Price of Service Cuts: Budget Impasse Causes Bethlehem Area School Board to Cut $2.8 Million From School Budget, Cutting 45 Positions and Eliminating Programs For At-Risk Children and Youth
August 18, 2009
Deep cuts to public services are being considered in Harrisburg as lawmakers and the Governor work to resolve the budget crisis. PBPC is tracking news reports on the potential impact of these service cuts, as well as the impact of the state's budget impasse on local communities across Pennsylvania.
Today, we look at the Bethlehem Area School District, where the budget impasse has forced the school board to cut $2.8 million out of the budget, eliminating programs for youth at-risk of dropping out and academically struggling children, as well as cutting 45 positions, 34 of which are teachers, teachers aides and guidance counselors.
The Morning Call reported August 18 that the Bethlehem Area School Board cut $2.8 million from the school budget due to fiscal problems resulting from the state budget impasse. Both Career Academy and Regional Academic Standards Academy, program s targeted to youth at-risk of dropping out and struggling 4th, 5th and 6th graders, were cutalong with the 45 district job positions. Program cuts for at-risk youth drew angry responses and urgent pleas from teachers, students and taxpayers at the board meeting August 17 when the cuts were made.
The Morning Call reported on August 11, 2009 that the Bethlehem Area School Board made plans to cut $3.5 million from the school budget in anticipation of proposed cuts in the state budget. The school board anticipates receiving 60% of Governor Rendell's proposed budget. The cuts are exacerbated by already sluggish revenues that are forcing the school board to cut costs elsewhere. Non-mandatory programs such as Career Academy and Regional Academic Standards Academy, aimed at increasing student achievement among struggling students, and SPARK, a program for economically disadvantaged preschoolers, are the targets of cuts.
More information about how proposed cuts will hurt Pennsylvanians can be found at PBPC's 30 Ways in 30 Days Service Cuts Will Hurt Pennsylvanians, which examines proposed cuts to public education, college costs, hospitals, children's health care, senior services, state police patrols, and agricultural programs, among other areas. Read more stories in PBPC's Price of Service Cuts series.
Read both articles from The Morning Call below.
$2.8 million cut from Bethlehem Area schools: Superintendent baffled as board votes to eliminate programs and 45 positions
By Tim Darragh and Steve Esack
August 18, 2009
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a1_4basd.6992186aug18,0,2022140.story
The Bethlehem Area School Board in an extraordinary meeting Monday night slashed $2.8 million from this year's budget, eliminating 45 positions and ending programs for at-risk students.
An overflow crowd of hundreds of district teachers, as well as some students and taxpayers, swarmed the board meeting at East Hills Middle School to plead for the programs. It got so crowded the meeting was halted as Bethlehem Fire Department officials ordered the aisles cleared of those who did not get one of the approximately 450 seats in the auditorium.
During the break, board member Judith Dexter asked for police protection for the board as it voted. Police were at the meeting to assist the fire department and did not have to step in.
The board listened to passionate pleas to stave off the cuts in non-mandatory programs, but in the end, most of the $3.5 million the board voted to cut last week was eliminated.
Of the 45 positions, 34 are teachers, teacher aides and guidance counselors.
Also gone are the Career Academy, a program for high schoolers at risk of dropping out, and the Regional Academic Standards Academy, a program for struggling fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders. A new program called the Middle Prep Literacy Academy will fill in some of the need caused by the lost regional academy program.
Not all the reductions involved programs for at-risk students. A human resources director position was eliminated for a savings of $105,207. Two districtwide mathematics specialist positions and six elementary school guidance counselors also were cut back.
The board had a series of votes, but the primary decision was 7-1 to make the cuts and add the Middle Prep program. Dexter cast the lone no vote. Outgoing board member Charlene Koch did not attend the meeting.
When it was all over, Superintendent Joseph A. Lewis, who recommended smaller cutbacks, said he couldn't understand the board's logic.
''I can't make rhyme or reason out of some of the decisions,'' he said.
Before the meeting started, hundreds of teachers marched from Freedom High School, where they held a meeting to discuss the cuts, to East Hills. Most were wearing black shirts to signify unity.
They applauded loudly as speaker after speaker approached the board and begged it to back off the cuts.
Teresa Donate, speaking on behalf of the Bethlehem Coalition for Quality Education, an advocacy group of individuals, teachers union members, church groups and social service agencies, said she was ''appalled'' that the board would consider eliminating programs.
''Mark my words.'' she said, ''If you approve all these cuts, you will go down in history as the most self-serving, discriminatory, arrogant and elitist board in the history of the United States.''
Jean Yasso, an academy teacher assistant, asked: ''If the school board shuts down the Career Academy, where is the safety net for these students? Because they will fall. Â... They will get lost.''
