Economic stimulus cash is headed Pottsgrove's way.
LOWER POTTSGROVE PA – A one-time federal economic stimulus infusion of $1.6 million, used creatively by the Pottsgrove School District, can lower next year’s projected budget deficit from $646,000 to $71,000, Business Administrator David Nester told the district Board of School Directors on Tuesday (April 28, 2009).
But the money would not reduce the proposed 2009-2010 property tax rate increase of 5.2 percent, Nester acknowledged, and some of it might be allocated to projects the board already decided not to pursue. While his recommendations were accepted by a majority, three obviously unhappy directors voted against them and board President Michael Neiffer warned more needed to be cut from the budget.
Neiffer’s challenge to administrators: within the next two weeks, eliminate another $300,000 in costs and trim the tax increase by about 1 percent. They won’t be cutting blindly, though. During the same period, at the urging of board Treasurer Fred Remelius, directors expect to guide district officials on what else they think can be sacrificed to meet the goal.
Nester noted his plan to use the stimulus bonus, authorized in January by Congress for distribution to the nation’s schools, broadly interprets some rules on how it can be spent. In some cases, he said, stimulus funds will pay for goods or services that would have come from other parts of the budget anyway, “while increasing the local money for other uses” like reducing the deficit.
His aim in applying stimulus funds, Nester told directors candidly, was to avoid costs that might haunt the board in future budgets. The district specifically wants to avoid hires represented by labor bargaining units, whose positions may not be easily eliminated in later years. “When funding dries up,” district Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis said, “we’re not obligated to keep anyone.”
“We don’t want something that would come back and bite us in two years,” Neiffer agreed.
In addition, stimulus cash could resurrect projects district administrators favor, like the installation of overhead projectors and technology enhancements at Lower and West Pottsgrove elementary schools, and improvements to the Pottsgrove High School athletic fields. Those have been hot-button issues among some directors, and Tuesday raised several objections.
Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ April 28 meeting):
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