From the BCCT.
Panel: Schools will close
By: MANASEE WAGH
The Intelligencer
The full Centennial school board will consider the options at a meeting later this month.
Centennial School District will need to close two or even three of its elementary schools in coming years, the district's operating committee said Tuesday night.
Using suggestions from architects, the panel said the only way to provide a quality education to all of its 2,600 K-5 students is to pare down the existing six buildings.
The committee and other board members considered several options that are variations on architectural firm Burt Hill's 13 original suggestions.
The new options and their costs, which don't include revenue from selling some buildings, range from keeping four K-5 schools and selling two at a cost of $72.8 million to keeping three schools and selling three at a cost of between $65.1 million and $78 million, depending on renovations and reconstruction.
Board members quickly eliminated an option of using an existing school, building a new school and selling the remaining five at a cost of $71.8 million.
Most of the committee's attention was focused on the three K-5 schools options, in part because they would be arranged centrally across the district. Keeping Willow Dale, McDonald and Stackpole elementary schools means no student would be more than 2 miles from their elementary school, said architects.
Maintaining three schools would save the most money in operational costs - $2.5 million annually, said Victor Lasher, the district's director of facilities.
Board and resident opinions varied widely, from keeping four schools to waiting another two years to gather more information about the educational impact of each option.
Considering a four-school option is not cost-effective in the long run, said committee member Cynthia Mueller. It would require more staff and renovations to more buildings, and full-day kindergarten for all four schools wouldn't be financially possible, she said.
Committee member Betty Huf said she would rather keep four buildings than only three, but she didn't want to pursue any option too quickly, a sentiment that several community members echoed.
Resident Janet Richard said she doesn't want the board to move any of those options forward until the board considers the input of a community task force to study the elementary issue.
"There are people here who want to be involved. Even if it takes a two-year commitment, the community will have ownership of this," she said.
Superintendent Sandy Homel said that she has been talking to home and school association members to help provide ideas for the elementary schools as plans develop.
Regardless of what the full board eventually decides, district officials say that two or more schools will have to go.
Business director Tim Vail has projected that expenditures will outpace revenues in the next five years, with $5.8 million devoted to the schools' annual upkeep and needed renovations. The district also has to worry about a new teachers contract in June 2010 and a jump in district contributions to the Public School Employees' Retirement System by 2013.
The committee will revisit plans for the three K-5 school options at its next meeting, expected to be held later this month.
Details of the new plans are to be posted soon on the district's Web site at www.centennialsd.org.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
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2 comments:
From today's BCCT. Why isn't there much talk, if any, about this kind of merger for Morrisville? The police budget is roughly $1.5 million of the $4 million borough budget. That's almost 40% of the budget, and about 25 tax mills.
Council votes to create regionalization panel
By: DANNY ADLER
Bucks County Courier Times
Langhorne's council on Wednesday voted to create an official police regionalization committee to further investigate the feasibility of combining forces.
Langhorne's resolution creates a committee able to make official recommendations to the Langhorne, Langhorne Manor and Penndel councils, solicitor Catherine Anne Porter said, and the committee's meetings will then be subject to the provisions of the state's Sunshine Act.
Penndel and Langhorne Manor will have to pass similar resolutions in order complete the formation of the committee.
The committee will consist of nine representatives, three from each borough, and will be a combination of mayors and council members. It also sets a quorum at five members, with at least one member present from each borough.
The move comes a week after solicitors said that meetings of a group of officials (although not enough from any municipality to create a quorum) discussing a state report on police regionalization were not subject to the Sunshine Act. At their meetings, the group allowed residents to attend, but they couldn't speak up or ask questions, which the state law allows.
Oh, I think I know why.....
We'd lose local control of our police force.
Our police/crime issues wouldn't get enough attention if we were swallowed up into a bigger regional police force.
The surrounding communities wouldn't want to merge police forces with us because there's a perception of higher crime here than in, say, Falls or Lower Makefield. But, can't borough council at least authorize its solicitor to explore such a merger?
And wait - wouldn't we be able to take advantage of expanded police programs that we now can only dream of in Morrisville?
And didn't a lot of people grow up in much larger communities with much larger police forces with no adverse affects?
And sure, there may be an adjustment period, but wouldn't we all just adapt? This is the "real world", after all. Things happen, and you deal with them.
Plus, isn't consolidation like this "inevitable"? Small towns can't continue to pour money into maintaining their own high-overhead, low economies of scale police departments with their own separate chiefs, squad cars, uniforms, firearms & ammo, etc. The same applies to borough councils, municipal work forces, business managers, etc. We're in a crisis here. Something's got to give!
Maybe the state should just come in and take over our police department. Conventional wisdom says that's possible and that it will solve all our problems.
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