Marple Newtown Faces Nearly $1M in State Cuts

NEWTOWN SQUARE–Governor Corbett's plan to slash approximately $1.4 billion in state funding to public schools K-12 across the state have slapped hard with a proposed number of $949,113, which will affect all six schools in the district.

In addition, the Senate Education Committee recently released an 18-bill "Mandate Relief and Taxpayer Protection Package" in an effort to also help bridge the gap in the state's $4 billion deficit.

Some of the mandated 18 bills include, allowing teacher furloughs when economically necessary; increasing the bid limits for construction contracts; ability to raise property taxes only if two-thirds of the school board vote for it; expanding flexibility of school nurses eligible for employment, mandating a waiver program; providing an exemption from continuing education for superintendents and school administrators; and eliminating Act 1 exceptions.

Luckily for the district, Joe Driscoll, school board business administrator, said the elimination of Act 1 exceptions will be in effect starting in the 2012-2013 budget. , which is currently is in the last year phasing in the high school debt into the budget, according to Driscoll.

In addition, Horowitz said one of the bills "that has changed by the hour" is to provide private school vouchers to expand the Educational Improvement Tax Credit. The vouchers will allow all low-income students (or middle class students just above the poverty line) to attend other public or private schools.

According to the Pennsylvania State Education Association, school districts would be permitted, but not required, to provide additional funding, or “local scholarships,” to students receiving opportunity scholarships. Finally, the bill would permit any school district to offer a “local tuition grant program,” as stated on their website.

Driscoll said if students came out of the district in significant numbers of concentrated areas, it may not necessarily "reduce our costs" but "we would probably lose revenue."

Driscoll broke down the proposed number of budgetary cuts the district will face in certain areas as projected by Corbett's plan to the .

School board President David McGinley shared, "It's quite unfortunate because we got very close and we could've maybe worked a lot of things out but a loss of $1 million, that's a lot of money to lose. I feel like it's a moving target–we keep working toward it and the target moves on us."

According to Driscoll, the total revenue in this year's budget is projected for $63.7 million while the total projected expenses proposed in the budget is $68.3 million in which the amount to balance the budget is $4.6 million, of which $1.9 million of that shortfall is from the last phase in the high school construction costs. To bridge the shortfall, Driscoll said it will represent a 9 percent tax increase, equating to 1.4791 mills.

However, Driscoll said there's no way the district could tax that high anyway.

"Regardless of anyone's feelings on that, we can't tax that high anyway–we don't have the exceptions to do it," said Driscoll.

The Act 1 index allows a district to cap their tax increases at 1.4 percent or $720,251. The exceptions available is $3.2 million, which would mean approximately $4 million available to be accessed in accordance with Act 1, according to Driscoll, which translates to a tax increase of just about 7.8 percent.

"But even with this exorbitant tax increase, we'd still have a $600,000 plus shortfall that we'd need to close," said Driscoll.

Driscoll announced that the that the board had previously applied for earlier this year have been approved by the state for the 2011-2012 budget.

The exceptions that were approved by the state totaled to $3,765,173 which include:

• Grandfather debt of $2,024,465 (a majority of which is for the high school construction project) exception; however, Driscoll noted that once the grandfather debt has been paid off, the district would have to reimburse the state that money.
• Retirement exception of $513,031
• Actual Instruction Expense per Average Daily Membership (students) exception of $1,227,677

Driscoll said the maximum revenue allowed is $3,282,297 for next year's budget and a current fund balance at $5.4 million.

School board member Dana Kauffman suggested reconsidering "edging up" a 5.5 percent tax increase that the board has been discussing back and forth "to protect ourselves." Driscoll said a 5.9 percent increase would bring in an additional $200,000 toward the budget while a 6 percent increase would be closer to an additional $250,000. However, some members of the board vocalized they were against anything more than a 5.5 percent increase.

"We see the people who can't pay taxes now and it hurts me...and to increase the taxes more than we can, I personally can't go above a 5.5 percent," said McGinley, who proposed a zero percent salary increase among teachers.

School board member John McDevitt agreed and mentioned $20 million out of the entire $67 million budget comes from teacher salaries.

"I think if you're going to ask the teachers to take a zero increase, I don't think that's totally unreasonable, considering this is a crisis. But everybody else has to take a zero too. Everybody has to pitch in," said McDevitt.

Horowitz said her administration has already looked into about $400,000 in cuts and have "already taken the knife."

A budget task force of subcommittees, comprising of residents, parents and taxpayers alike, were proposed by Driscoll to have them start looking at each area of the budget and to come up with specific ideas on ways to cut back in the budget.

Richard Sokorai, school board vice president, agreed with Driscoll but said, "I think we need to start this immediately. Let's move forward with this. I think community involvement is extremely important. We need some parameters in place and have these set up before June."

School officials at the meeting proposed to bring up a resolution before the entire board to send a letter to legislatures in opposition of Corbett's plan.

Editor's note: A special budget workshop session was previously scheduled for Monday, April 25, but has been canceled until further notice.