CLARION, Pa. (EYT) – The Clarion Area School Board on Tuesday night adopted the 2018-19 preliminary budget and tax rate but rejected the proposed Clarion County Career Center Operating Budget for 2018-19.
Clarion’s $2,015,834.00 budget will be displayed for the next thirty days and is available here.
“We are putting the index tax increase into our preliminary budget, but our goal in June is — unless things go haywire in Harrisburg the next month — to have a zero tax increase budget in June,” said Superintendent Michael Stahlman.
“In June, we would leave the tax alone, but in the preliminary, once we set this, we can lower it but not go above the 1.97 mill increase.”
All other taxes would remain the same.
While Stahlman explained the budget at length, one of the longest discussions was related to the reduction of some special education aides to part-time, eliminating their benefits. Intermediate Unit 6 (IU) employed four aides in question.
School Board Member Braxton White said he had some concerns as to how some of the numbers were developed, and he was hearing objections to the elimination of the full-time aides.
“None of the aides that we are pulling back into the district are in special education classrooms,” answered Stahlman. “They are child specific and one-on-one aides. The IU separately chose to reduce IU classroom aides in certain IU classrooms. That’s entirely their choice.”
The decision to make the change was rooted in an earlier collective bargaining agreement and to save the school districts some money.
“We’re going to bring four child specific aides back to our district, and the reason that we are looking at doing that as part of our last collective bargaining agreement for our support staff, we changed the hours that we could employ part-time aides in our district,” continued Stahlman.
“We can go up to six hours with a part-time aide. There’s a half-time unpaid duty-free lunch so that we can get six and a half hours out of the part-time aide here in the district. Our school day is six hours and 20 minutes at the elementary so that we can cover it with that person. The average cost of an aide for us at that rate is $17,000.00 a year. We can go as low as $15,000.00. The average cost of a full-time aide through the IU is $42,000.00 a year. We save $25,000.00 a year and still have that child-specific aide covering that student the entire time and not have to switch aides during the day. We did that with four aides.”
White was still concerned with the change and the possibility of turnover with the new aides.
“My concern with that is the kind of work that we’re asking these people to do in some of the hardest classrooms you can be in; you’re getting physically and verbally assaulted, spit on. The work is extremely difficult. I’m concerned that we’re going to see a lot of turnovers because we’re going to be hiring people part-time that aren’t going to have any benefits.”
Stahlman said Clarion made the switch five years ago.
“The only thing you have to think about is we have now saved in the past five years almost $1.5 million,” Stahlman said. “Where would we be if we had not saved that money? Are we going to go out on a tax referendum and ask voters to approve a 25 percent increase in their taxes? Or, are you going to cut all of your sports programs? Or, are you going to cut music? Or, are you going to cut art? — because those are the decisions that you then come down to. We’ve still been able to meet all of the needs of our students, and that’s the key. I would never recommend this if I didn’t think we were meeting the needs of our students and that’s the most important part.”
The IU has already furloughed 18 aides throughout the entire IU.
Board member Julie Hartley agreed that it is a serious decision and one that does trouble members.
“I don’t think anyone should take these decisions lightly, and they’re hard decisions,” said Hartley. “It comes down to that we can go to sleep at night knowing that we have done the best for our students.”
Voting to approve the tentative budget were Hugh Henry, Melissa Anderson, Julie Hartley, Shane Kriebel, Julie McCormick, and Zachary Shekell. Voting no were Todd Bauer and Braxton White.
The tentative budget calls for a hike of 1.97 mills in real estate taxes or a three percent increase. The current real estate millage is 65.7300, and the 2018-19 rate could be 67.700.
The tentative budget would end the 2018-19 year with an unassigned budget reserve of $25,000.00, along with committed, assigned, and unassigned fund balances of $1,990,834.00 for a total of $2,015,834.00 in this broad category.
Career Center Budget fails to pass — sends a message
School board members decided to send a message of concern and a need for more information about the proposed 2018-19 Clarion County Career Center Budget, voting 1-8 against its approval.
A copy of the rejected budget can be found here.
“I ask you to consider that it is an overall 4.3 percent increase in spending and nearly a 19 percent increase for Clarion Area School District. Some of that had to do with increased enrollment on our part and decreased enrollment for the other schools,” said Stahlman. “Clarion Area and Redbank Valley are facing a significant increase.”
Clarion’s enrollment at the Career Center is expected to change from 39 students to 41 and is facing a $59,000.00 increase. Redbank Valley is looking at an approximate increase of $59,000.00.
Other schools are coming down in their numbers, and the cost per student goes up; however, school board members questioned about the size of the increase.
“I can understand that it’s in favor of schools that are not sending as many children — schools sending fewer children wanting to be charged less — but when he (Stahlman) says it’s going to cost 19 percent or more, this has me a little concerned,” said Bauer.
The proposed budget is $2,523,618.00, with every school district getting a decrease except for Clarion Area and Redbank Valley.
“We’re crunching numbers here to get into the 1.1 or 1.2 percent increase range and live within our means,” said Stahlman.
“I have a problem with it costing that much more there. I just wanted to bring it up as a point of discussion to give it a thought that the fact that their budget is going up near four times more than what ours is. We struggle to keep things down here and be as efficient as we can with taxpayer dollars. It’s an area we at least need to raise a concern about it.”
The message seemed loud and clear with a vote favoring rejection. Voting for the motion was Julie Hartley. Voting no were Hugh Henry, Melissa Anderson, Todd Bauer, Shane Kriebel, Julie McCormick, Zachary Shekell, and Braxton White.
Asked about what happens if the Clarion Board turns it down, Stahlman said it would still probably pass when all of the school representatives vote.
