Goals, Goodbyes and Tax Caps in Pottsgrove

Pottsgrove Superintendent William Shirk.

Tuesday night's agenda was enough to put fear into the heart of any school board meeting veteran.

But to their credit, the school board took to the bit in their teeth and pushed ahead and we were done by 9:30ish.

Board President Matt Alexander thanked Diane Cherico and Rick Rabinowitz, who will be leaving at the next meeting, for their service.

Cherico opted not to run for another term, and Rabinowitz lost his bid for a second term by a mere 16 votes, according to unofficial results.

Both thanked fellow board members and the administration, and their families, for their perseverance.

The district also received a "clean" audit report on the district's finances, and Dave Nester and his team in the business office were singled out as being very good at their jobs.

Superintendent William Shirk outlined his goals for the coming year and his plan of action for achieving them.

You can find the details by clicking here.

In broad-brush terms, they are:

1. To increase student achievement
2. To improve professional development
3. To balance the 2018-19 budget while maintaining the integrity of classroom instructional programs and co-curricular activities4. To provide timely, relevant communication to each stakeholder group,

Also significant, was the board's vote to pass a resolution agreeing to cap any tax hike next year at the state-imposed index of 3.2 percent.

That does not mean that's how much taxes will go up with the next budget, only that any increase will not exceed that number.

And with that, here are the Tweets from the meeting ...

Question: What Takes Only 70 Minutes to Complete? Answer: A Pottsgrove School Board Meeting!

Photo by Evan Brandt

The members of the Pottsgrove High School Academic Quiz Bowl Team is recognized by the school board Tuesday for their Championship Season.

It's not definite that Pottsgrove School Board Vice President Al Leach was trying to break a land-speed record running Tuesday night's meeting, but he may have done it anyway.

By 8:40 p.m., Leach had burned through the entire six-page agenda, setting a new standard for Board President Matt Alexander when he returns to run his next meeting.

Much of the meeting was taken up with congratulations.

Photo by Mike Neiffer.

Alexi Neiffer is congratulated by Pottsgrove
Superintendent 

William Shirk Tuesday night.

Custodian Marvin Thrasher was congratulated on his retirement.

The Academic Quiz Bowl team took a bow for their championship, and seemed glad not to have to answer too many questions.

Members of the Pottsgrove High School Chorus were congratulated for their achievements, which were continuing at rehearsal, thus preventing them from being there to receive said congratulations.

And Alexi Neiffer, a Pottsgrove student at the Western Center, was congratulated for winning a commercial art contest at a art college in Philadelphia.

Much of the rest of the meeting was fairly routine, with the most important nugget being Business Manager David Nester's report that the budget gap is down from about $2 million to closer to $900,000, dropping potential tax hike from 3 percent to 2.4 percent.

Superintendent William Shirk also reported meeting with state Sen. Robert Mensch who reported that the state assembly is taking "no action" on many of the items of interest to school districts -- that being property tax reform, charter school reform and pension reform....

Here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Pottsgrove Has Zero Tax Hike Budget in Sight

Charged with finding a way to craft a 2016-17 budget without raising taxes, its looking like the Pottsgrove Schools Administration will get a a lot of help from the state.

Expecting maybe $100,000 more than the previous year's budget, the state spending plan that went into effect without Gov. Tom Wolf's signature will actually be providing about $300,000 more, Business Manager David Nester told the board Tuesday night.

Back in February, Nester presented the board with a first budget look that indicated the possibility of a 2 percent tax hike -- an increase of $91 for the average district homeowner.

The board in turn, instructed the administration to return with budget scenarios for what it would take to get to a 1 percent tax hike, and to a 0 percent tax hike.

Having already begun work on that charged with a series of potential savings initiatives -- some of which are outlined in the Tweets below -- Nester said the news out of Harrisburg was, for a change, better than expected.

"I think we can get close to zero," Nester said. "How close, until we get more answers, I can't tell you. I'm confident we can get under 1 percent, but how close we can get to zero, I can't tell you yet."

One key factor may be how quickly the state can act on its plans for PlanCon, the funding mechanism to provide partial state reimbursement for school construction costs.

Nester said the Pottsgrove budget has $850,000 in this line, but he is concerned about whether the state can borrow and distribute the $2.5 billion will be a budget factor for Pottsgrove.

If it comes during the current budget year, it will be a boon, but if not, it may create an $850,000 shortfall in the 2016-17 budget.

"Right now we're feeling positive, but whether we can get close to zero, depends on how much things change," he said.

Nester's advice, which the board took, is to present the proposed final budget to the board at its next meeting. That will have the latest figures available, allow the budget to be advertised and "available for public inspection" and still provide 45 days to make further adjustments.

"I've been involved wit this process for four years," said Pottsgrove Schools Superintendent Rick Rabinowitz, "and in my experience the proposed final budget always gets reduced, and I have to say these numbers certainly are encouraging."

Here are the Tweets from the meeting.

Budgets, Graduations and a Smidgen of Grammar

The  new "Arts and Athletics Entrance" to Pottsgrove High School has a nice feel to it.

Tuesday night, the Pottsgrove School Board engaged a fairly lengthy agenda on subjects that ranged from high school construction, to Keystone Exams, to graduation requirements to class rank to the budget.

That menu would be enough to stop any calorie watcher cold, but to their credit, they moved through things at a brisk pace, giving items a fair amount of discussion without dwelling too much on one subject.

It strikes me, for what that's worth, that the new members of the board are starting to get a feel for how things work and where their mojo is best put to use.

That said, I would never want it said that I delayed you from the fascinating Tweets of last night's meeting, so without further ado.

New Pottsgrove School Board Lumbers into Office With Marathon Meeting, Rabinowitz is President

Photos by Evan Brandt

Newly elected Pottsgrove School Board members take the oath of office Tuesday. They are from left, John Rossi, Al Leach, Jim Lapic, Bill Parker, Ashley Custer (hidden) Patti Grimm and, holding the Bible on which their oath was sworn, District Solicitor Marc Davis.

The newly re-organized Pottsgrove School  Board launched itself with what might be called an "epic" meeting; epic in the sense that it lasted about four hours, and that was just the public session.

Rick Rabinowitz is the new

Pottsgrove School Board President

They were all settled into what may well have been another "epic" closed-door executive session when the few weary survivors of the public meeting stumbled, bleary eyed, to their cars.

The first order of business was the election of new officers and, as many board observers expected, Rick Rabinowitz was chosen as the new board president.

His running mate in the previous election, Matt Alexander, was selected as vice president.

While that might have been enough headline fodder for some school boards, Pottsgrove just kept them coming.

Next up, the board voted to keep the coming year's tax increase at 3.1 percent or lower; not a hard promise to make as many of the new members ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility.

But new board member Bill Parker's proposal to direct the administration to develop the next budget by "starting at zero" failed to get even a second vote of support.

Parker then suggested that the board review any part of the high school expansion and renovation project not yet begun with an eye toward stopping work before it starts -- which means the new turf fields and renovation of the administration building.

But Rabinowitz and solicitor Marc Davis pointed out that the district has already signed contracts and any savings resulting from the breaking of those contracts could evaporate or even be exceeded by legal fees and damages that could  result.


With financial matters dominating the discussion, topics covered included the audit, which shows a surplus of more than $13 million; the final $7.5 million borrowing for the last portion of high school renovation; the high cost of retirement; and even some talk about the financial value of teachers attending professional conferences.

It's going to be an interesting year folks. It's now after 1 a.m. and I have an early start and another school board reorganization tonight, so here are the Tweets from the meeting.