Schools

Marple Newtown School Board Approves Prelim Final Budget With Proposed Cuts and 5.5% Tax Increase

The 2011-2012 preliminary final budget was approved at a Marple Newtown School Board meeting on May 24, in which the board has one month to make any changes for the final approval.

NEWTOWN SQUARE–The voted 6-2 to pass their preliminary 2011-2012 $67 million final budget at a scheduled school board meeting on Tuesday evening.

With a property assessed at $250,000, the average homeowner will look to pay $224 more per year with the proposed 5.5 percent tax increase in the preliminary final budget.

The preliminary final budget also reflects the at the last special budget workshop session. There were nine items proposed to be slashed for the next school year's budget, including special education assistants, math specialists, office and library assistant positions throughout the district, the German language program at as well as field trips.

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According to Joe Driscoll, school board business administrator, the district must adopt a proposed final budget by May 30 and the final budget adopted by June 30. However, Driscoll assured there is time between May 30 and the final adoption of the budget to "refine" it and make tweaks. 

However, school board member Fred Dewey candidly stated that "there will be pain, there is going to be a tax increase, there are things that are going to be cut, so don't get the impression that there's going to be a lot of leeway between now and June 28."

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"It's not pretty, it's not fun, and that's unfortunately where we are in this economy," stated Dewey.

Nancy Galbraith voted against the proposed final budget and acknowledged that she may be the "lone no" on the vote. Galbraith shared she would have liked to see a higher tax increase, especially considering the fact that the district will not be able to go over the capped 1.4 percent tax increase or apply for any special exceptions next year.

"I hate to make any cuts, but we do have cuts we have to make," said Galbraith. "I'd like to see it closer to 6 [percent]."

One of the cuts proposed on the table was the German language program at the middle school, which resonated with several Paxon Hollow seventh-grade students and parents who spoke at the last meeting. 

One of the students, Bill McKeown, suggested Tuesday night several alternatives before the board which included having a high school teacher teach the students at the middle school for one period a day or using technology such as Skype or SMART boards for a teacher to use to teach the students, or even an online learning system such as Rosetta Stone.

Superintendent Dr. Merle Horowitz addressed McKeown and the public that the administration has already looked into several of these alternatives. Considering the high school will go into an entirely , transporting a high school teacher to the middle school would disrupt both schools.

A distance learning classroom was taught several years ago to an Italian I class by a Haverford School District teacher but was later cut due to some "pressure" from the Haverford administration on that teacher, said Horowitz.

And if the middle school German students decided to switch to a different language for the following year, Horowitz said, "We will do everything possible that they would be together as a group because they've been together for the past few years and continue up through the high school that would've afforded those youngsters the opportunity to go all the way up to the fifth level and possibly the advanced placement level in either of those two languages [French or Spanish]."

James Buckley, a parent of seventh-grade student Connor Buckley who is currently enrolled in the language program, objected to the German program being cut and blamed the board for not providing enough time to find alternatives as parents.

"You just voted to dump it," said Buckley. "It [learning German] is very passionate to my son. You haven’t given us the opportunity to do anything—no notification and no opportunity. We need time to find the alternatives. That is your responsibility to find that for us. You are correct when you said you failed them."

Another parent, Jessica Reitano, whose son was recognized on Tuesday night for his state-award winning artwork, stood before the board to defend and urge the board not to cut the library assistant positions from the elementary schools.

"If we lost the assistant librarian, I don’t know how many kids would suffer for lack of reading and access to books," said Reitano who regularly volunteers at Elementary School's library. "Education is all about the books and if the library isn't run efficiently, I think there are other things that can be cut. I think the books are too important to cut. Please keep the librarians intact."

Another suggestion was made from resident John Cavaliere, who brought up the idea of asking the entire staff and administration in the district to implement a "2 perecent cut across the board."

Although great in theory, school board President David McGinley said it would be unlikely considering the school and teacher unions in place in which the idea would likely be rejected.

McGinley also reminded the public and board the district started off with a $2.8 million budget deficit in which they were able to reduce that until recently with the state aid cuts and left the board with a $1.8 million deficit. McGinley said the board has reduced that even more to about a $584,000 budget deficit.

"We were thrown many curveballs and we got hit with a big curveball. The things on the chopping block may stay there–I'm not going to say they're not," said McGinley. "But there are other areas we are looking at; there are other things we're looking to do. So it's not like we're not trying still to the very last day to do as well as we can."

The next school board meeting has been scheduled for June 7 at 7:30 p.m.

Editor's note: The original version of this article incorrectly stated the Marple Newtown School Board voted 7-1 to pass the preliminary final budget. It should have read the school board voted 6-2.


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