CLEARFIELD – The Clearfield Area School District ended the 2013-14 year with a $1.3 million surplus, announced Sam Maney, business administrator, at Monday night’s committee meetings.
The district has a $10.3 million general fund balance without the surplus. This includes restricted amounts of $2.8 million for debt service, as well as $3.3 million for anticipated increases in the costs of the Public School Employee Retirement System for the next five years, he said.
According to him, this leaves the district with $4.2 million in unrestricted reserves. He said this was approximately 3.5 percent more than the 8 percent as established by the state for a budget of the district’s size and it didn’t take into account the $1.3 million surplus.
Maney recommended that the district allow him to transfer its surplus into its capital account. “Our capital needs aren’t finished here,” he said, adding, “… There aren’t any advantages to it staying in the general fund at this point. We have more than enough reserve.”
Superintendent Terry Struble explained that if the district had expenses that were considered capital, it could be expended from the capital account. In turn, he said it would reduce the expenses coming out of the general fund, which is helpful when running a tighter budget.
In response, board President Mary Anne Jackson said the district wanted to be proactive in “taking care of what it has.” When asked after the meeting, Struble said the district still has maintenance needs that need to be addressed, and it must also maintain its school buildings.
In other business, the board will consider giving the district administration permission to prepare to liquidate its extra equipment and furniture through an auction. The board agreed that it will need to further explore the process and costs for liquidating its real estate and consider this as a separate matter at a later date.
When asked, Jackson explained she’d engaged in discussions with Lisa Kovalick from the Clearfield County Planning Office. She said Kovalick told her about a program being started by the state Department of Community and Economic Development that would be able to perform a feasibility study on the types of businesses that’d be interested in the district’s closed school buildings.
According to Jackson, the DCED hasn’t formally announced the program. She said the board would have to further explore the possibilities of engaging DCED services. At that point, board member Phil Carr suggested having each school – Girard-Goshen, Bradford Township and Centre Elementary Schools and the Clearfield Area Middle School – appraised to determine their value and best use.
“I’m not sure how we can approach this without first getting some type of knowledge,” he said. “None of us here are experts. We need to go to someone with experience and expertise, I think.”
Jackson said based upon her experience, it would likely cost the district $5,000 – $10,000 for every closed school building. Struble said that the Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District recently sold buildings through an auction process, but he wasn’t sure if they had appraisals done beforehand.
Also, Struble said the district could reach out to County Solicitor Kim Kesner to get an idea regarding the costs to have appraisals done on the closed school buildings.
Carr pointed out that during its feasibility study discussions, the district had considered keeping Girard-Goshen in case there was ever a need for expansion. “I think that we’re only about another year or two from needing it,” he said.
Jackson questioned how the district could expand into Girard-Goshen when it was in need of costly repairs. Carr said if kindergarten classes continued to grow in coming years, the district would run out of space.
Carr pointed out that some elementary students currently have more than one-hour bus rides to and from the Girard-Goshen area. Carr said there are days that he’s coming down over Mount Joy and students are still leaving the Clearfield Area Elementary School after 4 p.m. Struble noted that students aren’t leaving the CAES until about 3:45 p.m.
Board member Tim Morgan suggested the board get the first part out of the way by giving consideration to permitting administration to prepare to liquidate its extra equipment and furniture. But Morgan said the district must continue to make forward progress with research into the liquidation of its real estate.
Carr said he was afraid that the CAMS would end up sitting there and going to ruin for a long-time. Struble said he believed there was a community responsibility to make sure that didn’t happen if someone has a purpose for it.
Struble said there were three methods for the district to sell its real estate, including through an as-is auction; having an appraisal, setting a minimum and a realtor trying to sell it for them; and by the solicitation of bids.
