School Board to Form Community Budget Task Force

The West Chester Area School Board voted on Monday night to form a Community Budget Task Force to look for ways the school district can save money and become more efficient.

The board formed a similar task force in 2009 when the district faced a budget deficit similar to this year’s $8 million shortfall.

“We did some brainstorming,” said district superintendent Dr. Jim Scanlon.  “Then we came up with five areas we need to look.”

Those five areas include class size, revenue, instructional programs, non-instructional programs and space consolidation.  Each category will be formed into a committee under the task force charter.

“We want to look at the impact of increasing class sizes by two or three students,” Scanlon said.  “We also want to look into selling advertising in the schools, activity fees, before and after school programs and a fee for full-day kindergarten.”

Scanlon also that just because an item is talked about doesn’t mean it will happen.

“We’re going to look at what’s mandated and what’s not and see how we can do them efficiently,” Scanlon said.

Several members of the board also mentioned that the district should set guidelines for what numbers the task force should try to hit.

Right now there are three possibilities on the table: a zero percent property tax increase, an Act One increase of 1.4 percent or an Act 1 exception increase of 2.8 percent.

With no tax increase the deficit would be around $8 million, at 1.4 percent that number falls to $4.9 million and at 2.8 percent the number drops even further to $3.1 million.

“I think the task force ought to prepare numbers for a zero percent tax increase,” said board member Jeff Seagraves.  “That way people will know what that looks like.  If we don’t, then I think we aren’t being transparent.”

“I think we should give the task force direction,” said board member Jim Davidson.  “They can’t have success without a goal.”

Board president Dr. Ricky Swalm that letting the task force know what number to shoot for was a “critical cog.”

“We can’t afford to wait,” said Davidson.  “This is something we need to tackle in September so that we can take a step forward.”