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But administrators offer to forego wage hike
By KEVIN MCKEE
kmckee@lockhaven.com
MILL HALL – An unexpected executive session kicked off the Keystone Central School Board's finance committee meeting last night, with board president Charles Rosamilia apologizing several times before leading his fellow school board members out of the auditorium.
It was over 45 minutes before they returned.
The unexpectedness of that session would go on to set the tone for much of the rest of the night.
When the board returned to the auditorium, Dr. Alan Lonoconus, the interim superintendent, announced with great pleasure that a group of Act 93 staff, which comprises the district's instructional and non-instructional administrators, had offered – without being first approached to do so – a pay freeze for the 2018-19 school year.
Those administrators voted 32-0 in favor of the pay freeze, which Dr. Lonoconus lauded as being of "great benefit" to the students of the district, "with the current financial situations."
The board will take that offer into consideration and looks to vote on it at next week's board meeting, to be held on Thursday, May 17, at Bucktail Area High School at 6:30 p.m.
At the same time, Dr. Lonoconus expressed deep disappointment that the teachers' union had voted – just prior to the committee meeting – to "reject the offer for a pay freeze next year."
If teachers had agreed to a pay freeze, it would have saved the district just under $1 million. Members of the Association of Clinton County Educators voted at the middle school to reject the pay freeze just prior to the committee meeting. It's the second time the union has rejected the idea. The union did not issue a public statement on the vote, nor did any union representative make themselves available at the committee meeting last night.
A teacher pay freeze would have significantly eased the district's budgetary problems and could have prevented closing Dickey Elementary School for example, or further cuts to athletics programming – at least for a year, Dr. Lonoconus said.
From there, the presentation turned to an examination of the remaining budget cuts still on the table.
As it stands, the current budget deficit is at $4,015,109 – although that does not factor in the offer of a pay freeze by the Act 93 staff.
The board is still considering a 3.3 percent property tax increase, which would generate $700,000 in additional revenue.
In addition, the board was given the following items to review:
r Auto Body CTE program, which would be a savings of $55,000.
r Auto Mechanics CTE program, which would be a savings of $56,000.
r Cosmetology CTE program, for which a dollar amount was not provided.
r Attritioning 2 Music positions, which would be a savings of $176,000.
r Closing Dickey Elementary, which would be a savings of $1,605,093.
r Eliminating the Secondary Common Prep Period, which would be a savings of $1,000,000.
r Using the fund balance to fill in any holes.
Also still floating as possibilities, but not listed with dollar amounts:
r Additional reduction to capital project budget.
r The fundraising coordinator position, occupied by Angela Harding.
r The CTE Director position, occupied by Ken Kryder.
CTE PROGRAMMING
The administration is strongly recommending to keep the cosmetology program, which in fact has students on a wait list to attend, and is currently capped at 50 students.
As such, with the board's consent, this item will be removed from the list of considerations.
Also, Dr. Lonoconus sought board approval to begin advertising for a diesel mechanics teacher.
While that doesn't mean the board wants to keep the Auto Body and Auto Technology programs, there is sufficient interest in these courses to attempt to preserve them, which Dr. Lonoconus feels could be aided by a diesel program.
Along the way, board member Deb Smith inquired if it would be possible to look for a candidate who would accept a 1-year contract because "CTE gets a lot of positions which are popular for a year or two and then are no longer popular, which leaves us with a teacher without a class to teach."
MUSIC POSITIONS
The board is seeking more options here.
Mike Hall presented the board with his plan to move forward with music programming while still attritioning the 2 positions, which involves the following:
r Alter elementary itinerant times from a 45 minute block to 35 minute block (art, music, library, and P.E.).
r Add student remediation and enrichment block to schedule by utilizing all available faculty – this would likely be music lessons for music.
r K-5 itinerant exposure included, including music lessons.
r Meets association contract requirements for teacher prep time.
Deb Smith had some problems with this plan, though, from her experience both "as a classroom teacher and as an itinerant teacher."
"That 35 minute block would actually be like a 25 minute instructional period, because of students filing in, collecting materials, and so on," she said.
Board member Jen Bottorf asked what the alternate plans to the one Hall was presenting would be.
His response was blunt: "we don't have elementary music. This is the best option for keeping music."
Another board member, Tracy Smith, then waded in.
"Please talk to the teachers," she said, emphasizing the secondary level teachers as well.
She also asked those same music teachers to "please speak out at the next meeting, or reach out to Mr. Hall."
Bottorf then added an idea: "what if we fill 1 position and attrition 1, how does that change things?"
Hall replied that he had not looked at that scenario, and Tracy Smith then directed him to look into that for the next meeting.
CLOSING DICKEY
The board voted, by show of hands, on whether to leave the potential closing of Dickey Elementary on the table for the current budget – or whether to revisit the subject in the future.
The hearing period is "open as long as the board wants to have those discussions," Dr. Lonoconus said.
Board member Roger Elling was the first to speak, and he came out in favor of removing the Dickey item from the list of considerations.
