Board questions hike in tech center budget
LOWER POTTSGROVE >> Expanded programs and personnel costs account for most of a 9 percent increase for Pottsgrove Schools in next year’s budget for the Western Montgomery Career and Technology Center the director said Tuesday.
Two weeks ago, the center’s $6.1 million 2017-2018 budget was questioned by members of the Pottsgrove School Board.
Pottsgrove is one of three districts which sends students for a half-day program at the center, located in Limerick. The other two are Spring-Ford and Upper Perkiomen.
Each district’s share of the budget is determined by a rolling five-year average of how many students it sends and the school is overseen by a Joint Operating Committee with members from each of the three school boards.
In the last five year’s, enrollment of Pottsgrove students at the school has increased by 24 percent, from 64 to 80.
And for the 2017-2018 school year, Pottsgrove’s costs rose by 9.28 percent to $1.5 million — an increase of $123,739 over the previous year.
For Pottsgrove, that increase represents one-third of 1 percent of the current year’s $60 million budget, according to Business Manager David Nester.
On Tuesday, Christopher Moritzen, the school’s director for the past three years, appeared at the board to explain the increase.
Next year’s budget calls for an overall spending increase of $464,729, but the increased costs to the three districts comes to only $356,521 thanks to come outside funding.
In his presentation to the board, Moritzen said several factors had contributed to the increase, not the least of which is an expansion of the school’s program — which has in turn attracted more students.
The newest of these programs is sports medicine, which already has 28 student applications with seven more on a waiting list.
The protective services program is also expanding from part-time to full-time with the state’s addition of fire and emergency medical technician elements to the program, which had previously focused exclusively on policing, Moritzen said. Forty-one students are expected to enroll in the coming year.
The center is also in need of a third special education teacher. It currently only has two.
The center’s two custodians are also to receive a 5 percent pay hike as part of their contract in the coming year and negotiations are also ongoing for the center’s teacher staff, according to Moritzen’s presentation.
Other staff raises are projected at 3 percent and there has also been an increase in metals and other construction materials, he said.
Since 2014, overall enrollment at the school has increased by 24 percent and achievement on standardized tests has been two percentage points over the national average of 88 percent, Moritzen said.
The center is also working with Montgomery County Community College so that the center’s students can graduate with one year’s worth of the credits needed for a two-year associate’s degree.
“We all feel what you guys are doing is wonderful,” said School Board Member Rick Rabinowitz, who said he is concerned the budget was passed by the JOC without seeking input from the school boards of the sending districts, as has been done in the past.
Given that Pottsgrove is facing a $600,000 deficit in its own budget, any increases have to be closely examined, Rabinowitz said.
Robert Lindgren, one of Pottsgrove’s two representatives on the JOC, promised that would be corrected in the following year.
District Solicitor Marc Davis said under the center’s governing rules, of two-thirds of the sending boards, or 14 board members, reject the budget it does not go into effect.
But given that the state requires school districts to provide “vocational education,” waiting until June to make that decision would keep the center from opening next year and put the boards “in dereliction of your duty under the law.”
“If you have problems with the budget I think its only fair to the students who are signing up for these classes to say so now so they can address it,” he said.
However, most of the board members seemed satisfied with Moritzen’s explanation. At the suggestion of Superintendent William Shirk, the board agreed to consider that explanation for another two weeks and offer a verbal answer on the center’s budget when it re-convenes at the beginning of May.