PHOTO PROVIDED Devopar Consulting’s President/Senior Consultant Chris Celmar is pictured during a presentation to the Keystone Central School District Board of Directors at its voting session Dec. 11. The board ultimately voted down the firm’s proposal to conduct a staffing study in a 3-5 vote.

MILL HALL — In a 3-5 vote, the Keystone Central School District Board of Directors voted down the recommendation from its administration to utilize a consulting firm to conduct a staffing study.

Instead, the administration will conduct a study and provide the board with any recommendations that may be needed to right-size following a decline of over 400 students within the last five years.

Prior to the vote, the board heard from the recommended firm, Devopar Consulting, about its scope of work at a cost not to exceed $12,000.

The presentation, made by the company’s President/Senior Consultant Chris Celmer, outlined the work the company would do beginning in December until roughly February.

This included reviewing data such as student population, staffing, certifications and a tour of each school building.

Celmer said the tours would help Devopar see if the data they reviewed matched what they saw in person.

Celmer told the board he and the other members at Devopar created the company as a catch-all for reviewing staffing needs.

“As a former superintendent and assistant superintendent working in some very tough situations, I was always frustrated because there were times when you needed consultation. But it was very siloed. If you needed something on the academic side you go here, if it was something finance, you had to go there, operations you had to go here,” he said. “The premise of Devopar is to try to have individuals in each area of school operations both academic and finance. Because academics and finance have to be linked for a district to move forward.”

Celmer noted Devopar was currently working with about 40 school districts.

During board discussion, Superintendent Dr. Francis Redmon noted — because some members at its work session the week before were concerned over receiving only one firm to consider — the voting session included information from the Pennsylvania School Board Association outlining work it could do for a staffing study.

Redmon said comparing Devopar and PSBA was not easy, noting their scope of services was different.

“PSBA’s proposal is to do a kind of ‘desk data’ study. We send them all of the data, they do some comparisons and they tell us the results of those comparisons. Where you hear the presentation (Devopar’s) proposal would deliver a very different product to us,” he said.

Board members Dr. Bill Baldino and Mary Kramer spoke in favor of accepting Devopar’s services — with Baldino motion to accept the proposal and Kramer seconding.

Kramer said she’d researched the topic on her own following the board’s work session. She said Redmon’s assessment that the scope of work was worth the price was right.

She further said she wanted an outside company to conduct the study.

“I want it outside where the board and people cannot come back and say we’re biased. Because if you’ve watched the past year and a half of (board) meetings, I feel that’s what everybody on this board has been blamed with,” she said.

Baldino, who attended a conference with Redmon earlier in the year and heard a presentation from Devopar, said he felt there was a benefit for the study outside of just staffing.

He explained in his career he’d dealt with complicated situations and found new perspectives were useful.

“We found that getting a new set of eyes to come in often straightens things out. You don’t necessarily do what they say, but it gives you a new way to look at it,” he said.

He noted the cost was also “trivial” in comparison to the district’s $92 million budget — the majority of which is made up of wages and benefits.

The upcoming budget cycle, he added, was exactly why the board needed to make a decision now.

“Remember we’ve got a budget coming up and that’s on a timeline that we don’t control. We’re working on going down the drain with finances, we’ve got to find a way to economize and (Devopar) may be able to help us with that,” he said.

Many other board members said they didn’t feel the money should be spent on an outside firm with which the district itself could conduct the study.

“I personally feel that this district isn’t in any financial situation to fiscally make a decision to spend $12,000 that we can do inhouse,” Board Vice President John Miller said.

Board Member Manuel Rodriguez questioned if the board, instead, needed to look into why the student population was declining and how to fix that.

“I understand we could save more money than what we spend on the program. But instead of throwing money into the smoke and hopefully something comes back we can benefit from… that’s wishful thinking,” he said. “Right now, spending that money in hopes of saving some money when there’s things we can trim and look for in-house that we can for sure fix… I feel like we should retain that money and use it in-house somehow.”

Board Member Chris Scaff said he thought, when the board decided to consider the staffing study in November, it was by the administration and now an outside company.

“Back in November you (Redmon) asked us about doing a study but you never mentioned you wanted to hire a company. I was under the impression you were going to do it,” he said. “I think as a superintendent part of your job is to do this. I don’t agree or see a reason to spend $12,000 when you should know more than anybody where we’re at and what our deficiencies are and what our better things are.”

Redmon apologized for not being clear in November on the administration’s intentions, but said the idea to hire an outside firm was to combat any perceived bias.

“One of the reasons that I recall us expressing (that) was that it provides some support and protection for the district, not just me, but also the board from behaving in a way that could be construed as playing favorites,” he said. “I know for a fact that I can do this work and I will be unbiased and fair. But you know that we’re often judged in the court of public opinion and that will often go to accusations and bias or doing things incorrectly or not properly doing things despite the quality of work I might produce.”

Following board discussion the board voted 3-5, with Baldino, Kramer and Board Member Jeff Johnston voting in favor of the agreement with Devopar and Miller, Rodriguez, Scaff, Board President Elisabeth Lynch and Board Member Shelby Bohartz voting against.