POTTSTOWN PA – As they listened to administrative comments during their meeting Tuesday (Feb. 14, 2012), members of the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors were keeping their fingers busy, too.

Earlier in the evening, directors gave the Pottsgrove School District’s official approval to the 2012-2013 budget of the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit, the countywide schools’ partnership through which the district purchases some goods and several services. MCIU by-laws require not only a voice vote on its budget, but also that each director complete and sign an individual ballot.

So while other business was being conducted, board members were simultaneously signing. Board President Michael Neiffer tried to be polite about the distraction. He held up a paper ballot for the audience at Pottsgrove Middle School to see, and explained the procedure. Board members were done, and attentive, by the time public comments were offered.

MCIU’s budget consists of four components. For next year, it will spend:

• $1,030,789 on general administrative services; Pottsgrove pays no share of those costs.
• Curriculum, instruction and professional development is budgeted at $2,338,776; Pottsgrove’s share, $1,300;
• Legislative and grant development, $294,115, Pottsgrove’s share, $3,539; and
• Technology and information sciences, $4,507,180, with Pottsgrove’s share as $24,139.

Pottsgrove shares of these costs do not include the tens of thousands of dollars it pays MCIU annually for services like special education, district Business Administrator David Nester noted.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ Feb. 14 meeting):

• Pottsgrove Multi-Tasks Through MCIU Budget Approval
• State Suspends $3.2M In Ringing Rocks’ Reimbursement

Photo from Google Images