Schools

Budgets: School Districts Cope With Cuts Across Delaware Valley

Patch shares school districts strategies for fiscal success throughout local sites.

During his campaign last fall, now-Gov. Tom Corbett hailed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie for his heavy hand in dealing with an education system that both believed was inappropriately spending residents' property tax contributions. In his first budget, the Republican emulated Christie and cut public education spending by $1.1 billion.

Throughout the Delaware Valley, schools are dealing with the decrease of state aid in a variety of ways, including furloughing, cutting programs, and ultimately for some, laying teachers off. Some districts, like Philadelphia, have organized marches on Harrisburg in protest. Others are working within the confines of allotted state aid to craft working models.

Cut to the Chase

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Even school boards with rosy outlooks must face unanticipated reductions in state aid—many topping the millions. Based in Malvern, Chester County the Great Valley district is leaning heavily on its reserves.

"It’s a rainy day fund, and it’s starting to rain pretty good," Superintendent Dr. Alan Lononconus said.

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His district won't layoff any faculty, nor will programming be greatly impacted. Doylestown was not so lucky. The Central Bucks School District narrowed a $3 million budget gap by raising taxes 1.34 percent and eliminating about 121 full-time positions after this year—including about 30 teachers.

School officials in both Phoenixville and nearly balanced their budgets with slight tax increases before Corbett's budget arrived. The sticker shock was palpable.

"This is a massive cut, this will hurt our district and everybody else's district,” Phoenixville Board President Paul Slaninka said. “It's catastrophic, as far as I'm concerned."

Now, the budget at Slaninka's Chester County school will increase 3.6 percent. For the Marple Newtown taxpayers, they could see as much as a 7.8 percent tax increase to help bridge a budget shortfall.

"But even with this exorbitant tax increase, we'd still have a $600,000 plus shortfall that we'd need to close," said Marple Newtown School Board Business Administrator Joe Driscoll.

Playing the Hand Dealt 

The news isn't all bleak. In Radnor, there may even be a surplus at year's end.

"We learned... that we have a budgetary remainder of $2.2 million. Maybe one way of looking at that is we overtaxed the taxpayers and we give that back in the form of a zero percent tax increase," board member Eric Zajac said.

A fellow Delaware County district, Haverford reorganized by increasing classroom sizes for elementary grade levels. Board member James Goldschimdt said it was a sign of the times.

“We don’t expect to have any negative educational impact... When you’re faced with dire financial times as we are now, it’s a viable option."

In Montgomery County, Hatboro-Horsham devised two alternative paths to avoid faculty reductions: furloughing 15 to 20 teachers and creating retirement incentives—with the latter contingent on a new teachers' contract.

“Considering where we were and where we are today, we’re getting closer to where we need to be,” Superintendent Curtis Griffin said of the initial $2 million budget gap. “We’re in a very good place. We still have a tremendous amount of hard work to do.”

Though not all schools were in the position to do it, some districts renegotiated with their teachers' unions to ensure a wage freeze. 

Abington attributed that freeze with belt tightening across the board to secure no staff layoffs and no tax increases.

"Here’s how I see this,” Abington school board member Barry Stupine said. “Despite a cut of 12 percent from the state, which is over $2 million, reassessments adversely affecting us by about $400,000, (and the) cutting of federal funds by 30 percent, we’re presenting a balanced budget with no tax increase.”

West Chester teachers voluntarily accepted a pay freeze, but the district's superintendent said the Chester County school can only rearrange so much.

“We’ve cut $10 million in expenses in the last two years,” Dr. Jim Scanlon said. “If that continues we will begin to erode the quality of our programs.”

The Bigger They Are...

Special situations and, for others, sheer size drastically affected certain districts. Council Rock in Newtown, Bucks County is grappling with a $14.2 million budget gap. Forty-two teachers may lose their jobs. 

In Limerick, the Spring-Ford Area School District is facing a budget deficit of almost $12 million. In addition to the loss of state and federal revenue, a raft of property assessment appeals means this Montgomery County district faces the possibility of having to refund millions in property taxes collected since 2007. Glaxo-Smith Kline is the big ticket here; the firm is seeking a refund of $5.5 million in previously remitted taxes.

"These figures... this is horrific. I mean, $5.5 million, we've got to cut a check... that's coming right out of (the budget). We don't operate at a profit here," said board member David Shafer.

More than 60 jobs are expected to be eliminated, including at least 14 teaching positions in grades K to 8.

Naturally, the biggest school district in the area saw the largest cuts. The School District of Philadelphia schools will eliminate 3,820 jobs to balance its budget.

“Kindergarten, early childhood programs, the instrumental music programs, athletics, counselors, psychologists, special ed, alternative ed, English language learning programs… you will see the level of the reductions that we are proposing. I will tell you that there are reductions in all of those areas,” CFO Michael Masch said.

"It is, as we have said, not a budget that we gladly present to the School Reform Commission or to the people of Philadelphia.”

All districts are forced to get creative. Some are managing better than others. In Bucks County, Bensalem has maintained a low tax rate while keeping its education standards—no matter what the state pitches in.

“Despite the wrecking ball against the wall of education… our kids continue to excel and that puts us in very rarefied air,” Superintendent Bill Gretzula said.

Patch editors Jennifer Kim, Kaitlyn Foti, Jake Speicher, Lynn Jusinski, Bob Byrne, Kara Seymour, Leann Pettit, Theresa Katalinas, Mischa Arnosky, David Powell, Pete Kennedy and Sarah Larson, and Patch contributors Alicia Guide, Vic Monaco, Alyson D'Alessandro and Joe Ferry contributed to this report.


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