One or more schools must go

From the BCCT.

One or more schools must go
Centennial anticipates uncontrollable costs the next five years and significantly higher contributions by 2013 for the Public School Employees’ Retirement System.
By MANASEE WAGH
STAFF WRITER

To most parents’ delight, the idea of a single elementary school went up in smoke.

However, Centennial’s not out of the woods yet.

A troubling financial outlook means one or more of the six current elementary schools will need to close within the next few years, said board members recently.

If nothing is done, the district’s expenditures would outstrip revenues every school year. By 2013-14 taxes would surpass the state mandated increase by about $7.9 million, according to projections from the district’s business office.

The administration says those numbers are conservative.

Projections even two years out show taxes surpassing the state-mandated limit by $1.4 million, assuming an Act 1 tax index of 3.9 percent for each year after 2009-10.

Under the state’s Act 1 legislation, school districts have to hold a public referendum to raise taxes more than 4.1 percent, which is unlikely since more than 80 percent of district residents do not have kids in public school, said school board operations committee members Cindy Mueller and Mark Miller at a recent meeting of the Courier Times editorial board.

“The Act 1 limit could change year to year. We don’t know,” board President Thomas Reinboth said Tuesday.

Over the next five years, Centennial anticipates uncontrollable costs, including a new professional staff contract next year and significantly higher contributions by 2013 for the Public School Employees’ Retirement System. Operating and maintaining all the elementary schools currently adds $5.8 million annually.

“A big wild card is the teacher’s contract we’ll be negotiating,” said Reinboth. The current contract expires in June 2010. “That could have a tremendous impact on the numbers, good or bad, but hopefully positively. We as a board will be reviewing these numbers at a finance committee meeting next week. I think it’s important for the whole board to review it,” he said. Total employee salaries and benefits represent about three-quarters of the budget. Teacher salaries and benefits are a large component of the total.

Revenue won’t keep up with expenditures, according to official figures, and the district doesn’t know enough details about how much the federal school stimulus would provide.

To save the most money in the long run, Miller and Mueller, who make up two-thirds of the operations committee, were pushing for a single $91 million elementary campus in Shenandoah Woods, a Warminster housing development for Willow Grove Naval Air Base before it closed. The federal government would have donated the land.

The campus was projected to save $2.2 million yearly, more than any other option that architects Burt Hill formulated, including renovating all schools. Constructing the single school in phases for an opening in 2013 would have reduced the gap in the budget from $7.9 million that year to $4.3 million, according to projections.

The existing elementary setup contains more than 60 unused classrooms altogether, said architects. With uneven class sizes and systems badly in need of renovation, the buildings cause an unnecessary drain on district finances, say board members.

Now the district and architects are going back to the drawing board to formulate other options besides the original 13 the board considered and discarded in the past month.

A more in-depth look at the financial plan will be discussed at an April 20 public finance committee meeting. It takes place at 6:30 p.m. in district offices at 433 Centennial Road, Warminster.