Board OKs $14,176,307 budget, with no tax hike / By Martha Knight

The Port Allegany School Board adopted a general fund school budget for fiscal 2014-15 at its regular meeting Monday night, and levied taxes to support the local share.

All seven members present voted for the fiscal plan. President Dave Mensch and Ingrid Lapp were absent.

Also adopted were real estate tax rates, virtually unchanged from those for the fiscal year due to end June 30. Millage (dollars per thousand of assessed valuation) for McKean County property owners will be 15.27, the same as the current year’s rate. Potter County property owners will pay at the rate of 39.89 mills, compared with 40.0006 for 2013-14.

Board member Rod Howard of Pleasant Valley Township, in Potter County, said he was pleased to see  a decrease in the millage for Potter County, no matter how slight. Millage is higher in that township and Roulette Township because Potter County’s assessments are further out of date.

The homestead-farmstead exclusion was set at $203.56.

Business manager Judy Bodamer pointed out that the deficit that had appeared in the proposed budget adopted last month has been reduced some as calculations were refined, and with new information received from the state. “We have a very healthy fund balance,” she noted. Grant funds were plugged into appropriate categories, boosting the revenue side. However, no other significant increases in state funding are assured.

Bodamer said expenditures are slightly lower than in the previous budget.

There was a flurry of discussion before the board approved a long list of supplementary salaried positions. Board member Mark Carlson asked whether it would be possible to eliminate the department chairman positions. “Are they in the contract or not?” he asked, seeking to find out whether the district is free to drop those positions at will. And how necessary are their functions? he wondered.

Junior-senior high school principal Marc Budd asserted that the department chairmen are key members of the instructional staff, holding staff meetings, helping with curriculum planning and budget planning.

Superintendent Gary Buchsen said that where he had worked previously, such functions have been handled by a curriculum director. Board member Dan Kysor suggested that the salary for a curriculum director might be $80,000 or more, which Buchsen confirmed. The department chairs together are paid less than $10,000.

The supplementary positions as approved by the board are English chairman, Matthew Lawton, $2,227; mathematics chairman, Kristina Francis, $2,024; science chairman, Wallace Finn, $2,227; social studies chairman, George Riley, $2,227;

also, athletic director, Daniel Stavisky, $5,970; show choir director, Ken Myers, $2,998; vocal director, dramatics, Myers, $1,869; senior class advisors, Nicole Line, $540 and Douglas Dickerson, $360; Student Council advisor , Erin Moran, $1,467; yearbook advisor, Kimberley Bowser, $2,581; prom advisor, Moran, $1,0009; and Varsity Club advisor, Riley, $903.

On the same list, these coaches were approved: for wrestling, head coach B.J. Greenman, $5,618; assistant coaches Douglas Triplett and Chad Saltsman, $3,740 each;

also, for basketball, junior high boys’, Robert Raudenbush, $3,740; boys’ junior varsity, Michael Bodamer, $3,740; girls’ varsity, Francis, $5,618; girls’ junior high, Michael Nasto, $3,740; and boys’ varsity, Jason Luther, $5,618.

Alyssa Bowser was added to the substitute list for service as a librarian.

Buchsen indicated that he would not welcome authorization to fill vacant position during the locally traditional summer board hiatus, lasting through July. He said the item was on the agenda because it had been there in most regular June board meetings in the past, but he would rather summon the board into session if necessary to fill a staff position. Accordingly the motion, already on the floor, was defeated with seven Nays.

The board did adopt the usual resolution authorizing payment of bills and payrolls in the gap between June and August meetings. The administration was also authorized to make adjustments in the 2013-14 budget to conform with actual expenditures.

Bodamer said she had provided board members with information concerning a procurement card, which the board would be asked to vote on at the June 23 meeting.  She described it as like a “cash back” credit card, which would be used sparingly and only by the business office. Buchsen said he has no wish to be provided with a district procurement or credit card.

Jason Tronetti, D.O., was reappointed school physician for the coming year, under terms of an agreement with Charles Cole Medical Group.

The district’s insurance package as recommended by district broker Sundahl & Co., Inc., Bradford, was approved by the board. The package totals $89,361.

The district’s agreement with CARE for Children was renewed. It calls for the agency to be paid $32 per unit for physical therapy and $25 per unit for occupational therapy, in the coming school term. Vice president Denise Buchanan asked what a unit is, and Ashley Carlson, a CARE executive who was present, explained that it is 15 minutes of service.

In the public comments period, Phyllis McNeil of Annin Township expressed her dismay with the shabby appearance of the Freedom Documents display on the wall in the junior-senior high school, near the auditorium. Reproductions of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are in yellowed, torn and defaced plastic, McNeil said.

McNeil asked the board whether the meaning of those documents is taught to students, and whether the school officials have looked at the wall display recently. “We are fighting to keep our freedoms,” she said. She suggested that legislators be asked to furnish replacements.

Bowser presented board members with copies of the latest Tiger Lily yearbook, the first all-color one. Buchsen noted that the 2014 edition has received an excellence award.