Departments start outlining 2018-19 wish lists, forecasts

LANSDALE » Four of the North Penn School District’s departments gave the school board and public an outline of their 2018-19 budget requests Monday night, and talks will continue this week on several other departments.

Each of the following described their large projects over the past year, expected expenses over the upcoming year, and wish list items they would like to see included in the 2018-19 budget, with talks to continue at upcoming school board meetings.

“We will be amassing a master list, and each of the depart-

ments are making suggestions, or asking for things. We’ll make a long list, and then we’ll have to see what we’re able to fund,” said Superintendent Curt Dietrich.

Facilities

Director of Facilities and Operations Scott Kennedy outlined the areas his department is responsible for maintaining, the staff he has to do so — and where the two don’t quite meet.

“We have over two million square feet, cover 500 acres, in 21 buildings, and have 150 employees in our department, consisting of maintenance, grounds, security, and custodial staff,” Kennedy said.

In each building, facilities staff take care of boilers, chillers, fire alarms, security and HVAC systems, while outside they care for athletic fields, snow removal, grass mowing, playground

upkeep, deliveries and more.

The department’s proposed budget for 2018-19 totals $16.5 million, and Kennedy said the major components of that total are utility costs for gas, electricity, water and sewer services, with smaller proportions going to salaries, security costs, service contracts for the equipment maintained by staff, and trash removal. The department has looked to cut costs by locking in electricity rates through 2024, converting light fixtures to low-energy LEDs as older appliances fail, and closing down buildings on Fridays over the summer. Staff have also worked to consolidate supplies and services, such as cleaning chemicals, and have begun to have supplies shipped directly to schools where they are needed, instead of to a central office where they need to be shipped again.

“Back in 2009, the facilities budget was nine percent of the overall North Penn school district budget.

Now we’re down to about 7.3 percent, so over those lean years in the recession, 2009-10-11, our budget was one of the ones that was cut,” Kennedy said.

The average Pennsylvania district spends closer to 11 percent on facilities budgets, Kennedy told the board, and the district’s average utility costs also fall on the lower end compared to the rest of the state. Facilities staff are responsible for maintaining roughly 100 acres of property each, nearly double the state average of 53 acres each, and Kennedy said that’s one area he would like to see addressed.

“We’re lean. We are maintaining our buildings, but we are lean,” he said.

His wish list request from the board include one HVAC mechanic, who would help to care for new air conditioning systems being installed over the coming summer, and two more groundskeepers to better maintain fields and outdoor areas. School board member Ed Diasio said he noticed the lack of grounds crew during graduation season last summer, when staff were shifted from other schools to North Penn High School to care for fields there.

“I remember driving to elementary schools, and the grounds — at no fault to anybody, we just don’t have the coverage — they just don’t look good. There was just weeds everywhere, so that would be something those people could do,” he said.

Communication

Director of School and Community Engagement Christine Liberaski and Bob Gillmer, Coordinator of Communications Media, went over their respective portions of the School and Community Engagement and Communications Media budget.

“When we talk about ‘community relations,’ we talk about public relations, communications, volunteer services, the Education Foundation, special events, and, working together with

Bob, we do the website, social media and so forth,” Liberaski said.

The district communication office is looking into upgrades to the district website www.NPenn.org and mobile app, and have cut costs by limiting the physical printing of documents like high school course listings whenever possible, Liberaski told the board.

“There are some things we still print: our calendar, annual report, back to school mailings. Those are things we’re told, time and time again, ‘We still want our hard copy,’” she said.

The communication office has started an alumni association to help former graduates keep in contact, and the community education program offers hundreds of programs for residents of all ages. The North Penn Educational Foundation raises over $100,000 each year to support various classroom projects and home internet access for disadvantaged students, and Liberaski said her main wish list item for 2018-19 would be an upgraded sign outside the district Educational Services Center at Church and Hancock Streets to replace a fixed-message sign that has faded and deteriorated.

Gillmer said, in addition to running the district’s NPTV television channel and web presence, he and his staff are also responsible for caring for audio/visual equipment across the district, such as projector screens and video equipment.