"I would like to see that taken off, for right now," he said. "I don't want to see it being closed, that's my thought and my recommendation. We can keep the possibility open, but I don't want it closed."
Another board member, Bo Miller, said that he would "echo Roger's comments. I would like to see it removed from this list of cuts for this budget year, but by all means do our diligence and keep the process open. Perhaps we don't have to close any facilities this year, but we all know that our situation is not going to get better in the future anytime soon."
Two board members – Billie Rupert and Deb Smith – then provided the counterpoint, arguing that while they don't want to close the school either, "we need that $1.6 million to balance the budget, and if we can't get that money one way, we need to pursue other options," as Smith put it.
"We had something tonight fall through," Rupert said. "It should stay on at this time."
They were joined by Rosamilia and Wayne Koch, while Tracy Smith and Bottorf joined the faction seeking to remove the closure from consideration.
As Eric Probert, the final board member, was not present and was unreachable by phone, the vote was tied at 4-4, and as such, the closing of Dickey is still on the table for next week's meeting.
COMMON PREP
This is instituted early in the day at the high schools and allows teachers to prepare for classes and students later in the day. Eliminating or changing common prep was unanimously supported last night, apparently in response to teachers rejecting the pay freeze.
Rosamilia, in fact, expounded, "I'd go further and say to make that a priority item (to cut) on the list."
While it was not an official vote and the secondary common prep period has not officially been cut, the unanimous support across the board for doing so makes it likely to be axed at next week's meeting. Discussion on the subject was, however, minimal.
ADMIN POSITIONS
Two positions are up for elimination. But last night, the administration revealed it is recommending updating the job descriptions for CTE director and communications and fundraising coordinator. The CTE director will pick up duties as assistant principal at Bucktail, while the coordinator will receive a fundraising goal for next year and an updated job description.
"I feel those positions are needed to help us through these tough times," Dr. Lonoconus said.
He also referenced a figure: "$100,000 extra was raised through fundraising."
Deb Smith asked Lonoconus to "keep them on the list. They can be removed later, but we should keep them on the list for further consideration."
ATHLETICS
The subject of athletics was already a bit charged going into last night's debate, as denoted by the presence of the Central Mountain High School football team, in-gear. The football players were not able to speak at the meeting despite wishing to, as public comments were not allowed, but did walk forward and presented written letters and a petition to the school board.
Deb Smith said, "We need to look at the administration of the athletics department so that we can eliminate some of these positions and save some money that's away from impacting the students. We have a full time athletic director, a half time athletic director, two part time support positions, and a secretary."
Smith advocated for either removing the full time athletic director and keeping the other positions, or keeping that position and removing the half time director and the two part time positions. This caught the ire of board member Roger Elling, who said, "If we do start looking at that, who's going to set up the games?"
He continued, "The problem with getting rid of the half-time position is that you need an actual administrator. You need the full time athletic director and you also need the hybrid principal-director position to take care of administrative issues, such as discipline."
Smith rebutted, "All four do a fine job – but we have only ever had a full time athletic director once in the past in Central Mountain's existence. I'm not saying we shouldn't have a full time athletic director ... but we need to choose. We are cutting some very important programs for kids, all kids: Music, art, phys ed, library – those are things that benefit every student in this district K-12. We are here to make the best decisions that we can make for the most possible students K-12. I personally feel that we need to look at how much it's costing to administer our athletics programs. Everyone needs to share the pain."
Board member Bo Miller then spoke up, asking that "on this particular topic, before we go into extreme depth on this, that we first review the Memorandum of Understanding that was provided to us tonight in greater detail regarding the pay freeze of the Act 93 administrators. Consider the impact that this course of action might have on that understanding ... out of respect for their support and respect that they have given us, please remember that this feeds into that."
That calmed the waters and all parties agreed to resume the discussion at next week's meeting.
THINGS TO ADD
Rosamilia also offered a controversial list of things to add to the list for consideration next week:
r The 25 percent reduction of stipends for coaches. "If we can't get them to reduce salaries, we need to cut that many assistant coaches instead," he said.
r Eliminate all district-paid cell phones.
r Eliminate junior high sports programs.
r Limit all sports teams to league games only.
r Freeze the purchase of equipment.
r Introduce a policy to have a maximum number of participants on all sport teams.
Tracy Smith also wants the board to look into ways for the administration to help the booster club presidents to obtain grants.
"They can't piggyback on the district's nonprofit status," she said, "but if we have to do these cuts, we have to help the booster clubs to help our students."
Bottorf added that the "fundraising coordinator might be able to help with this," while Miller suggested that "the Keystone Foundation's 501c3 could be a place to look," although this might run into issues with by-laws and the educational, not athletic, focus of the Foundation.
Attending last night's committee meeting were all board members with the exception of Eric Probert.
It will be decision time at next Thursday's board meeting, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. at Bucktail High School in Renovo.
That's when the school board will vote on a final preliminary budget, which then goes on public display for roughly 30 days.
The board is scheduled to adopt next year's budget – and institute final cost reductions – at its June 14 meeting.