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Schools

New Central Bucks School Directors Take Their Seats

One of their first tasks was to vote on an initial preliminary budget for the 2012-2013 school year.

The Central Bucks School Board on Monday unanimously re-elected Paul Faulkner as board president and Geri McMullin as vice president after a Bucks County Court judge swore in six newly elected school directors.

Judge Jeffrey L. Finley swore in board veterans McMullin and Jeryl P. Wohl and new school directors James R. Duffy, Joseph M. Jagelka, R. Tyler Tomlinson and Kelly E. Unger. Wohl was elected to a two-year term, while the others were seated for four years.

The board members then voted unanimously to post an initial preliminary budget for the 2012-2013 school year on the district’s Web site, www.cbsd.org.

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The budget calls for a 2.74 percent increase in spending, but Superintendent N. Robert Laws said the district intends to bring the proposed increase down 1 percent before the budget comes to the board for a vote next spring. That means cutting roughly $2.8 million from the $288 million proposed budget.

“Believe me, we’re pretty happy with this,” said David Matyas, district business administrator. “Typically, a first look at the budget is much higher.”

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The district is required to keep tax increases within the rate of inflation according to a state law called Act 1. That rate for next year is 1.7 percent, but the law also allows additional increases for exceptions such as special education costs and the district’s required contributions to the Pennsylvania State Retirement System on behalf of its employees.

Matyas said the district would not qualify for the special education exception next year but would qualify for the retirement system contribution exception.

Without the exception, the district could raise taxes by 2.05 mills, generating nearly $3.3 million in revenue, according to Matyas. With the exception, the allowable increase would rise by 1.14 percent to 2.84 percent, which is equivalent to 3.4 mills and would generate $5.4 million in revenue.

“If we go over that number, we need to go to referendum,” Matyas said. “We pretty much know what the answer to that would be.”

Laws said the district has “full intentions of working within the Act 1 limit without exceptions.” He said the board would have a lot of work ahead of it to get $2.8 million out of “an already lean budget.”

Matyas said the district is working to save costs by eliminating 250 positions over three years, cutting transportation costs, copier expenses and energy consumption. It also is eliminating curriculum with decreasing demand, freezing school budgets and reducing conference expenses, as well as eliminating internship and partnership programs while “protecting the core” of curriculum and instruction.

Last spring the school board voted to outsource 37 bus driver jobs, saving the district an estimated $150,000 a year. Some drivers sat in the audience at Monday’s meeting wearing “No Outsourcing” stickers.

Matyas said teaching staff cannot be reduced for economic reasons.

In addition to reducing costs, the district also plans to look for ways to increase non-tax revenues, he said.

Prior to Matyas’ budget presentation, Laws presented McMullin with a Distinguished Service Award from the executive board of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association for 28 years of service to the district.

He also presented Faulkner with a clock for his service as board president in 2011 and outlined the board’s accomplishments under his leadership. They included the successful negotiation of both a new teachers contract and a new support staff contract, and a spending plan that was $2 million less than 2010.

“Everything we accomplished this year was a we. It’s not me. It’s just a phenomenal group of people,” Faulkner said, referring to both the school board and the administrative team. “I tip my cap (to you) for making the role of president as easy as it is.”

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