PASD Budget: Professional Services, Technology Budgets Examined

Editor's Note: This is part two of a story on the Jan. 24 public budget meeting. See the .

During its budget meeting on Jan. 24, Phoenixville Area School Board members heard more on the $3.5 million professional services budget and the $1.2 million technology budget, along with a look at the athletics and activities funds.

The board hopes to further reduce the 2012-2013 budget and is holding a series of public budget meetings over the next few months. The full schedule, including a list of topics to be discussed, is attached to this article.

The district’s preliminary budget included a 5.08 percent tax hike, which was reduced to 3.89 percent. Changes so far include:

• $523,751 added on the revenue side due to two bond refinances 
• $20,000 reduction year over year on the district’s contribution to the Phoenixville Community Education Foundation (PCEF); the new total contribution is expected to be $55,000
• $100,000 reduction in legal fees from the 2011-2012 school year to the 2012-2013 school year; the total is expected to be $250,000
• $5,000 adjustment for an audit that is done biannually; this was overlooked in the preliminary budget and will again be included in the 2013-2014 budget but is not necessary for next school year

Stan Johnson, executive director of operations for the district, said he also expects to cut the district’s $3.7 million by $200,000, but that was not included in the 3.89 percent tax increase and would lower the increase further.

Professional Services

At the Jan. 24 budget meeting, Comptroller Chris Gehris said he feels comfortable cutting the legal budget by $100,000.

“We feel $250,000 is definitely a safe number,” Gehris said.

That number doesn’t include legal fees related to construction projects, which come out of bonds. Other areas of the professional services budget are difficult to predict this early, Superintendent Dr. Alan Fegley said, explaining that the district doesn’t yet know how many Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) the distict will have next school year.

Substitute teaching costs for 2011-2012 are expected to reach $518,000, and that money comes out of the professional services budget as well. A new contract with the substitute service is expected to save $25,000 throughout the rest of this school year, and that contract was signed on Jan. 23.

Between the 2010-2011 school year and the current school year, the professional services budget was cut by nearly 27 percent as the district focused on bringing many services in-house during last year’s budget season.

Technology Budget

Brian Ruzenski, the district’s director of technology, drew the board’s attention to the Phoenixville Area Middle School construction project, which is expected to be completed this summer.

The district included $1 million in technology spending in the construction bond for the project, Ruzenski said, but the technology department will be working on tight timeline to get 80 whiteboards, more than 200 laptops, 40 wireless access points, 130 phones and 12 network printers installed.

With that in mind, Ruzenski asked for a $100,000 contingency budget, which was also recommended by the administration. The contingency would be used in case the district exceeds what is already in the construction budget.

Ruzenski said while some students may be used to help with the middle school installations, they can likely only do about 30 percent of the work and therefore, outside contractors would be needed to help the district’s staff.

Additionally, the 2012-2013 budget includes:

• 57 laptop replacements for Barkley Elementary and 140 desktop brought into the virtual desktop infrastructure, for costs of $85,500 and $27,400, respectively
• 50 netbooks for a high school writing class totaling $48,000
• Eight whiteboards at the high school for a total of $38,879
• Operating system upgrades at the high school for $12,500
• Infrastructure fees of $433,093 for licenses, support, connectivity and other expenses
• Infrastructure upgrades of $437,900 (this includes the middle school contingency)
• Supply costs of $147,416

In total, the technology preliminary budget came in at $1.23 million, including the contingency of $100,000 for the middle school. The netbook purchase was moved to the “yellow light” list of possible cuts for the 2012-2013 school year.

Ruzenski told the board it was best to have all computers purchased at once because it could affect teaching time if some machines are dated. Additionally, rolling out updates becomes difficult if everyone is working with different models.

Board members debated cutting the contingency completely or taking it out of the district’s capital reserve if it’s necessary. Johnson said he definitely recommended having the contingency but told the board it was up to the members where that money would come from.

Overall, the technology budget was decreased slightly from 2011-2012 and may be reduced further if the contingency expenses are moved out of the district’s general fund budget.

Athletics and Activities

The district’s preliminary budget includes $850,527 in athletics spending and $288,302 for co-curricular activities.

The presentation broke down expenses by sport. Coaching salaries make up the bulk of the athletics budget at $403,801. During last year’s budget season, the district implemented a pay-to-participate program for students. Johnson said the district will conduct an analysis to see if that will raise the expected amount.

“We think it’s going OK,” he told the board.

The program was expected to generate $75,000 in revenue for the district, not including the costs involved with administering the program.

The next budget meeting is scheduled for Feb. 21 and will cover nuisance taxes, facility rentals, what to do with the more than $800,000 in increased state funding from last year, debt service and a five-year projection for the district.

For a complete look at all the budget materials presented at the Jan. 24 meeting, visit the school district’s 2012-2013 budget page.