PHILIPSBURG – In June, the Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District reported that the district was facing an estimated deficit of about $600,000 after a preliminary audit. A closer look revealed that the deficit was actually $1.5 million.
Before any of those numbers were known, though, the administration at the district asked for the Pennsylvania Department of Education to come in to take a look into the management practices of the district.
What they found were plenty of areas in which the district needed to improve, as well as plenty of areas in which the district is doing well.
“The study is designed to assist,” said W. Charles Young, district superintendent, said Tuesday night when the information was presented during a public meeting. “It is not designed to lay blame.”
In the 114 pages of the report, the areas not marked for improvement included the fact that the custodial staff is doing well at keeping overtime in check, the number of students achieving at the “advanced” level on placement tests is increasing while those acheiving at “below basic” levels is decreasing, and teachers are at or above the state average in using technology.
The areas that needed improvement, though, seemed to outweigh those that were commendable. For each area to be repaired, PDE also included recommended action or actions.
One of the most glaring problems found by the PDE team was that the district is in poor financial condition.
The first suggestion in the study was that the 2005-06 budget was not balanced with respect to current revenue or expenses, meaning that the reserve fund was used to make up for the shortfall. The reserve fund is just that, an amount of money set aside. PDE suggested that the reserve fund not be used to pay for recurring expenses such as salaries and benefits.
Those salaries and benefits account for 67.28 percent of the district’s budget, with the percentage being 6 percent above the state average for this budget item. The PDE’s suggestion on this note: Consider the consolodation of schools.
P-O shut down one school, Wallaceton-Boggs, this summer, and PDE’s study showed that from 1996 to 2006, district enrollment dropped by 334 students. Current enrollment is 2,125 at the district’s six buildings.
Judy Edwards, a retired P-O teacher who still lives in the district, said that her reading of the study showed that the district should have used borrowed money to allow time for a decision to be made on closing Wallaceton-Boggs and the other school suggested by the PDE, the junior high.
The study also found that real estate tax has increased at a much faster rate than inflation, no surprise to P-O residents who learned that they would be getting steep increases in their tax bills earlier this year.
Transportation costs were also a big concern for the PDE, and the study said that $100,000 to $200,000 could be saved each year if the routes were reconsidered and the district looked at possibly changing start and end times for school days to allow some buses to complete more than one run.
The food service in the district has also been unstable for the past five years, according to the study. “It appears to be failing,” said Young, who also noted that some of the changes suggested by the PDE have been put into place already.
“Over the next few months, we’ll be getting out of this hole,” Young said.
He noted that a feasability study would be completed before any more buildings would be closed in the district.
Before the meeting adjourned, an audience member asked why the district’s yearly audit did not reveal a problem before. Young, who was recently named to the superintendent post, said local auditors Walter Hopkins and Co. did point out a “slide.”
The next meeting of the board will be Sept. 25 at 7 p.m. at North Lincoln Hill Elementary.