$85K grant coming to school meal program
LANSDALE » With 2020 finally drawing to a close, the North Penn School District has gotten some good news, and the school board could lock in one piece of certainty for 2021.
The district’s nutrition services department has received a grant for $85,000 for a new meal transport vehicle, as the district’s 2021-22 budget starts to take shape.
“We were notified on Friday we received a ‘ No Kid Hungry’ grant award for $85,000. This is awesome news,” said district CFO Steve Skrocki.
“We’re going to use the proceeds to purchase a refrigerated box truck, which will help facilitate our curbside meal program we’ve been operating since mid-March — we’re up to 742,386 meals through last week,” he said.
When all district schools were ordered closed due to COVID-19 in mid-March, district SNS staff began making prepackaged free meals to hand out to families, originally each day and then multiple meals on two days each week. That program has continued since the current school year began, with distribution now at each elementary school, and Skrocki called Coordinator of School Nutrition Services Melissa Froehlich “an absolute superstar” for leading that effort while also seeking the grant funding.
“It’s really mind-boggling, the amount of work that our school nutrition services department has done,” Skrocki said.
Pickups are available on Tuesdays from 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. and from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at each district elementary school (except Knapp Elementary due to construction), and Froehlich said the refrigerated truck will let the SNS department deliver meals to those unable to make it to pickups.
“When we switched back to offering a hybrid option to our students this fall, our transportation department was no longer able to help us deliver meals. Unfortunately, we had to discontinue the delivery model,” said Froehlich.
“With our own refrigerated truck, we will be able to start delivering meals again, and even
open it up to more families based on their need,” she said.
School board member Wanda Lewis-Campbell said when she toured schools on Monday, “I saw many children eating their lunches, and that they were happy to receive them,” and board member Juliane Ramic added that Froehlich and the SNS department “put together an incredible program” that was recognized by the grant award.
Skrocki also gave the board’s finance committee an update on Dec. 7 on several pieces of the upcoming 2021-22 budget, including a motion to declare the board does not plan to use exceptions to exceed the state’s Act 1 index for a possible tax increase.
“This year, our recommendation would be a resolution not to exceed. That would eliminate the possibility of raising taxes over 3 percent,” said Skrocki.
In June 2020 the school board approved a $278 million 2020-21 budget with a tax increase at that year’s Act 1 level of 2.6 percent, a hike staff projected would generate roughly $4.7 million in new revenue and raise the average resident’s district tax bill by about $100. The 2021-22 figure has been set by the state at 3 percent, Skrocki told the committee, which is projected to generate roughly $5.5 million in new revenue if approved, while certain exceptions could let the board go higher.
“Considering the economic circumstances, and the unemployment rate, we thought it was appropriate to bring this forward to the board for consideration,” he said.
“We think it’s probably an ideal time for the board to consider staying within the Act 1 index. And, in fact, the history, for the most part, of the school district is staying within the Act 1 index,” Skrocki said.
Since the act was passed in 2006, the board has passed an early resolution vowing to stay within the index only once, which Skrocki said allows a shorter public budget discussion process while adding extra certainty for taxpayers early on.
In years the district seeks exceptions, it must first pass a preliminary budget in early February, then bring back a proposed final budget for public review and votes in May and June, while passing the early resolution would cut out the first step.
Board member Al Roesch added that he just found out federal Social Security recipients will only receive a 1.3 percent increase in that funding for 2021, and member Christian Fusco said he felt staying within the Act 1 level was “the right move.”
Board member Tim MacBain added that he liked “letting the community know a little sooner than we’re used to letting them know,” so taxpayers can plan ahead. The finance committee voted unanimously on Dec. 7 to approve that resolution, and the full board could do so when they meet on Dec. 17.
Skrocki also gave the board updates on two other data points: a first look at district medical and prescription coverage health care rates is now in, with increases tracking at 3 percent, slightly below inflation rates and translating to a roughly $820,000 budget impact.
“I’m hopeful that number will be closer to zero when we have our final premium numbers,” after further reviews and budget discussions, Skrocki said.
One other big number: the state-mandated rate for district payments to the PSERS, the state Public School Employees’ Retirement System, has been announced at 34.94 percent, an increase of 1.25 percent over the prior year.
“Almost 35 percent is a whopping, large number for the retirement rate. I can remember, way back in 2001, the employer share was about 1 percent,” Skrocki said. “The rate we’re at now has just added tens of millions of dollars to the North Penn budget. This is set by the PSERS board of trustees, and if we don’t pay our 34.9 percent, they’ll take it from us, it’s as simple as that. We have to pay what we’re told to pay,” he said.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, resident Owen Wilcox said he had recently read about the projected increase, and asked what the board could do to lower that cost, such as switching from defined-benefit to defined-contribution benefit plans for employees. Skrocki said changes along those lines have been made for new hires starting in July 2018, but in the short term costs have continued to rise because the district is currently running both defined-contribution and defined-benefit plans.
“That increased the overall costs in the near-term, but long-term it should have an impact,” he said.
Fusco added that any resident interested in opposing those increases should contact their local state legislators.
“It’s not to say we’re happy about that number, but sooner or later, when you get hit in the face over and over and over again, a little slap is appreciated, I guess, as opposed to a punch,” Fusco said, a comparison that drew chuckles from the rest of the board.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on Dec. 17 and the finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. on Jan. 12, 2021; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.