Preliminary budget adoption set for May, final in June

Nutrition, communication, elementary and secondary departments look to 2019-20

LANSDALE >> Talks are ongoing among the North Penn School District’s staff and school board, as the date for adopting their overall budget for the 2019-20 school year draws closer.

A series of presentations in recent weeks to the board’s finance committee have continued to give previews of expected projects and expenses each department expects, ahead of a preliminary district budget adoption in May and final adoption in June.

NUTRITION: District Coordinator of School Nutrition Services Melissa Harding presented that department’s budget on April 1, noting that prices of meals for students will stay the same for the upcoming school year. The department’s budget for 201920 is estimated to match expenses and revenues at roughly $5.5 million, and Harding said the main revenue sources are federal funding, then meal sales to students, followed by a la carte purchases.

“About 41 percent of our revenues come from our federal subsidies, and 30 percent come from our sales to our students — those are for meals only, breakfast and lunch,” Harding said.

“Anything else we sell to students or adults, that’s in our ‘a la carte’” line item, which comprises about 14 percent of all revenues, she said.

Major changes over the past year include sales from a frozen yogurt machine and breakfast food cart at North Penn High School, and Harding said she plans to add similar new breakfast carts to district middle schools next year.

New expenses in the 2019-20 budget include new bar code scanners for fullday kindergarten teachers and students to use, in addition to extra staff time for cafeteria workers to serve those students, and materials for new ID cards that kindergartners will use to pay for their meals.

“We’re going to print them, laminate them, and give them to teachers to hand out right before they go to lunch,” Harding said.

Kids will take those cards to the cafeteria, use them to scan bar codes at the cafeteria cashier, and that will charge their student account immediately, and the cashiers will then return the cards to the classrooms at the end of each day.

“They don’t have to memorize their number in kindergarten, and it’ll be just a much more streamlined process, and make the lines go a lot faster,” she said.

One concern, Harding noted, is a growing number of accounts with unpaid balances, and she provided a breakdown: 91 student accounts have a negative balance of $15 to $49.99; 25 accounts are negative by $50 to $99.99; and 26 accounts have a negative balance of more than $100.

Those with negative balances are sent letters with information on how to apply for free or reduced meals using subsidizes programs, Harding said, and other districts have resorted to using outside debt collection agencies to recoup those funds, while North Penn covers those costs from its general fund.

“This is one of the unintended consequences of making sure every child can eat during the day: I think some individuals are becoming savvy, and understand there’s no real repercussions if I charge a meal and don’t pay it back,” she said.

Other districts have restricted students from taking part in extracurricular activities if they have a large unpaid balance, and Harding told the board she and her department could do the same, if those large balances remain a problem.

“It’s something we’re closely monitoring, and may have to explore some other remedies, instead of having these balances continue to mushroom, year after year,” Harding said.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT: North Penn’s Director of School and Community Engagement Christine Liberaski, and Communication Media Coordinator Bob Gillmer, presented on the district’s ongoing communication and outreach efforts.

The $1.4 million department budget covers nine employees, equipment and broadcast support for the district’s NPTV channel and online presence, and ongoing upgrades to audio and video systems at all district buildings.

Major projects planned for 2019-20 include $80,000 for new LCD projection systems, $45,000 to add radio repeaters to boost coverage in district schools, and $35,000 to upgrade sound systems where needed, Gillmer told the board.

“Basically, we’ve been phasing in and trying to replace the sound systems of our legacy buildings,” he said.

Staff have found savings by moving events like retirement celebrations into district facilities when possible, and printing fewer publications and posting materials online, Liberaski told the board. Over the past year, the North Penn Educational Foundation raised over $73,000 to support needs and projects across the district, and could put its backing behind a capital campaign to cover any needed large expenses, if necessary.

Over the past year, Gillmer said, NPTV’s online YouTube channel has drawn over 407,000 views of over 1.6 million minutes of student-created video content, both up from the year before — with one North Penn football game drawing over 300,000 views alone.

Board members asked if the office had looked into using services from the adjacent North Montco Technical Career Center to save costs, and Liberaski said they had.

“We, years ago, looked into printing some things there, and it wasn’t costeffective, but I am working with them for the retirement party: there will be catering, and I’m hoping floral designs also,” she said.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION: Director of Elementary Education Betty Santoro detailed her roughly $2 million budget, which covers support and intervention personnel across the district.

Just under $355,000 is budgeted for elementary intervention and support in reading and math across the district, with an additional $49,000 put toward funding music ensemble expenses for elementary vocal, band and orchestra groups, with tracking of even the smallest expenses.

“One of the things we streamlined is, when we have folks come in to assist with the piano playing, with a chorus concert, we were just taking folks and maybe giving them a gift card,” Santoro said.

“We’ve streamlined, and made consistent among all 13 (elementary) schools on what we pay folks for that,” she said.

The budget also includes funding for extra art, music, physical education and library teachers for full day kindergarten when it starts in 2019-20, along with two English language learning teachers, Santoro said, along with extra secretary time to cover registration for that kindergarten.

“That was worked out last spring, when we started to propose the budget,” she said.

SECONDARY EDUCATION: Assistant Superintendent Todd Bauer detailed the $6.4 million secondary education budget, saying it was “one of the simpler budgets, because most of it is fixed expenses.”

Roughly $4.1 million of that total goes to North Montco Technical Career Center as North Penn’s share of that school’s operating budget, which is calculated due to North Penn having 42 percent of NMTCC’s student population.

“That seems to be a pretty steady trend: there are some ebbs and flows, but 42 percent is a nice average,” Bauer said.

The next largest expense in that budget is $1.4 million for Title 1 expenses, covering free and reduced lunches at six elementary schools, along with reading and math interventions.

Virtual programming is offered via the Montgomery County Intermediate Unit and costs roughly $220,000 per year, and the district expects to receive roughly $580,000 in state “Ready to Learn” grant funding to cover instructional coaches and math intervention costs, Bauer told the board.

The North Penn School Board next meets at 7:30 p.m. on May 7 and the finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. that night, both at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock St.