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Schools

Haverford School Board to Vote on Property Tax Increase Next Month

Residents voice opinions about school district budget.

Haverford School District’s proposed property tax rate increase remained at 2.73 percent when the district’s business manager presented the school board with an update on the proposed 2012-2013 final budget on Thursday night.

The school board will adopt the proposed final budget at its next meeting, 7:30 p.m. on  Thursday, May 3 at , and it will approve a final budget on Thursday, June 7.

A Look At The Numbers

During Thursday night’s update, Richard Henderson, the district’s business manager, said the district is proposing the same property tax increase which he discussed during —a 2.7 percent annual property tax increase for the 2012-2013 school year.

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The 2.7 percent increase means the owner of a $161,045 home (the township’s average residential property assessment) would pay a $4,305 property tax bill in 2012-2013, which is $114 more than the school year before that, Henderson said.

School board member James Goldschmidt asked Henderson if the proposed 2012-2013 budget included funding for additional staff.

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Henderson said there was enough money in the proposed budget to cover three to five additional teachers.

The 2012-2013 district budget projections, which Henderson presented on Thursday night, remained the same, or changed slightly, from those which he
presented in March.

Total revenues were projected (both in March and on Thursday) at $92.8 million.

Total expenditures, which had been projected in March to be $94 million, were projected on Thursday to be $94.2 million.

Henderson also projected a 2012-2013 ending fund balance of $1.3 million, up from March’s projection of $1.2 million.

Comments From Concerned Parents

During a public comment session, Havertown resident Mary Ellen Jones blamed the proposed property tax increase on the retirement fund contributions.

“Our taxes are going up so we can fund the underfunded teacher pension plan,” Jones said.

School Board President Denis Gray told Jones that the school board has no control over the pension plan—which is formally known as PSERS, the Pennsylvania School Employees Retirement System—because the decisions about it are made by the state legislature and the governor.

PSERS is under-funded in terms of stat subsidies, but the school district is still required by law to make contributions to it, Gray said.

The district will pay about $1,960,000 to the PSERS fund in 2012-2013, but the $978,000 subsidy it will receive from the state will only cover half of the district’s costs, costs which increase each year, Henderson said in March.

School board member Philip Hopkins responded to Jones by saying that Haverford School District has the 4th lowest tax rate in the county and is one of the highest for per pupil spending.

Another Havertown resident who spoke during the public session presented the school board with a petition signed by more than 70 parents of second grade students at who would like to see money spent on smaller class sizes.

“When making budget decisions we thing you should make manageable class sizes a priority,” said Bryce Kasuba, the father of two sons, a second-grader and a kindergartener at Chestnutwold.

Kasuba, who spoke on behalf of the parents who signed the petition, said his second-grader has 26 children in his classroom, which exceeds the district guideline of 25 students per section.

However, Superintendent William Keilbaugh told the Haverford-Havertown Patch that all of the second-grade sections at Chestnutwold are at or under guideline, and all of the sections for next year’s grade three are currently under the recommended guideline.

The confusion over numbers seems to stem from how students are counted.

Students from Delaware County Intermediate Unit classrooms held at Chestnutwold come into the second grade classrooms accompanied by an aide or therapist for math and science lessons, but are not counted in the total number of students in each second-grade section, Keilbaugh said.

During the meeting Keilbaugh told parents that the district will look closely at class sizes in July and August, when it will have a better idea of how many students have moved out of the district and how many additional students have enrolled.

School Board Considers Factors

But he also stressed that the guidelines are just guidelines and the school board must consider three factors:

  1. “It’s not just numbers. It’s education, what we’re doing for the kids,” Keilbaugh said.

  • Space. Keilbaugh said if additional sections are added, there needs to be
    enough space to accommodate them.

  • Fiscal issues.

    Gray also noted the fiscal concern. “We keep a close eye on things ... because
    adding a teacher adds to cost,” Gray said.

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