T/E School Board Approves Plan to Save Money, Jobs

The Tredyffrin-Easttown School Board of Directors unanimously approved a labor contract amendment  that will save the district $450,000 in the coming year and allow members of its custodial, maintenance and food service workers union to keep their jobs for at least one year.

Another proposal to lay-off T/E Non-Instructional Group (TENIG)workers might have saved more money, but raised other concerns. In the end School Board members voted 9-0 to keep current TENIG workers in place in exchange for wage concessions.

"If we outsourced, we were told we could save as much as 900 thousand.  They're giving up their raises and some other changes with that program will save the disrict zbout 450 thousand dollars, so its still a good savings for the district, " School Board President Karen Cruickshank said after the meeting.

"Basically that group has agreed to give up their entire raise for next year. That's basically the long and the short of it.....They came to us with that offer, we formally accepted that offer tonight,..so that means next year they're giving up their entire 4.5 percent raise," Cruikshank said. "That was part of the agreement that if they gave up all of their raises for next year (that) we would agree, just for next year, not to do any outsourcing."

The vote comes as the school district faces a budget shortfall of more than two million dollars and taxpayers face a tax hike of up to 3.7 percent, or $171 per year on average.

The final version of the budget will be voted on when the board meets on June 13th. Cruikshank said nothing in terms of the ultimate amount of a tax increase is final until that vote is taken. She said the budget gap will be closed one way or another. "There's still a gap. The gap continues to narrow. We're still waiting to see if the state will give us back some thar additional monies they took from us. So we still have a gap at this point, but we've closed it and right now we'll take what we to need from our fund balance."

"You prefer not to take money from  your fund balance because you don't want to pay operating costs out of that, but you  know if you need it to to close a funding that gap,  you do, and that's what we will be doing for next year if we need to." Cruickshank said.

"There's opportunity for the state to come back before that date and tell us they're gonna give us some money so that number could change."

Governor Tom Corbett's proposal to slash one billion dollars in state funding to school districts is currently the center of heated debate in Harrisburg.

The T/E School Board will vote on a final 2011-2012 budget, including a tax increase, on Monday June 13th. The 7:30p.m. meeting will include an final opportunity for public comments on the budget. The meeting has been moved to the Conestoga High School auditorium to accommodate the expected large crowd.