The audience cheered in support.
Again, the crowd offered a standing ovation as Caroleen Rivera of Bethlehem, a senior who would have started the school year next week at Career Academy, pleaded for its preservation.
''If you shut down our school, I can't go to Liberty [High School],'' she said. ''I mean, I won't make it. I need this school more than you can imagine. So I beg you, don't ruin my future.''
Board members and Lewis said they regretted the cuts, but without a state budget in place, they said they had little choice.
''I am heartsick'' at the program cuts, said board President Loretta Leeson.
However, the district's overspent budgets and deficit spending meant administrators had no wiggle room to wait out the budget impasse in Harrisburg.
Speakers hammered district officials for what they said was fiscal mismanagement.
The ''real problem,'' said Bethlehem Education Association President Jolene Vitalos, was the board's ''failure to properly manage the financial affairs of the school district over the past decade [and] the lack of fiscal responsibility of administrations past and present.''
Vitalos also criticized the state Legislature for failing to adopt a 2009-10 budget that includes money for public schools.
''While this failure by our elected officials is unfortunate, the burden should not be placed on the backs of Bethlehem's children,'' she said.
The teachers stood in silence as Vitalos spoke.
Others said the cuts unfairly target elementary school students and poor families.
''Frankly and with all due respect, all of these cuts do reflect an elite class mentality, taking away the opportunity for these students to better their situations,'' said Aurea E. Ortiz of Bethlehem.
Ortiz will likely be the board's new South Side Bethlehem representative next year. She is running unopposed in the November election.
The board at least temporarily took a few programs, including middle school soccer and the high school rifle teams, off the chopping block since those programs do not start immediately.
Dexter acknowledged the difficult decisions the board had to make and said she was proud that the board did so in the face of a ''mob mentality.''
Before the board could get down to business, Assistant Fire Marshal David Ruhf put a halt to the meeting at 8 p.m., an hour into the proceedings, so that the aisles could be cleared.
Bethlehem Area may see $3.5 million in cuts: State budget impasse has school board targeting non-mandatory programs
By Tim Darragh
August 11, 2009
http://www.mcall.com/news/all-a5_4basd.6984686aug11,0,1952006.story
The Bethlehem Area School Board came face to face Monday with potential budget cuts forced by the uncertainty over state funding and directed Superintendent Joseph A. Lewis to make $3.5 million in cuts to non-mandatory programs.
Lewis presented a range of spending cuts and was prepared to support about $2.2 million in reductions, but the board's Curriculum Committee directed him to go further.
The uncertainty over the state budget is forcing the district to begin making painful decisions because it's harder to make cuts once the school year begins. Disrupting the students' schedules would be ''a travesty,'' Lewis said. Not making cuts at the beginning of the school year also dilutes the cost savings, he said.
Lewis' staff provided a priority list of potential cuts, including the Career Academy, driver education, transportation for the SPARK preschool program, the reading recovery program and the Regional Academic Standards Academy. The cuts could total $3.5 million, but Lewis said he couldn't be more specific.
''I'm not comfortable with these cuts,'' Lewis said. ''It pains me. I'm sick to my stomach.''
In addition, Lewis said the district needs to work at reducing a deficit of more than $7 million that accumulated over the past two school years. The deficit, he said, was caused by ''weakening revenues across the board.''
School Director Rosario Amato said the district might get 60 percent of its expected state allocation. Lewis said he heard the same rumors, which if borne out would result in a $2 million shortfall.
According to Lewis, the district based its revenue projections on Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed 2009-10 budget that increased funding for school districts by $300 million. If that increase is reduced or eliminated, the district would have to cut spending by a proportionate amount.
Amato and Directors Eugene McKeon, Michele Cann and Irene Follweiler supported directing the administration to cut $3.5 million out of the budget, which would cut through non-mandatory programs. Among other things, it would cut the Regional Academic Standards Academy and the Career Academy.
According to Lewis' report, average costs are more than $15,000 per full-time student at the Career Academy and more than $16,000 at the Regional Academic Standards Academy.
''I don't want to be the bad guy here, but this is fiscal reality,'' McKeon said.
Other directors opposed the full range of program cuts, but they did not reach a consensus.
The board will probably have a resolution to lock in the reduced spending at its meeting Monday.
Earlier in the evening, financial adviser Scott Shearer of Public Financial Management of Harrisburg told the board it had to begin preparing to refinance a $55 million bond the district issued in 2005. Shearer recommended refinancing it to variable and fixed-rate bonds and partially cutting the existing derivative financing on the bond.
The district in recent years spent close to $300 million on school renovation and construction using variable-rate bonds and derivative financing, but upheavals in the markets forced the district to move back toward fixed-rate bonds.
