School Board Looks for Savings and New Revenue Streams

NEW BETHLEHEM, Pa. (RVO) by John Gerow – Facing an uncertain financial future, the Redbank Valley School Board was presented with several ideas for making savings and creating new revenue streams for the cash strapped district.  Proposed changes in the method of hiring some specific services staff and several ideas for revenue generation dominated the Tuesday night work session.

A committee of Directors, staff and community business people has met twice recently to brainstorm ideas and bring forward revenue generating suggestion.  Directors Darren Bain and Bill Reddinger, assisted by committee members Matt Darr and Lisa Goth presented the first of their suggestions to the full board Tuesday.  Among the ideas suggested were: selling facility naming rights, a parking fee for students, applying for grants, selling memorial bricks for the park-let area in front of the High School, and revisiting the structure and amount of the pay to participate fees.

Mr. Reddinger explained that the District’s policy of not allowing facilities to be named for members of the community needs to be changed to give the District the ability to raise revenue by selling naming rights.  He explained that what the committee has envisioned is allowing the District let community members and businesses have one of many facilities within the District to bear their name for a specified period of time for a specified amount of money.  Reddinger went on to say that the committee considered the Library, Auditorium, Cafeteria, and the Gym as potential facilities to name, as well as the football field, the track, other sports related items.  As currently envisioned, the name would be sold for a 2 year term for a certain amount of money for that particular facility.  The committee reported that volleyball Coach Matt Darr had offered to sell naming rights for a commission to get the project up and running.  In the ensuing discussion, the consensus was that Mr. Darr’s initial term would be limited to 1 or 2 years dependent upon whether or not there would be Administrative changes that might allow the selling position to be moved “in house”.   The Board will vote on this motion at their meeting next week.

A second revenue generating scheme considered was to sell parking permits to students who drive to school.  The idea behind this, is that the District provides “free” bus transportation for all students and driving to school is a privilege that students and parents should be expected to purchase.  Director Dee Bell strongly urged that there be consideration given to student who drive to school because they have after school jobs.  During the discussion, High School Principle Amy Rupp said that she had been considering numbering the parking spaces for several reasons and that she favored assigning students to specific parking spaces.  Assigned parking, she noted, would also provide an assist with security as the car in each space would bear the number of that space.  The parking fee will be voted on Monday night as well.

A third idea that could be easily implemented would be for the District to reopen the sale of memorial brick pavers for the small memorial park in front of the High School.  This project was begun several years ago by Adrian Orange as his Eagle Scout community service project.  His family has relayed to the High School Administration that they are no longer able to promote and sell the pavers.  The committee suggested that this would be an easy revenue generator to set up and operate. Mrs. Rupp said that the students in the National Honor Society have to do service and that these students could manage the sale, ordering and installation of new brick pavers.

The committee had two other ideas that need more time in committee and general discussion within the Board; looking for athletic and academic grants.  As with all of the other ideas, the first stumbling block is lack of personnel to research and write grants.  Coach Darr said that he would volunteer to research and write athletic grants while the committee and the Board as a whole find a way to research and apply for academic and facility grants.  Director Bain also suggested that the District revisit the “pay to participate” fee as a way of generating more revenue.  He told the Board that Keystone and Clarion have significantly different “pay to participate” fees.  One district charges $100 for the first student in a family to participate and $50 for the second and no charge for 3 or more.  The other charges $100 per child playing or $200 per family.  Mr. Bain said that he was not proposing a change, but that it was something that could be considered.

Director Dee Bell expressed his frustration with the finances and the processes that the Board is developing in their attempt to close the funding gap.  Mr. Bell repeatedly asked Mr. Bain to “explain how you are going to pay for all of this”.  After several attempts to get an answer, Mr. Bell said, “I started out in favor of passing the tax referendum, but you’d be a fool to vote for it with how this Board is planning to spend money.”

In a subsequent phone interview with RedbankValley.org Mr. Bell explained that he is concerned that there is a lack of accounting for much of the new spending and that the Board is undoing all of the cuts that previous boards had implemented.  He is concerned that planned increases in spending are going to raise spending to levels that will be completely unsustainable once the Fund Balance is depleted.

Superintendent Michael Drzewiecki offered the Directors a plan to save money by direct hiring special education aides, nurses and Speech Therapists instead of contracting these positions through Riverview Intermediate Unit.  Mr Drzewiecki savings on direct hiring could the District from 8% to 50%, depending upon the position being directly hired.  At this point, the Superintendent reports that the savings could be over $100,000 per year for the District.  He also described different types of security positions, how they would be contracted or hired.  This new look at personnel is part of the ongoing financial overhaul within the District.

In other matters, Intermediate Principle Sandra Shirey reported that she and her staff had spent considerable time improving the daily schedules at the Intermediate School.  She reported on 5 changes that should improve the schedules.  The first change will be to begin morning announcements at 8:20 instead of 8:30 so that classes can begin at 8:30.  Another change will be to have the 6^th graders breakfast in their classrooms instead of in the cafeteria.  This will speed up the breakfast process by taking about 80 kids out of the cafeteria.  Third and fourth graders will not change classes for Math and Reading.  Itinerant teachers will be utilized for intervention instruction, playground and lunch supervision.  All of these changes, then, allow the Intermediate School administration to schedule intervention time every day.  Special Education Supervisor Kristen Wolfe told the Board that the increase in intervention time will help the school to identify students with special needs and move more quickly to intervene.

The Redbank Valley School Board will hold its regular monthly meeting Monday evening, May 7 in the high school library.

ABOUT:
Redbank Valley School District provides education services for the 165 square mile area of New Bethlehem and Hawthorn boroughs, and the townships of Mahoning, Madison, Porter, and Redbank of both Clarion and Armstrong counties.

MEETINGS:
The Redbank Valley School Board meetings the first Monday of every month at 7pm at the High School Library.

CONTACT:
For more information about the Redbank Valley School District, please call 814.275.2426 or visit RedbankValley.org/pg/biz/redbank-valley-school-district