BY ROBERT L. BAKER
The Mountain View School Board was told Monday night to expect that at its Mar. 21 meeting there would be an announcement about significant budget cuts in the works.
Toward the end of a rather somber meeting that addressed opposition to Senate Bill 1 dealing with vouchers and Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget proposal last week to slash state funding, Superintendent Andrew Chichura said, “There will be discussion and perhaps voting on what it is we’re looking at regarding positions and where cuts will be made.”
The board had met in executive session at its Feb. 21 meeting about notifying the state department of education that going into 2011-12, internal cuts would be necessary, but Chichura has not said what kind of drastic numbers the school board was dealing with.
Business manager James Mirabelli passed out a handout to board members and administrators that said that if the legislature followed through on Gov. Corbett’s proposal to cut state spending, the district stood to lose another $815,567 representing a cut in state funding of 14.1 percent.
It represents losses in basic education funding, along with the proposed elimination of accountability block grants, charter school reimbursements and educational assistance programs.
Most of the accountability block grants fund kindergarten programs, and educational assistance programs fund after-school tutoring.
Schools also will likely lose the reimbursements they receive from charter school tuitions.
Chichura said that the bottom line was that with another $1.4 million deficit already projceted the school was now dealing with an anticipated deficit of $2.2 million.
“All school districts are in the same boat across the state,” Chichura said, but noted it would be especially difficult for a small district like Mountain View. “This year’s budget will be the toughest we’ve ever seen.”
Board member Kevin Griffis said the following years wouldn’t be much better with shortfalls anticipated with school districts’ pension contributions of required employees increasing.
Board member Mark Phillips said, “Let’s not lose track that we’re supposed to be educating our children,” a comment which met approval from some members of the audience.
Board member Dava Rinehart-Cowan acknowledged tough decisions would have to be made, but she noted that neighboring Blue Ridge School District to the north announced recently that it had proposed cutting 13 positions.
She noted, “They have a teacher-student ration of 14:1 and Mountain View is 11:1, and their PSSA performance is better than ours” to suggest that although cuts will hurt, there may be some promise in reevaluating everything.
“The bottom line is we need to work together,” Rinehart-Cowan said.
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