Southern York County Life

Regarding tax breaks…

Not all the businesses in Stonebridge got a break. The following are paying full fare today:

Home Depot
Ruby’s
Cracker Barrel
Hampton Inn

The only businesses that are getting a break are Oakworks, EPI and Baltimore Steel at this point. There might be a few others, but for the most part, the LERTA is over.

bikertrash - 18 February 2006 10:31 PM

who exactly names these board members to the coalition??  I didn’t see their names on my election ballots. 

Since the Tax Reform Coalition is comprised of concerned citizens, I assume its members vote for the Board members.  It is not affiliated with the government, so you won’t see their names on the ballot.

You can read more about the Coalition at http://www.nfdc.net/home/athame/about.html.

An article in the Weekly Record on Feb 7, 2006 —
SOUTH EASTERN SCHOOLS - The South Eastern Tax Reform Coalition is looking for input from district residents who are concerned about property taxes.
The group meets each Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. For details, meeting location and directions, call 382-4406.
The group is also seeking information on other tax-reform groups in Pennsylvania. If you know of a group, please call the number above.

Wow.  8 new students this year in SESD, I thought one of the big excuses to raise our taxes was all these new people moving in and having to pay for their children’s education.  Can that be right?  I wonder where all these new kids are going to school.

Saw this on the Tax Reform Coalition Website.

only $63,000 more dollars needed.  wonder how many moved in between 1995 and 2005??

I’m sure we can find out.  The SESD website only shows 2004 and 2005, those years show 1 student more in 2005 than 2004.  But I don’t know what LIU Mainstreamed means.

$63,000 for 8 students, so 2 more almost $80k.  Wouldn’t it be really neat to be able to have that money as a parent?  You could gather other families with children the same age and the same educational goals.  You could rent a space, buy the ciricullum you like, and still have a great salary for a teacher.  or if you didn’t want to you could go to a private school and spend less!  I really wish I could choose what to do with that money.

bevy, i was wrong it should be $72,000 for those 8 kids.  we pay 9,000 per child not 8,000.
i graduated in 1992 with 103 in my class and my wife has 165 in hers and she graduated in 1995. i just wonder what the growth numbers are for 95-05 and from 90-2010.  i’d bet enrollment has and will double.

It’s really hard for me to tell.  I tried to look at a few things on the SESD website.  I am confused.  When I look at attendance, then I read the attendance policy, it says they count students who are being homeschooled, tutored privately, enrolled in private schools.  I am also very confused on this page, http://www.sesdweb.net/375575817155150/blank/browse.asp?A=383&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=49978 what student tuition to other schools means.  And that 1.3 million $ increase in salaries and benefits.  I wonder how many new teachers they hired in that 1 year (comparing 04/05 to 05/06). 

Also, if you look more closely they say the cost per student for education is around 9 grand, but there is almost 2 grand per student in debt recovery (again, I don’t know if this is inculded in the 9 grand)

That is a big difference in class size, in just 3 years.  If I recall, isn’t that when Stewartstown station really started growing?  Did’t they have the initial batch of houses and during that period start the expansion?  I guess the next expansion was around ‘99?  Delta’s really growing now too, I was surprised to see how much!

BevyJean:

1. The increase in teachers salary and benefits had to do with contractual salary increases and the benefit costs going up. It was not so much about new hires although I am sure there were some.

2. Tuition to other schools… this is the money the district has to pay to schools that provide special services to our students that we can’t offer. For example, there is one student going to a blind school (80K++ per year). Some go to a charter school. Some have to go to a special school for special ed we can’t offer. We offer special ed classes that other school districts utilize as well and we get paid by them for the service.

3. Growth in SESD is far from over. There are several large plots available for development across the entire district. There are currently plans for up to 700 homes in the Delta area. EHT/HWT/Stew are pretty tapped out, but you never know. I doubt there will be another “Station” sized development in this area, but you never know. Depends on how locked up some of the farm land is.

Hope this helps.

Thank you Alex.  Where is this Charter school??  My nephew’s went to one in in MI, still ranked 3rd best school in that state after 5 years open

Perhaps with the growth in Delta/Airville, etc it would make sense to just do a new high/middle school near Stewartstown and let them have that one.  It is strange to me that the high school is so far out anyway (I know it’s because the district is pread out).  Of course, I am from another world (not Uranus either- behave).  If I had a car and my high school was that far from home, man, would I have gotten into some trouble!

I don’t know what charter schools are in the budget but I think there is more than one. As for building a new school, Stewartstown could not support a high school of its own. It would require a redistricting and that would never happen around here. Trying to combine elements of one district with another would be asking for war amongst the school boards!

What will probably have to happen is a new school in Delta. Either a second one or a new, bigger school. Maybe something similar will happen in Stewartstown eventually. They blew it with the high school and middle schools. They should have designed for growth. If it wouldn’t take so long to build, they should wipe the old ones out and start over, building an expandable school the next time. But we know they can’t do this in a summer so their only option will be more land, new building. Of course, they could then sell the old land for housing (sarcasm here...) and make a windfall profit.

