POTTSTOWN PA – The more the merrier, Pottsgrove School District Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis figures.

The district Community Budget Task Force officially gets under way Tuesday (Feb. 1, 2011) with an introductory meeting at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of Pottsgrove High School, 1345 Kauffman Rd., Pottstown PA. It’s being organized to provide public guidance on managing the district’s preliminary $58.5 million spending plan for 2011-’12, and already has more than 50 volunteers.

There’s room for others, Landis said in an e-mail distributed last week. All interested individuals need to do, he added, is show up.

“Many community members, parents and staff members have already signed up … The district invites any additional community members, parents and staff members who wish to participate to the meeting,” Landis wrote.

Members of the district Board of School Directors seemed pleasantly surprised when, during their Jan. 18 meeting, Landis reported the call for volunteers issued during November (2010) had yielded enough participants for eight to nine members each on several sub-committees. They are expected to review costs for energy and facilities, student transportation, educational programs and services, technology, and extracurricular activities.

Every sub-committee also will include a school board member and a district administrator. Their presence, directors said, is not to steer the discussion but to help explain why – primarily due to state and federal regulations – some district expenses can’t be cut. They’ll also ensure each group gets information it requests or needs to conduct its analysis.

Directors openly hope volunteers identify specific items or areas that reflect what board member April Kontostathis labeled as the “community appetite” for budget-cutting. Although the preliminary budget currently indicates a deficit of $1.2 million, Landis – at the board’s direction – will ask sub-committees to find about five times as much, or $6 million, in potential reductions.

Quietly, though, directors acknowledge the task force presents two political risks.

The first is the appearance that the school board is abdicating part of the governance responsibility for which directors were elected to a non-elected public assembly.

Directors should force cuts themselves, some critics already claim, or at least demand the administration recommend them. Supporters, on the other hand, see the task force as both a way to obtain taxpayer input and build consensus for what is anticipated to be a potentially painful process in which programs or amenities are discarded as unaffordable.

The second is that directors may anger voters by choosing, for even legitimate reasons, to overrule, ignore or delay task force suggestions.

Board member Nancy Landes and others have repeatedly issued a reminder that directors are looking for guidance only, and that they alone will have the final say on what, when, and how budget cuts are implemented. Detractors contend that’s a dictatorial stand. There are, however, mandated programs – special education tops the list – that directors have no ability to change even if the public overwhelmingly favors reducing them.

A state limit, called the Act 1 index, on the amount by which Pottsgrove may raise property taxes under next year’s budget is set at 1.8 percent, or about $75 on the average value of a district home. Special permissions, called exceptions, that the state might approve for Pottsgrove could double the increase to a maximum of 3.6 percent, according to Business Administrator David Nester. Last year’s taxes, by comparison, rose 4.4 percent.

To eliminate the deficit without budget cuts, Nester estimates, taxes must rise as much as 5.2 percent or $215 per average home. Every director wants to avoid that kind of hike, as well as the public referendum required to impose it. Most feel like board member Philip Keogh: “It’s going to be extremely difficult, I believe, to keep at 1.8 percent,” he said Jan. 18, “but I’d like to see us stay closer to that than go higher.”

The task force, no matter how many members it ends up with, has substantial work ahead. It will be asked to report, by April 12 (2011), on what cuts it recommends “while protecting and maintaining the integrity of classroom instruction,” Landis wrote, and what their impact may be, as well as what new revenue sources it may have found.

Related (to the Pottsgrove School District 2011-2012 budget):

• Still Time In Pottsgrove For Budget Volunteers To Enlist
• Challenge To Pottsgrove Budget Advisers: 10 Percent
• Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
• Senate Education Chair Preps For Voucher, Choice Battle
• School Board Questions Pottsgrove Recreation Costs
• Pension Reform Vote Could Benefit Pottsgrove, Others
• Notebook Worthy: News Reporters Made News Tuesday
• Pottsgrove Isn’t Waiting In Search For Budget Volunteers
• If You’ve Got A Budget Idea, Pottsgrove Says It’ll Listen
• Pottsgrove Seeks More Public Input On District Budget

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ meeting of Jan. 18):

• Still Time In Pottsgrove For Budget Volunteers To Enlist
• Blasting A Possibility, But Not Yet, At Ringing Rocks
• Challenge To Pottsgrove Budget Advisers: 10 Percent
• Best Guesses, Deficit Launch Pottsgrove Budget Season
• Pottsgrove Canceled Tuesday School Board Meeting
• Few Change Orders, So Far, At Ringing Rocks

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