CLEARFIELD- There is still no state budget, and the impasse is affecting local governments as well as school boards across the state.
At Monday’s Clearfield Area School Board meeting, business manager Sam Maney reported that the
district has had to use reserve funds to operate while waiting for the budget to be passed.
He said that other districts have been taking out tax anticipation loans in order to keep operating, but
thankfully Clearfield hasn’t needed to do that, and the first rounds of tax money started coming in this
week, which will take off some of the pressure.
Still, the lack of funding has resulted in the district losing investment income, and the district will need to
build up it’s reserve account against any future budget impasses from the state.
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was to have passed a budget by June 30 but as of this writing no
budget is on the horizon.
In other business, the board learned about preparations for the new school year.
The technology department worked with new teachers to get their log in credentials set up and introduce
them to the system, and students have been picking up their laptop computers with about 360 left to be
picked up.
The tennis court surfacing project has been finished and the district received a five year warranty as well
as $7,000 worth of maintenance equipment. The total cost was about $290,000, which is a savings of
$180,000 if the district had bid out each portion of the project separately instead of having one company
do the entire project.
Next week the board will be voting on several items, including the Clearfield Area Junior/Senior High
School TSI non-Title 1 School Plan for 2025-2026.
Director of Curriculum David Domico explained that the district has a comprehensive plan for education
and each year the state reviews information and alerts the district of areas that need focus.
He said the problem is that they are usually two years behind, so the feedback this year is from the 2023-
2024 school year.
Still, the information is important, and some of the areas that they need to work on include attendance,
especially for students who have IEPs.
The district was also given information regarding students of ethnicities different from the majority
population in the district, in this case, Caucasian. Normally the state separates each ethnicity and gives a
percentage, but for some districts, such as Clearfield, they just give an overall percentage and for
Clearfield less than five percent of the student population is non-Caucasian.
Next week the board will also be voting on sale of property, extending the Keystone Opportunity Zone
and a settlement agreement with the Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School.