If nothing else, a regional school district would be a good start and would allow them to spread out the students better. Something like Southern, South Eastern, Red Lion, Dallastown combined together. It would allow all of them to deal better with growth on the edge of their districts. For example, some students in EHT could go to Red Lion. Some in Hopewell could go to Southern. Or whatever makes the most sense. Then as new schools are needed, they could look to build them in areas that are more centralized to the heavy population centers, much like they did with the elementary schools.

Stewartstown had a high school until the late 1950’s when they combined all the schools into South Eastern School District and built Kennard-Dale. That is also when the one-room school houses faded away for good. They chose Fawn because it was central to the combined area. Yeah… one heck of a haul for people in the far reaches of EHT or Hopewell. I remember driving to school quite a bit my senior year.

The SESD budget also includes Auto Insurance.  I assume this is for ‘district’ cars, therefore, I assume we are also footing the bill for gas, oil changes and other maintenance to these cars as well as the car payments themselves.

I worked for a huge corporation that, at one time, had fleet cars that could be checked out by employees for company/business purposes, for example, attending a meeting in another county.  When cutting budgets became a way of life, the fleet cars were done away with.  The company found it was much cheaper to reimburse employees the federal per-mileage fee for using our own cars, rather than maintaining the fleet cars.  This is another way SESD could reduce expenses. 

One of my responsibilities was managing my department’s budget.  We did not tell our Corporate Finance dept. what we needed.  Corporate Finance gave us our budget and we had to work with it.  It was reduced year after year, so we just learned to work smarter.  The School Board is so far out of touch with the real world, it’s pathetic.  I realize much of the budget is contractual, but in the business world, employees pay a good portion of their health premiums.  Since SESD’s Business Manager couldn’t answer my question as to what portion (%) our teachers pay for their premiums, I’m assuming it’s not much.  When the next teacher contract negotiations occur, I hope the School Board looks at ways to reduce some of the contractual obligations.

Furthermore, many large businesses have done away with traditional pension plans.  I’m not saying our teachers shouldn’t have pension plans, but the Board needs to be creative in how/what is offered.  Actually, if the schools were managed as a business, we’d see all kinds of expense reductions.

marge, the insurance and vehicles the district owns are for maintience and courriers.  the district doesn’t own cars for people to take to meetings.  these vehicles are used for snow removal and for transportation to other district schools for repairs.  the one thing i disagree with is the fact that the maintenience guys drive the vehicles home everyday, like a company car.  however it is probably cheaper to allow the employees to drive them home then to build in indoor parking facility for those vehicles.

pboin, as per the renters paying school taxes through their purchases.  thats ridiculous because the people that own and pay school taxes are double dipped then, i shop at true value and help pay their taxes then have to pay my taxes.

I don’t think it would be right to charge a renter school taxes, their are many responsibilities that come along with being a homeowner.  Real estate/school taxes are one of them.  I think we’ve all been renters at one time in our lives, when I was a renter it was because I couldn’t afford the burdens that come along with home ownership.  It would end up being subsidized by some government program and we would all end up paying for it anyway. 

IMO, the assessment would need to be inline with the value of the property, you are trying to base it on the amount of children housed in that property, not the value of the property.  So I would argue you would have to have the same standard on all properties (rental or owned) and a family of 5 kids in a $100k would house pay more taxes than a 2 kid family in a $500k house, and what about those who have no kids?  I don’t think you could ever win that one because it is not based on the amount of children, it is based on the value.

Marge,

If I am reading your reply correct, you worked in a non-union company right? Your ideas for budget control might work. However, the teachers are unionized and are backed by a very strong national head. IF (and that is a big if) the school board was able to negoitate cuts in benefits, salaries and pensions, the only thing that would happen would be this school district would be left with the worst teachers in the area. Take a look at Baltimore and Philadelphia Schools and you will see the results of an undesirable school system for teachers. I for one would not like that. The regionalization, or county wide system would help with that problem, but would only go so far if surrounding regions or counties offered more in pay and benefits. It is a never ending cycle. I for one do not have an answer for it.
There is a reason that electrical, plumbing, pipe fitters etc..... unions are very hard to get in to. It is because the non-unionized companies do not offer the the pay and benefits that unionized companies do. There are exceptions to this of course, but are very few. It is natural for the best and brightest of any profession to gravitate to the most lucrative jobs.
The school district needs to learn, not from regular businesses but from businesses that manage to survive while employing union labor, how to survivie and keep costs low. I manage a huge budget in a union setting, and can tell you there isn’t going to be an easy solution. Starting with controlling what you can outside of contractual expenses is a start, but those are the cuts that will hurt the kids the most. Those items like text books, supplies etc..... will be the first to get trimmed and the most painful to the district and the kids. Building and grounds maintenance could be cut, but then our kids will be entering buildings that may pose health hazards. That would be a sure fire way to get the parents to scream about raising the maintenance budget again. Like I said, I don’t have the answers, but looking at running the district as a ‘Normal’ business just won’t work. Just my opinion.

Bikertrash....Thanks for the clarification on the vehicles.