Board meeting was dominated by , and the currently being considered in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.

The most contentious topic was the selection of library trustees. The policy committee sent their recommendation of creating a board comprised of three trustees who are not school board members and three school board members who are not trustees to choose the new trustees.

Board President Paul Slaninka objected to the "three and three" idea during discussion of the policy, saying he did not want to be "excluded" from choosing new trustees.

The suggested policy would use those six people to sort through candidates for trustee seats, narrow down the applicants and present recommendations to the board.

"As an elected official, I should have the right to see all the candidates," Slaninka said. "I don't want to be excluded from voting on all of the candidates.

"If the board goes with the three and three plan, I will always vote no on any candidate that comes from that committee."

Board member Kevin Pattinson said he thought having the entire school board and all the trustees interview candidates would be a "very cumbersome process."

David Ziev said he would prefer to see all the candidates for trustee because he would be concerned with having a balance of opinions on the trustee board.

Board member Kenneth Butera liked the committee idea, saying that the board would be placing their trust in whoever they chose to recommend.

The policy change will be voted on at next week's meeting. If the policy is voted down, said board member Dr. Daniel Cushing, the policy committee will start over and send the board a new recommendation.

PASD's support of House Bill 709, which would exempt school districts from paying prevailing wage to construction companies, was also a hot topic on Thursday.

As Superintendent Dr. Alan Fegley pointed out at a , the school district would see savings of between 10 and 20 percent if they did not have to pay the prevailing wage.

“That’s $8.5 million that could go back to the taxpayers,” Fegley said during the press conference.

Pattinson questioned if there was any guarantee that those savings would be passed on to the taxpayers and also voiced concerns that school-district area jobs might be lost or replaced by workers from out of state if the district does not pay the prevailing wage.

Butera said that prevailing wage gets the district "a higher quality of construction. The prevailing wage is designed to promote job growth."

Fegley said the savings would be realized because the district could get bids that are more competitive when bidding out a project.