SF Finance Committee Shaves More off Budget

The Spring-Ford Area School District met for a regular meeting on Monday night and heard a few more committee reports in addition to the ones heard on the March 19 workshop meeting. Among the discussions were the budget, extracurricular successes and property items.

Board President Tom DiBello gave a presentation on the March 21 Finance Committee meeting, where the 2012-13 budget was discussed.

"We have been working on the budget for the last two to three months," DiBello said. "We were coming in at somewhere around $128 million, which is where we sat on Feb. 23. We made additional expense reductions and are now working somewhere around $126 million."

It was previously the budget was cut down to between $128.5 million and $127.7 million.

DiBello indicated the committee has one more meeting and will then come to the board with a recommendation to adopt a budget later in the year. The committee is happy to report they are on target to reach the timelines established by the state.

As always, DiBello said, the board is still on target to save approximately $1 million by using the outsourced janitorial service Jani-King.

"That money was redirected back into education this year," DiBello said. "The decision we made there seems to have been the right decision."

The committee also talked about updating five-year projections by reviewing goals from a budget standpoint. They just briefly talked about the town hall meeting planning in April, as well, although DiBello did not reveal a definitive date as of yet.

Board member Julie Mullin asked DiBello about the from last meeting concerning full wireless access to all schools in the district, as opposed to just the , , , and .

As the computers at the aforementioned schools are up for an upgrade this year, Director of Technology Steve Reynolds said it would be beneficial to go through the upgrade and install the wireless technology simultaneously at those schools, and to wait on the other schools until they are eligible for an upgrade.

Discussions ensued at the last meeting to simply spend the additional $200,000 (to make it $500,000) to do all the schools.

DiBello said it was discussed at the finance meeting and that the recommendation would be to move forward with the $300,000 for the aforementioned schools and to enter further discussion to figure out where to take the additional $200,000 from to install the wireless technology in the remaining schools.

"There's no harm in delaying in order to figure out the best approach," DiBello said.

The $300,000 for the designated schools was approved unanimously at the meeting and more will come on the remaining schools in the April meetings.

The Extracurricular Committee met on March 12. Board member David Shafer said the National Honors Society was presented and discussed at hte meeting. Sue Miscavage, who took over post for faculty administrator of the club in October, was there to present. Miscavage said there was a zero-balance in the club's bank account when she took over, and through fundraising efforts, the club now has $1,000 in the account. There are 76 new members (74 juniors, two seniors) as of March 1. Each member is required to do 30 hours of community service.

Athletic Director Mickey McDaniel also presented at the meeting, reporting on Senate Bill 200, which concerns concussions and traumatic brain injuries to students.

"[The bill] commences in July officially," Shafer explained. "We've already begun education on this in the district. Training is also going to include videos being worked on and communications to all coaches."

In short, if a student-athlete is removed from participation from a sport and has symptoms of a concussion, they cannot enter back in unless cleared in writing by a medical professional. This is done with all students’ health in mind.

McDaniel also presented on the new student activity fee, which is $100 for grades nine through 12 and $75 for all grades below. McDaniel said the school has collected $101,775, with 85 percent of it coming from the athletic department.

Spring sports tryouts yieled the following numbers:

• Baseball: 38
• Softball: 36
• Tennis: 28
• Boys Lacrosse: 35
• Girls Lacrosse: 36
• Boys Track: 85
• Girls Track: 75

Board Vice President Joe Ciresi gave a presentation on the Property Committee meeting. He said there were discussions on the possibility of a new Health and Fitness building at the high school, and the estimations would run the district between $2 and 3 million before they were equipped with the necessary utilities.

There are a new sign that will be placed in front of the high school, with all money being donated from Lifetouch. More to come on that project.

The softball scoreboard is in the process of being ordered for compliance with Title IX. Lights on the field are also going out to bid this month.

Improvements were made to the playground at , along with expansions to the driveway and parking lot. There is also a sketch that has been done for the entrance at . The staff at the school had full input on the project and told the district what they wanted. The team accommodated to what they wanted and the project will start soon.

There were also discussions on the arboretum behind the Ninth Grade Center. The garden has been there for almost half of a century.

"We're thankful to Gail Wellington from , who has taken [this project] on her own," said Ciresi. "She's working with [Bruce] Cooper. It will be rededicated in spring or early summer. We're working with the votech kids to redesign the look."

The district is waiting on appraisals from the old district office. The board decided, with the help of Solicitor Marc Davis, that since there is not currently an interested buyer, the board does not need to get a full appraisal on the building, but just an "opinion of value." The board motioned to slash the previous motion to get two appraisals on the building for a total of $7,000, and to only get one appraisal to not exceed $3,500 as a result of the discussion.

As of the meeting on March 26, the district has saved $250,000 on electric through its energy savings program, implemented by Cooper and his staff. The mild winter, Ciresi said, also helped to increase the savings. The district saved a total of $500,000 the previous year.

Finally, Assistant Superintendent Allyn Roche gave his monthly report. He said by August 2012, the district will be offering a Spring-Ford Virtual Academy as a cyber charter school.

"This has been several years in the making," Roche said. "It will be available to any students enrolled in charter schools and who live within the district. They can participate in Spring-Ford activities, such as prom and graduation."

There are currently 98 students enrolled in some sort of charter school program that live within the district. About half of those are enrolled in a separate cyber program.

Roche also explained the district is at 92.4 percent compliance with the health immunization requirements. is at 100 percent, and each of the other elementary schools have single-digit percentages left to go. The deadline for compliance is May 1, and Roche said the goal is to have noone on the non-compliant list.

PSSA makeups are being held this week for reading and math sections for grades three through eight and 11. All materials will be shipped out this week. Roche thanked the administration and staffs of the schools for professionalism during the testing. On April 16, grades five, eight and 11 will take the writing portion and on April 23, grades four, eight and 11 will take the science portion of the exam.

All agenda items were approved unanimously, including the approval of the revised student calendar for 2011-12. The original calendar reflected 184 student days and 195 teacher days. To date, the district has not found it necessary to cancel school due to inclement weather.

"The final calendar now contains 181 student days," the agenda said. "The last student day will be Friday, June 8, 2012; the last teacher day will be Monday, June 11, 2012. The approval is based upon the district not requiring the use of any snow or emergency days between the date of approval and the last student day. Should snow or emergency day(s) occur, the calendar will be revised to reflect 180 student days."

Absent from the meeting were Superintendent David Goodin, and board members Clara Gudolonis and Dawn Heine.