The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA
District ponders staffing cuts
Saturday, March 12, 2011
By WM. SHAWN WEIGEL
Staff Writer
Support staff throughout the district may be cut in the Great Valley School District in an effort to balance a $70 million budget.
“There are going to be reductions there’s no two ways about it,” said superintendent Alan Lonoconus “How far and how deep those reductions go is the question.”
Lonoconus said the school board challenged the administration to trim $500,000 to $600,000 from the roughly $2 million budgeted for support staff.
In this case, Lonoconus said, “support staff” includes everything from parking lot and cafeteria helpers, to clerical support for the administration.
The roughly $1.5 million remaining, he said, is tied into salaries and benefits and is untouchable.
“The board asked us not to look so much at the number of staff, but more like, what would $800,000 in cuts look like? What would $500,000 look like?” Lonoconus said.
Some parents, however, are concerned that vital student support staff, such as guidance and drug and alcohol counselors, could be next.
One parent said that without support from drug and alcohol awareness programs, students with histories of abuse might slip back into bad habits and others would remain uninformed of the danger.
Lonoconus said that while special education support staff could be part of the proposed cuts, anyone assigned specifically to a student through an individual education program would be unaffected.
“Under special education mandates, if they’re prescribed to certain individuals then we have no control over that anyway,” he said. “Special education support staff that help out in classrooms on occasion could be on that list.”
Lonoconus said the board has a goal of trying to get the budget resolved by their second meeting in April. But Gov. Tom Corbitt’s recently released preliminary budget, which cuts $500 million from public education, likely “threw a boomerang into everyone’s processes,” he said.
He added that while he had no estimation on the number of people potentially affected by the cuts at this point, the administration is exploring “decreases by percentages” within a wide margin.
“If they go to, say, 60 percent, then we’re talking furloughs and rearranging staff,” he said. “Again, this is all depending on what level the board agrees to go with as to how many services will be affected. Right now, it’s business as usual.”
According to the 2011-12 preliminary budget posted on the district’s Web site, costs for support services in general could increase as much as 2.62 percent, or $65,427.
The 2011-12 proposed budget reflects a 0.18 percent reduction — or just over $133,000 — from the 2010-11 budget.
But the proposed tax rate increases 2.11 percent over last year’s rate, from 18.50 to 18.89 mills.
A mill is a tax of $1 per every $1,000 of assessed real estate value.
The board is expected to continue the discussion on Monday night at their regular business meeting.
The preliminary budget is available for review on the district’s Web site at http://www.gvsd.org/.
URL: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/03/12/news/doc4d7c08e668d16257174034.prt
© 2011 dailylocal.com, a Journal Register Property
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