“Our folks support all of the events going on, across the district. Any type of nighttime event at the high school, Penndale, Pennfield, Pennbrook (middle schools), we’re doing community events, our own events, and we spend a lot of nights doing sporting events too,” he said.

Wish list items include upgrades to LCD projectors located in various classrooms that were first purchased in 2011 and 2012 and are nearing the end of their useful life — Gillmer estimated roughly 50 could

be replaced in the first year at an estimated cost of $35,000. Another possible wish list item would be upgrades to projectors in all three middle school auditoriums, which were originally included but then deferred from the 2017-18 budget.

“We could certainly do one of three, I would recommend Penndale first, and then the other two of three if we need to phase that in. But once that projector dies, we’d be sitting again with a cart input and a temporary setup until we get around to replacing it again,” he said.

Other wish list requests include sound system upgrades for several elementary schools, and for North Penn High School, adding fiber optic lines for better video coverage at the high school, and considering an update to the district’s current branding.

“What are we known for? What makes North Penn tick? I think that’s a really important question to ask our community, for us to get feedback on, and really celebrate it,” Liberaski said.

“It’s not just six or ten people in a room, it takes an entire community. It’s not a cheap process — we can do it very cheap, if we do it ourselves — but I would love to have professional help and really put a lot of effort into this someday,” she said.

Human resources

Cheryl McCue, Director of Human Resources, said her department’s main goal “is to recruit and hire the highest quality personnel, in order to support the core mission of our district, which is teaching and learning.”

The Human Resources department has an annual budget of roughly $4 million, which covers salaries, benefits, reimbursement costs, and other supporting services for all district employees, plus five full time HR employees who oversee roughly 1,600 permanent district employees and roughly 400 substitutes. Reducing the district’s head count from roughly 1,900 several years ago has led to annual savings north of $4 million in medical costs, and a contract with the district’s teachers finalized last year reduces the tuition reimbursement rate for certain employees working on a second master’s degree or in a doctoral program. The new agreement has also limited teachers to one horizontal column movement in the district’s pay scale per year, which McCue said should lead to at least $220,000 in savings per year as compared to salary increases that employees would have qualified for sooner under prior agreements.

“That slows down the progress and salary adjustments, so we can more regularly estimate what the cost will be. And random credits do not count toward column movement,” she said, another change from prior agreements.

Board member Christian Fusco asked how the HR department track staff that take advantage of district tuition reimbursements, to advance into new positions internal to the district instead of elsewhere. McCue said she didn’t have figures handy but has seen employees use those skills to move up internally.

“We do see some who have gotten ESL (English as a Second Language) certifications, and/or certified as reading specialists, so they can transition into those areas,” she said.

“More recently, we’re starting to see some of our support staff take advantage of opportunities we provide them, in order to get their degrees and then move into some of our professional positions,” she said.

Technology

Kristen Landis, Director of Technology, told the board how her department supports technology needs throughout the district, troubleshooting and fixing equipment while training teachers and staff on new technology. Eight core employees are supplemented by five administrative tech-

nology specialists, two e-Learning coaches, seven technology support specialists, and 17 technology assistants, who are constantly out and about across the district.

“Our e-Learning coaches and tech support specialists are critical, because they’re the ones working with teachers, training them on all the new platforms, all of the new pieces we bring forward,” she said.

The technology department’s 2018-19 budget is estimated at $5.95 million, up by one percent from the prior year, and Landis said the major new expenses will be upgrading internet bandwidth across the district, re-evaluating the software used to track student data, and continuing to purchase Chromebook laptop computers for students.

Wish list items include a sixth tech support specialist to provide more even coverage for elementary and secondary levels, handling more repairs of hardware in-house, and continued hardware purchases to replace old equipment. A laptop purchase program started three years ago will expire at the end of 2017-18, according to Landis and Director of Business Administration Steve Skrocki, and the $1.2 million spent each year under that program could be reallocated for future equipment purchases starting next year.