Community Growth and School Funding

From the BCCT. The graphics from the story are pretty compelling. Take a look at the Bucks districts vs. the Montgomery districts.

Growth at issue in talks
At the heart of Souderton’s contract dispute is whether its growth is helping or hurting its ability to pay teachers more.
By RICH PIETRAS

When weighing the salary issue that remains a big part of the Souderton school strike, the district and the teachers union are telling taxpayers to look at two different things.

The teachers point out that Souderton is growing, and its residential tax base is growing with it. The district argues that while more people are moving in, the school district does not have the commercial tax base that other school districts in Montgomery County enjoy.

That disagreement lies at the heart of the salary dispute that has kept teachers and students out of school for a week. A fruitless negotiating session held Friday lasted only an hour and no new talks are scheduled.

“We acknowledge the school district is growing,” Jeffrey Sultanik, the district’s solicitor and chief negotiator said. “But in comparison to the other districts, we don’t receive the same commercial taxes as others.”

To bolster its case, the district points to the state’s “aid ratio,” a number that combines the number of students in a district, the amount of taxable real estate it has and how much income its residents report and puts it through a formula to help determine how much state aid it will get.

Michael Race, of the state department of education, said that while the aid ratio isn’t the sole factor for determining funding, it is a number that is useful in determining the rank of a district’s residential and commercial wealth.

According to the state, the aid ratio for the Souderton Area School District puts it 16th out of 21 Montgomery County school districts.

Gary Smith, who is representing the teachers union, said solely looking at the aid ratio today does not take into account incoming growth.

“There are certainly a lot of people moving in, but there’s a huge amount of commercial growth occurring right now along the 309 corridor. Souderton is going to be one of the busiest places.”

Smith also contends that the district pleading the case that it is a poorer district is simply not true.

While Souderton ranks 16th in the taxable real estate portion of the aid-ratio formula, it ranks 13th in the personal income category.

While the district says it can’t afford the teachers’ 8.2 percent average salary increase proposal over the next four years, Smith contends the total taxes collected in the district rank seventhhighest in Montgomery County.

The union also contends the school board, which has offered the teachers 2.5 percent over three years, has refused to dip into a nearly $17 million reserve fund to help with new teacher contracts.

“What we’ve found out is Souderton has somewhere between $17 [million] and $20 million in reserved funds, which is around 20 percent of their expenditure. But the Pennsylvania Department of Education advises school districts to hold between 5 and 7 percent of their expenditure in a rainy day fund.”

Sultanik agreed Souderton has a large reserve fund and said the district was willing to spend “some” of that money on new contracts.

“This money is allocated for specific purposes,” Sultanik said. “When you have 7,000 students housed in many buildings that need money for upkeep, and you are also building a new high school, all districts need a fund balance to deal with.

“The fact that we have a savings account, does not mean we spend it all on teachers.”

And if all the statistics, reserve funds and salary demands seem high, the stakes might be higher.

“We have three contracts up, not just one,” Smith said addressing the situation with the teachers, secretaries and aides that have been without contracts since June. “If any of those contracts are not settled, they won’t be opening that new high school next year.”