School Board Recommends Items for Budget Savings

The time for "easy" cuts is over, noted Perkiomen Valley School District Superintendent Dr. Clifford Rogers during Monday night's school board meeting.

Although the board approved a proposed final budget on May 7 in order to adhere to the Act I timeline, members are still grappling with how to close a $921,000 gap.

Items suggested for cutting expenses come from the "yellow" or "shared pain" list that emerged from where district residents evaluated ways to reduce costs or raise revenue in order to make up for the budget shortfall.

Board member Randy Bennett broke down the list into three sections, noting that the measures consist of a wage freeze, "soft" savings (meaning the value isn't definite) and eliminating programs such elementary school Spanish, seventh- and ninth-grade sports and the classroom portion of driver's ed. Other items include increasing bus ride times, eliminating 10-month clerical staff and stop mailing bus schedules, report cards and bus schedules (information would be available via the Internet).

After much discussion and pleas from parents and students to preserve the music program by not reducing staffing (slide 57 of the PDF presentation), the board recommended items that did not impact the school's curricular and extra curricular options.

The board's recommendations include bringing the life skills class back into the district (already in the approved, proposed budget), eliminating some school mailings,  not renewing membership in Minority Student Achievement Consortium, eliminating school support staff and 10-month clerical staff.

They did not recommend an item that is already in the approved, proposed budget -- reducing a position in the music program from full time to half-time, after the current full-time employee retires.

With those recommendations, the district still faces an approximate $7,000 shortfall. Business Administrator Jim Weaver noted that fund balance could be used to cover the amount, but board member Gerry Barnefiher noted that fund balance money was already being used on other projects. "As much as the $7,000 would help, there's only so much money in our savings account," he said.

Ideas for generating revenue for actitivities will also be examined. The board debated raising the activities fee (currently $50) across the board, adding a fee only if the student wanted to play sports or adding a surcharge to game ticket sales. A surcharge has already been added to art events, some board members noted.

District residents are invited to contribute ideas via the website.

The next budget presentation is June 4.