Mt. View faces $2.8M shortfall

BY TOM FONTANA
Correspondent

Mt. View School District may have a little trouble paying its bills during the 2014-15 school year.

This assessment was offered by district business manager Joseph Patchkoski in his final budget proposal presented at the board meeting on Monday, June 9.

With an estimated $20 million in expenses, Patchcoski estimated that the district will collect about $17 million from taxes and government funding, leaving an approximate shortfall of $2.8 million.

Money coming into the district would include about $6 million in taxes, nearly $9 million from state sources, and just under $600,000 in federal funding.

“If we don’t raise sufficient taxes,” he told the board, “next year we will not have enough money to balance the (2015-16) budget.”

Patchcoski later pointed out to the Independent that Mt. View has the lowest tax rate of all the districts in Susquehanna County, and that Mt. View “could face bankruptcy next year without a tax increase.”

However, Patchcoski related that the district currently has an unassigned fund balance of $1.5 million and an assigned fund balance of $3.8 million that can be used to balance the budget for the upcoming fiscal year.

“Of course, these are all estimates,” Patchkoski said, “because it’s difficult to predict the outlay without knowing what the pending teacher’s contract will bring.”

The final draft of the budget proposal is posted on the district’s website, and will be considered for approval by the board at its June 23 meeting.

In relation to the ongoing soggy saga of saturated ball fields, district maintenance director Robert Taylor asked the board to consider hiring a firm to assess the problem. The baseball and softball fields behind the high school are annually unusable when the spring season for those sports begins because of poor drainage.

Taylor proposed hiring Keystone Associates in Binghamton, N.Y., to compile bid specifications for improving the landscape and correcting the runoff problem, at a cost of $4,275, an amount currently available in the maintenance budget.

“If we do decide to do something in the future,” Taylor commented, “at least we’ll have some specs and an idea of what we need.”

But Taylor told the Independent that he doubted the board would do anything in the near future, considering the predicted budget restraints.

In regard to indoor sports, high school principal Robert Presley asked the board to advertise for winter sports coaching positions before June 30.

“The basketball, soccer and cheerleading coaches like to hold practices during the summer,” Presley told the board, “but their contracts run out on June 30, so without being renewed they can’t use school facilities because of insurance issues.”

The board approved advertising for winter and spring coaching positions before June 30.

Presley also pointed out that about $4,000 of a Safe Schools grant had not been spent on a Schoolgate Guardian program. He said the program allows the schools to scan the driver’s license of anyone entering the building to detect legal restrictions on that person.

The board asked Presley to present further information on the program at the next board meeting.

The board accepted the resignation of long-time elementary school secretary Ivie Simons, and agreed to advertise to fill the position. Simons was approved as an elementary clerical substitute and cafeteria monitor.