On Monday evening Octorara's superintendent and business manager pulled a rabbit out of their hat when they presented a near final version of the district's annual budget, a version most board members will find it easy to vote 'YES' for at next week's board meeting.
Ok, it wasn't magic, since so much hard work and what one can only imagine were countless hours of meetings and hand-wringing that must have gone into finalizing the numbers presented at the Board's Monday work session.
And lets not forget the real price paid and the hurdles jumped over to get to these numbers:
- The furlough (a fancy word for layoffs) of 29 people (10 teachers, 2 administrators and 17 custodians).
- The entire administrative and support teams saying 'thanks, but no thanks' to their contractually agreed upon annual salary increase.
- A 10% ($50,000) across the board reduction in monies each of the district's five schools have to spend on programs, supplies and texts
- Reduced police presence on Highland Road before and after school.
- A $1.5M reduction in state and federal aid.
- The use of $1,210,000 in Fund Balance (the Fund Balance is the district's savings account) money.
The bottom Line? The average taxpayer in Octorara with a house valued at $123,000 will see an increase of just $24 per year if that house is in Chester County; $34 per year for a house in Lancaster County.
The bottom line? The residents of Octorara should thank district administrators and school board members for their hard work and gutsy decisions. The tax increase could have been far more.
The slides Superintendent Newcome and Business Manager Carsley used to explain the district's latest budget proposal are below.
Also check out Ellen Brown's notes from Monday night's Work Session. Ellen does a nice job capturing the back and forth discussion between the board members and administrators during Monday's meeting.
2011-12 Octorara Budget Presentation 6.13.2011
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