SHENANDOAH — The Shenandoah Valley school board and district administration will send a message to Harrisburg that it is time to adequately fund education.
The need for proper funding of education programs, operations and other costs is something that rears its head at this time of the year when school districts are preparing their budgets for the next fiscal year, with the next one beginning July 1. Acting Superintendent Anthony P. Demalis, who is also the district’s business manager, knows all about deficits and watches them grow from year to year.
On April 27, the school board tentatively adopted the budget for the 2016-17 fiscal year with a real estate tax increase of 2.08 mills, which will bring in more than $140,000. Even with the increase, it will still be necessary to tap the fund balance, which Demalis said cannot continue forever.
At the beginning of the April meeting, Demalis read in its entirety a four-page letter that will be sent this week to Gov. Tom Wolf and members of the state legislature. The letter begins with an invitation to visit the school district.
“As you enter into the 2016-2017 budget season with the 2015-2016 budget finally accomplished, please let this letter serve as an open invitation to visit our school district,” Demalis read. “We sincerely believe a visit is needed so you can fully appreciate your upcoming decisions and the impact it will have on our school district, as well as other school districts in the commonwealth. We are a small school district of about 1,100 students, which has been described as an urban school district in a rural setting. I would like to share some information with you about our school district.”
Demalis wrote that the school district spends about one-third less per student than many other school districts.
“In July 2006, the General Assembly and Governor (Ed) Rendell signed Act 114, directing the State Board of Education to provide a comprehensive, statewide, costing-out study to determine the basic cost per student to provide all students with a quality education,” he wrote. “At the time of this study, our district should have been spending $12,462 per student, but was only spending $8,176 per student for a deficit of $4,286 per student, which was ranked 19th at the time. There were only 18 other districts who had a larger per student deficit. This study provided the impetus for the increased funding, which was later cut in 2011-2012.
“An analysis of school funding in SB 1076 published by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center showed that our district was ranked 29th out of 500 schools as having the largest cuts per student from the 2011-2012 cuts.”
One section of the letter spoke of the option of curtailing programs that could lead to professional job losses.
“Due to these cuts in public education, 11 teachers, or about 10 percent of our professional staff, were furloughed in 2012-2013,” Demalis read. “At this time, a plan was submitted to PDE (Pennsylvania Department of Education), which would furlough an additional 16 teachers that PDE approved. I shudder to think what our school will look like if we are forced to do this. Three full-time aide positions were eliminated, and our mechanic position and two housekeeping positions were reduced to part time. Transportation service was eliminated in the borough of Shenandoah. Every employee has taken a salary freeze at some point between then and now. Taxes have also been raised twice since 2012-2013.”
Explaining about teacher furloughs, Demalis said there was a loss of 11 teachers in 2012-13, as approved by PDE, but the state education department also approved a plan for elimination of additional professionals, though Demalis said that was not implemented and there are no plans to do so now.
“Essentially, the positions that were eliminated (in 2012-13) were all non-mandated position,” Demalis said. “Art teachers, physical education teachers, one music teacher, the librarians were let go. I don’t think we can take another hit with 16 teachers. That is letting the legislators know what’s out there. How can we still be a school? We’ll be teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.”
Demalis said there has to be a change in funding protocols so school districts, especially the smaller ones, can do the job of educating students.
“If things don’t change, we’re going to be looking at draconian cuts,” Demalis said. “We’ve already done painful cuts. I can tell you that Brian Waite, our new superintendent, has only been here a handful of days and he saw very quickly what we already know: we are bareboned. It’s hard for some people to accept that and believe that, but there are responsibilities and things that have to be done.”
Demalis continued, “Again, we had one of the biggest deficits with that costing-out study in what we should be spending per student to be successful. We were $4,200 per student short. We can say that all of that should come from the state. Unfortunately, some has to fall to the taxpayers, but they gave us a big increase in one year with Rendell, and the following year it all disappeared and ended up using federal monies for that.”
Demalis finished the letter, “In closing, you have a district that is poor with few resources, whose tax base is carrying more than their share in comparison to other districts, woefully underfunded, with a disproportionate cut in funding, and reserves that are nearly depleted. Costs that are beyond the district’s control are growing at a faster pace than current funding provides for. The district has already gone through painful cuts, with more on the way that will devastate our district unless something drastic occurs at your level. Please take this into consideration and our offer to visit during the upcoming 2016-2017 budget season.”