Bensalem Board and Council Work Together

It may have taken two years to negotiations, but it's nice to see that a borough council and a school board from the same town can work together.

Deal will help district save money
The agreement involves fee waivers and drainage easements.
By JOAN HELLYER

The Bensalem School District will save “hundreds of thousands of dollars” from a deal recently reached between the school system and Bensalem’s municipal government, the school board solicitor said.

The township has agreed to help the district save money by waiving permit and application fees and other charges in connection with pending renovation and construction projects, solicitor Thomas Profy III said.

The projects include renovations at Cecelia Snyder Middle School off Hulmeville Road and the transportation center off Byberry Road and the planned construction of a physical education facility behind Bensalem High School, he said.

In exchange, the school district granted some easements at no cost to the township in connection with a road improvement project along Galloway Road, Profy said. The easements allowed the municipality to install drainage systems along the roadway where it borders district property, as required by the state, he said.

The one easement involves almost 100,000 square-feet of land at Galloway and Hulmeville roads at the southwest corner of the high school’s property, the solicitor said. The other involves about 7,000 square- feet of a 4.2-acre piece of undeveloped district property at Galloway and Richlieu roads, he said.

Profy said he started working on the deal with township solicitor Barbara Kirk in early 2007. They recently came to terms.

The Courier Times was unsuccessful in reaching Kirk for comment, after calls to her office at Rudolph, Pizzo and Clarke in Bensalem. District officials referred questions about specific amounts that would be saved to director of business administration Jack Myers, who could not be reached this week for comment.

The Bensalem school board approved the deal in June, and efforts are under way to finalize the agreement with township officials, the school board solicitor said.

Also as part of the agreement, the township officially transferred ownership of Samuel K. Faust Elementary School to the district. A township authority, which has since been dissolved, built the school in the mid-1950s, Profy said. The township held onto the property’s title until the district finished paying the loans that were taken out to cover its construction and various expansions, he said.