Phoenixville School Board Hears Budget Report

The Phoenixville Area School District board heard a presentation from the Community Budget Advisory Committee (CBAC) at Wednesday's special board meeting.

The CBAC was formed earlier this year to gather community input on the district's budget and to provide the board with suggestions for both revenue generation and cost savings measures.

Committee chair Joseph Little explained the CBAC's suggestions.

"Our job was to give you ideas," Little told the board.

Stan Johnson, executive director of operations, said that the committee's ideas still have to be examined.

"These are ideas that we need to look at and vet," Johnson said. "They have had administrative input."

Little said that the administration had "answered our questions but were careful not to give us opinions. They did not steer this in any direction."

The CBAC split into two subcommittees, one on revenue generation chaired by Renee Pfender and one on cost containment chaired by Heather Del Grasso.

Johnson and district comptroller Chris Gehris attended the subcommittee meetings to represent the administration.

The committee had nine recommendations for revenue generation. Their top suggestions include:

• consolidating grant-writing duties into a job for one person; 
• developing advertising and sponsorship relationships with the sports teams, Phantom TV and local events; 
• further coordination with the Phoenixville Community Education Foundation; 
• and renting school facilities to outside groups.

Little said the committee also suggested that the district continue to examine pay-to-participate fees, sell unused and surplus equipment and look for scholarship funding.

"The gem of this district is the television studio," Little said. "We could be asking local businesses to advertise on the TV channel."

On the cost containment side of the equation, Little said the committee had several recommendations.

• Reducing transportation costs; 
• reducing library funding; 
• budgeting less for legal fees; 
• going paperless by using digital textbooks and utiilizing e-mail and the Skyward system for sending letters and other written items to parents; 
• reducing health care costs by asking staff to contribute a percentage of their premium instead of a flat fee; 
• and finding ways to compete with what charter schools offer students.

Asking teachers and staff to pay a percentage of their insurance premium would bring the district in line with other area districts and save the district almost $350,000, Little said.

Little also pointed out that digital textbooks would cost 50 percent less than traditional textbooks.

In closing, Little said that the committee's suggestions are simply the answer to a "math problem."

"We began and ended with a math problem," he said. "It was not our intention to hurt or offend anyone. We simply looked at the math and did not take people into consideration."

Both the administration and the board were pleased with the outcome of the committee's work.

"There was a lot of lively debate without arguments," Johnson said. "They did a lot of productive work."

"They did a great job," said board president Paul Slaninka. "The information going back and forth was great. They all came in with bits of different knowledge and everyone contributed.

When asked if the board would use an advisory committee again, Slaninka's answer was an emphatic yes.

"Absolutely, if I have anything to say about it," he said.

Immediately following the board meeting, the district's finance committee met to announce that they will begin working on the 2012-2013 budget.

The district will begin working with a budget that includes a 5.08 percent tax increase, rising from 27.06 mills to 29.19 mills.

Board Treasurer Joshua Gould said he would like to use a similar process to last year, where a group of topics was discussed at each budget meeting.

"I'd like to incorporate the CBAC's topics, and let them know when the topics are being discussed so they can show up and offer their input," Gould said.

The budget process will begin again in January 2012. As it's a presidential primary year, the entire Act 1 budget process will be pushed back and districts have until Jan. 25 to adopt a preliminary budget for the 2012-2013 full year. The final budget must be adopted by June 30.