School Board Meeting 2-26-07

Thanks to Brad Moulton for forwarding his notes from last night's Nazareth Area School Board Meeting. You can also read JD Malone's article in the Express-Times (here and a list of exceptions here) and Kelly-Anne Suarez of the Morning Call (read it here).

Meeting was short and sweet. But that doesn't mean there weren't some interesting developments....For those of you interested the Board Agenda is available here.

Ms. Callie, Mr. Pennington & Mr. Audenreid were absent. Minutes of last meetings approved. During questions of agenda items, I asked about Section VI, item I. which was the new admin position to be assumed by Ms. Grube. I asked two questions:

1. Would Ms. Grube's position at the HS be back-filled or was her position at the HS to be eliminated? Dr. Lesky said it would be eliminated
2. I followed that up questioning whether Ms. Grube would be the person I could ask about how we're going to handle the transportation issues arising from the new IS school. Given that past responses have been "were looking at staggered schedules", I wondered if this was something they were planning for. Apparently, they had a meeting today (Transportation Committee, 5:30 p.m. - 2/26) regarding this very matter. NASD has to set the bell schedules for the different schools (K-3, IS, MS, HS) and then discuss with Jennings.

After that, there was no community corner (there were only about 10-12 people in the audience) questions. They buzzed through the agenda items pretty quickly with some notable votes.... All votes were in favor (unanimously) with the exceptions below:

Section V., item E. was voted NO by Mr. Maher. This was to approve the operating budget of the Colonial IU 20 for 2007-2008, in the amount of $2,746,420, of which NASD's approx contribution would be $29,502.

Section VI, item I (Ms. Grube's admin position). Voted NO by Mr. Maher

Section VII, item D was voted NO by Mr. Maher. This was to award a bid to 5 Star Iternational of Harrisburg, PA for the purchase of a 2007 model twelve-foot van delivery truck in the amount of $49,599.

The summary of referendum exceptions was presented. I think it will be (if it's not already there) on the NASD website (they were not on am Tuesday, but ET link above has a list, other Act 1 related information is available here) so I won't go into details except these:

NASD has applied for the entire exception enchilada. It's $2,364,913. According to Mr. Maher this is just under a 3 mills or approx 7.6% increase in taxes including the 4.2% index we're already talking about. Now, the board was quick to point out that might not, probably won't, have to use this, but we need to make sure all of the bases are covered in case we need to. Again, Dr. Lesky "blamed" increasing special education costs which represented $785,068 of the total, the majority was $1,436,177 for school construction - A (grandfathered debt).

Dr. Lesky gave his Superintendent's Report. The one notable item was that NASD may have to return $47K that was given to the district for all day kindergarten. This money was/is to be used specifically for all day kindergarten. NASD is looking at options to use the $, but it was stressed we don't promote programs simply to use money that we are given.

During the final community corner, there were a few comments by a community member and myself.

One community member asked about the plain language wording of the Act 1 referendum question. His point was shouldn't it be stated at what point people pay more or pay less if the Act 1 referendum is passed. At the Act 1 tax commission meeting it was stated that there was a "break even" point. (All this information is available on the district website too). I cannot remember the number right now (the MC noted $54,000 and under pay less, over pay more), but basically if you owned a qualifying house and made below the break even point, you paid less taxes overall. If you owned a qualifying house and made above the break even point, you paid more taxes overall. If you were a renter, you basically paid more taxes regardless. Ms. Rishcoff stated that the state has "final say" on wording of the referendum questions but she/they would see what could be done about adding the above language to the referendum question.

The same community member asked about Section VII, item C (which the board passed) which authorizes the admin to submit to the PA Dept of Ed, a Self-Certification Application for a Non-Reimbursable Construction Project, for the installation of a synthetic turf field at the NASD HS Stadium as well as related work for a total estimated cost of $1,200,000. This community member wanted to know whether the $1.2M was part of the overall $58M MS project. It is NOT. However, Mr. Keller was quick to point out that this is not "just" for the turf field but for the site prep work, sidewalks, fencing, etc. He said that the turf portion was approx $400,000 (we probably could compare this to what Easton is looking at, knowing they are getting a turf field as well).

I asked about the fields that were going to be built on the Calandra's land but now will not be built there. I was told that NASD is currently looking for other sites but as of yet had not found any (or made any decision towards that goal).

My last question was about the MS schedule. Given the VERY tight schedule that was presented at the Act 34 meeting (go out for bids in April, award in May), I asked how are we doing with respect to schedule. I was told we are a month behind and that bids would go out in May, with awards in June. I followed that up with how does that impact our "move in" date for the MS because the original schedule had construction completed in July 2009, move in/start classes Aug 2009. Dr. Lesky said we may have to delay move in but they were more concerned with "doing it right" (the construction project).

The meeting ended at 8:15PM.