Pottstown Raises, Tax Breaks and A Little Mermaid

Six months and one school board election after punting on a decision to grant raises to administrators, and non-teacher-union personnel, the newly constituted board voted unanimously to provide 4 percent raises to all.

In August, former board member Polly Weand had made a strident objection to the raises and had predicted they would be adopted after her term was up.

She was right.

School Board member Kurt Heidel apologized that it had taken so long, but the raises are retroactive to July 1, so I'm guessing all will be forgiven.

Board member Susan Lawrence said she finds it "unconscionable that our support staff is not paid a living wage."

With those raises, the lowest hourly wage paid to that group of employees will be $11.22 per hour, according to the helpful spreadsheet provided as an attachment to the agenda by Maureen Jampo, who apparently understands that showing the current wage, and the new one, is helpful when assessing impact.

That same document indicated that the 18 administrators who do not have individual contracts with the school district received raises totaling $61,500 in new spending. The new salaries ranged from a high of $119,000 for Deena Cellini, human resources director, to a low of $64,000 for transportation coordinator Lisa Schade.

Seven of those 16 administrators now earn more than $100,000 per year.

Here is another way community members can

learn how to be more effective advocates
for the school district.

"I know a lot of people in Pottstown will say 'wow, 4 percent, that's pretty high,' but you all should know its unlikely there will be any raises next year, so think of this as a two-year raise," said Heidel.

The board also followed in borough council's lead and unanimously voting to forgive unpaid back taxes at the former Pottstown Plating works on South Washington Street in an attempt to get the potentially polluted property redeveloped.

The board further gave Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez direction to create a citizens budget advisory committee, although some on the board seemed to doubt many would be interested
Board member John Armato said the effort is worthwhile, even it the only benefit is greater awareness about the fiscal challenges faced by the board and the district.

Previous attempts to get input from the community have all fallen very flat.

Board member Ron Williams urged the community (and the media) to suggest potential members to Heidel, who had come up with idea.

But apparently, Heidel is only interested in ideas from residents, no matter how good the outside expertise.

As Williams requested, this reporter approached Heidel after the meeting and suggested Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of Pottstown Area Industrial Development, who might bring an economic development expertise to the discussion, and the Rev. Vernon Ross, who heads a large community church in town and once served as a school board member in Norristown, as possible advisory board members.

But Heidel said because they do not live in Pottstown, he did not think they would be right. "I want stakeholders," he said. Apparently, the fact that the school district is among the public entities which pay Lee-Clark's salary; and the fact that Ross has steadfastly resisted outside pressure and refused to move his church outside the borough, and is a proven fund-raiser and community leader, are not stake enough.

Ariel, Triton, Sebastian and Prince Eric prepare to perform for the board.

So the only budget ideas worth considering, according to Heidel, must come from inside the borough borders. How's that been working out for us so far?

Hopefully, he will continue to consider budget ideas from the district's superintendent, who not only does not live in Pottstown, but lives in a whole different county!

"But maybe other board members have other ideas," said Heidel, who has professed a desire to involve former board member Tom Hylton. Well, at least they all live in the borough.

And what would an early spring school board meeting be without an appearance from the district's performing artists? Boring that's what.

Luckily, the cast members of "The Little Mermaid," this year's district-wide music, which has nearly 180 students involved, was anything but boring in their preview

Below, amid the Tweets, you will find several videos of the two performance pieces they offered. They sounded great, so buy those tickets before they're sold out.

Pottstown Takes Expensive Step for Redevelopment

Pottstown Plating is located at the intersection of Industrial Highway

and South Washington St.

Rebuilding and redeveloping an old industrial town involves tough choices.

When an industrial company goes under, it means it has no money to pay employees, or for anything else -- particularly an expensive environmental clean-up.

So it's little surprise that when Pottstown Plating finally went belly up more than 10 years ago, it not only wasn't paying its taxes, or its water and sewer bills, there's no way it was paying to clean up the mess decades of plating operations had left behind at the South Washington Street facility.

As the unpaid taxes and fees build up, the potential for someone to come along and take on not only the liability for the environmental clean-up, but also the financial liability of the ever-escalating fees and taxes, dwindles.

Usually, to unlock this Gordian Knot, something has to give. Monday night, borough council indicated its willingness to not so much give, as forgive.

Even though Interim Borough Manager Justin Keller would not reveal the identity of the developer who is interested, brought through PAID Executive Editor Peggy Lee-Clark, council willingly voted unanimously to forgive more than $225,000 worth of unpaid taxes and water/sewer bills.

That's because they know that it may be the only way that property starts generating tax revenue again, and without that forgiveness, the numbers of uncollected taxes, funds and fines will keep growing with little hope of ever collecting it -- little more than numbers on a page.

The money is already written off, and so is not revenue expected for this year's budget. The mystery developers will still need to convince the school board to forgive another $308,000 that the property owes the school district to move forward.

Keller said that will be on Thursday's school board meeting agenda.

Before the forgiveness becomes final, the developers must present -- and council must approve -- a business plan for the property

Keller, noting that the developer has plans to invest $2 million into the property to get it back onto the tax rolls, said "quite frankly we're lucky to have a developer take on these risks and expenses,"

Apparently, council agreed. 

Here are the Tweets from the meeting: