Montrose board talks budget plans

BY STACI WILSON

A Montrose Area School Board finance meeting ran long Monday, April 9, cutting into the scheduled work session and business meeting start time.
The district is wrestling with roughly a $1 million budget deficit for the coming year. That amount had been decreased, but proposals presented Monday centered on curriculum, lifted the number back to the $1 million range.
In the business meeting, the board pulled two items from the consent agenda for separate votes: the monthly bill list, and the approval of transfers for the high school principal and vice principal.
Board member Gloria Smith voted against approving the district’s bill list stating she disagreed with the cost of the cellphone bill and the number of cellphones the district provides to employees.
The school district’s monthly bills, however, will get paid with the 6-1 vote in favor of doing so.
Smith also voted against approving the transfer of acting administrators Eric Powers and Sean Castellani, as the Junior-Senior High School Principal and Vice Principal, to permanently taking those positions.
The transfer, approved in a 6-1 vote, will take effect July 1, as employees under Act 93, per the recommendation of Superintendent Carol Boyce.
Smith said she had not been given significant time to make an “informed decision” on the agenda item she said was added late, and was not against Powers or Castellani.
The board approved adjustments to the school calendar, adding June 14 as a regular full day of school, and June 15 as the last day of school for students with a student early dismissal at 11:30 a.m.