SFASD Votes to Settle with GSK

The Spring-Ford Area School District voted unanimously on a settlement with GlaxoSmithKline at Monday night's board of education meeting.

The settlement includes a $47,500,000 assessment, a repayment of outstanding taxes of $6.5 million with no interest, the repayment ot be made in an initial installment of $3 million and then credits until repaid in the amount of $3.5 million over three years. The assessment will remain the same for a period of five years, according to the settlement.

Business manager Tim Anspach informed the board that it would take a $1,612,000 loss each year.

"That’s $1,612,000 that’s no longer to the benefit of our students and will also be on the backs of our community," said board member David Shafer. "It’s been a long process and this needed to come to a conclusion, but to me, this is a significant hit. No one here is saying it’s not, but it stinks."

Solicitor Marc Davis suggested in the prior October meeting that the original assessment by GSK's appraisers was $115 million, which is significantly higher than the final number.

"It’s terrible for the district and it’s a huge hardship," Davis said. "It’s easy to be critical of it unless one knows what the appraisals were. I do compliment the district in light of the hardships of what no one was happy with. In the context of what the appraisals were, I thought the board resolved it in as positive of a way as they could have."

Davis indicated Spring-Ford had two appraisers look at the assessment. He said the first appraiser came up with a lower number than the second. Both numbers were again significantly lower than GSK's. Board member Ed Dressler said the final number was aided by precedent from a similar assessment done on the Upper Merion School District.

"I don’t want to use the term good deal, but in terms of what we were appraised with, I think the board did as well or the best that they could have," said Davis. "It’s a result that’s favorable as we get under the circumstances."

Board member Donna Williams made a case in ending any bad blood between the two parties moving forward.

"While this is very difficult, there was a time period where we enjoyed this money very much," Williams said. "It’s important to remember that they send no children to school. They have their own police. They have their own fire coverage, or have donated handsomely to local fire companies. What they asked to do was what everyone has the legal right to do.

"They didn’t do anything wrong, immoral," she continued. "People that are making these decisions are reporting to a board of directors and they report to the stockholders. While no one is happy with this, we did the best we could get and we all need to go forward."

However, multiple other board members didn't buy it. Shafer said he wasn't going to play the "boo-hoo" card.

"Given the fact the president of GSK was kind enough to donate $5 million to the city of Philadelphia for their educational program – guess who paid for that," said board member Bernard Pettit. "We did!"

Board president Joe Ciresi commented that the board has other assessments that it must take a look at and applauded the hard work done by the current board, the current and former administration and the business office. Davis reassured the board of Ciresi's comments on further assessments.

"We have a number of these out there and there’s still some pain to go, but this was by far the most painful one," Davis said. "So, we did get past this dark day."