posted by Joe Polk at 3:34 PM /
Citing concerns over future debt, school board members in Mt. Lebanon said Monday they will consider creating a committee to review budgetary issues looming in the next three years.
The board is poised to approve a nearly $80 million budget next week, which will include a 10 percent school property tax increase. Costs for the $113 million high school renovation and projected shortfalls in the Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System (PSERS) fund are driving the increase, officials said. Mt. Lebanon has about $75 million available for the high school renovation.
Read more: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_681918.html
The board is poised to approve a nearly $80 million budget next week, which will include a 10 percent school property tax increase. Costs for the $113 million high school renovation and projected shortfalls in the Pennsylvania State Employee Retirement System (PSERS) fund are driving the increase, officials said. Mt. Lebanon has about $75 million available for the high school renovation.
Read more: www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_681918.html
Labels: budget, high school renovation, pensions, school board, school district
7 Comments:
Let me get this straight. The committee will be formed AFTER the vote on Monday night? Isn't that a little late? I have been dreading Monday's meeting. It is going to be a sad day for Mt. Lebanon. Read all the charts and graphs on the home page of lebocitizens.com and maybe people will be motivated enough to come to Monday's meeting to voice their dissatisfaction. The numbers are all there.
Elaine Gillen
I agree with Elaine. Monday will be a very sad day. When will this foolishness end?
Someday we will have a community characterized by a pile of urban rubble. But in the middle of this vast wasteland there will be a new High School, glistening and towering above - like a beacon in the night, shining the way for our teachers to come forth and retrieve their cash from this non-stop ATM machine that we call our school district.
During last Fall's Candidate's Forum shortly before the General Election, Ms. Posti scoffed at Mr. Ostergaard for suggesting that the School Board should engage in long-range planning and budget forecasting. She noted that based on her *experience* such planning didn't have any place in operating a school district. "Its not like a business," she shrugged.
I remember my jaw dropping to the floor then and it still makes me short of breath even when I think about it now. The arrogance and the foolishness was both shocking and frustrating.
Many of us sat in that auditorium that night worried that without some real checks, balances and planning Lebo would fast become the unaffordable laughing stock. Unfortunately, we got there a helluva lot faster then even I anticipated. We are facing a 10% tax hike, increases in cost per student that average close to $1000/year and we have Board that can't talk to each other, let alone work together.
Ms. Posti, this IS a business - an $80 million business that also wants to take on one of the largest construction projects in our region since the Consol Energy Center.
Planning isn't just a good idea, it's absolutely imperative to sustain the operation of this business and its customer base. Stop burying your heads in the sand and start figuring out how to stop the bleeding.
The District Administration uses a Paint By Number approach to budgeting, that in recent year's has not served the Community very well. For example, here is last year's explanation from the "budget book" for the 0.3 mill tax increase:
Real Estate taxes, which make up 67% of this budget, reflects a 2.8% increase from the prior year in order to make up for the loss of other tax income and earnings on investments due to poor economic conditions in the economy. Housing sales have slowed to historically low levels and interest rates, while budgeted to be 1.5%, are lower and falling weekly. A .3 mill increase was needed to make up for these lower revenue projections.
Could we have not have looked at the expense side to see if we really needed the tax increase?
This year (09-10) the salary line is estimated to finish +/-$500,000 to the good, plus there is another $200,000 in a federal stimulus reserve which the Administration reports is also for salaries. Consequently, together we are $700,000 to the good in salaries.
The 0.3 mill increase was worth about $600,000. This indicates if we looked a little harder at some expense items we could have had a balanced budget without a tax increase.
Further, if we played it a little too close - there is still a never been touched $200,000 budgetary reserve baked into the budget, not to mention the millions of reserve funds the Administration has available.
I recently shared some additional thoughts on the budget with Ed Kubit in a letter based on the
04-29-10 proposed budget and March projected year end finanacial summary.
But Bill, raising taxes is easy. Thinking is hard work.
Why can't we start thinking about leaning-out the school district by eliminating non-value added activities and expunging the dead wood from our district's enormous payroll?
You guys mentioned running this undirected and mis-managed amoeba that we call our school district like a business.
*Does anyone have an interest in adding a scorecard goal to cut the budget by 10% per year?
*Does anyone have an interest in adding a rating and ranking process that will test teacher competence and drop the lowest 10% from our massive payroll each year?
*How about bringing service delivery to the educational process and start thinning the staff?
*How about increaing facility utilization? We don't need to build a new high school if we simply adopt year-round education and make a more efficient use of the sections of the building that are not presenting a problem.
Another thing - the pensions. I think that we should give our retired teachers the style of deal that the Congress offered Wall Street bankers - a 100% tax on their retirement pension, or in the alternative, they can settle for $0.25 of their benefits. Afterall, teaching is a calling, not a profession. They don't want to manage it like a business, so why should we continue to provide business-level benefits?
Retiring the author of the letter Kubit sent to the community would be a good first staff reduction. The letter claimed ML had a 20-year enrollment forecast but the Administration of the District was unable to produce that forecast. That sure ran Kubit's credibility down the drain in a hurry.
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