Swimming in Debt: Easton Taxpayers Challenge EASD to Deep Cuts

Amidst resident protest, School Board tables vote on $1.7 million 
renovation to the pool while voting for an 11.85% increase on taxpayers

Posted by: Noel Jones


Thursday night the room was about 3/4 full of residents attending the Easton Area School Board Preliminary Budget Meeting, and seven residents spoke up against the proposed 11.85% tax hike. Below are articles from our local papers covering the clash in which residents are quoted, after which I will provide some highlights, among them, the drama over whether or not the EASD should be renovating the swimming pool. Although the pool is really more of a symbol in the larger battle of the budget (it is a small portion of the $15.8 million that would have to be cut to eliminate the tax increase, the bulk of the tax hike being attributed to salaries, benefits and pensions) it is an important symbol, in that the dialogue between the board and residents last night on the topic of the pool brought to light examples of the EASD's unwillingness, or inability, to think out of the box with regard to deep cuts necessary to get this budget under control:


Express Times Article by Colin McEvoy on EASD Preliminary Budget Meeting


Morning Call Article by Christopher Baxter on EASD Budget Meeting


Express Times Article by Colin McEvoy on Proposed EHS Pool Renovation


For anyone who missed the meeting or arrived late, you can watch the meeting on line here.


A representative from D'Huy Engineering gave a presentation with three price options for renovations of the pool, including HVAC, replacement of old pipes, roof insulation, a new
filtration system, asbestos abatement, new paint and new lighting, among other things. The three figures ranged from $800K+ to $1.7 million. Ms. Leonard-Ellison spoke to the residents about how an 11.85% tax hike was an unacceptable amount when residents are going through such hard times, and emphasized the need for everyone to look for places to make deep cuts, which sounded good. But in the same meeting, she urged that "for the safety of the children" the board needed to choose one of the three pool renovation options to approve. Ms. McGinley chimed in on the "safety" buzzword as well (she is quoted in the second ET article below). But as Dr. Vulcano, pointed out, there was no safety hazard, as there was no flaking of asbestos and the panels had already been sealed. The main complaint about the condition of the pool from students was that there was hair

floating on the water--hardly a safety issue. The pools passes all standard safety inspections and filtration tests.


At Ms. Holzberger's request, Ms. Guidry, the interim business manager, explained that the money that would be used for the renovation of the pool is in the funding set aside under Capital Projects and Capital Improvements, approximately $5.2 million, that by law, "without petitioning the PDE," could not be moved back to the general fund, and so had no bearing on the budget being proposed.


When residents got up to speak, they suggested:


1. That the board should, in fact, petition the PDE (PA Dept of Ed) to move the funds for capital projects and capital improvements back into the general fund, nix the projects except where absolutely necessary for safety, and use the remaining money to bring down the tax increase. All board members reacted with visible surprise at the idea of petitioning the State to move the funds (but had no problem with the idea of petitioning the State to raise the tax cap of 3.6% so that they can ask for an 11.85% raise to our property taxes).


2. That if there was a genuine concern for safety of the kids in the pool, they could simply shut down the pool and do renovations when the economy recovers. Tough times call for tough measures, and deep cuts are deep cuts. But if the main concern from students is hair floating in the pool, there is no need to renovate the filtration system this year--for much cheaper than construction costs, they could simply buy swim caps for everyone and require students to wear them. 


3. That swimming should not be a requirement for graduation, and that the requirement should be eliminated.


4. That there is no return on investment in spending on pool renovations, as there might be on other capital projects.


Other contributors to the current disastrous fiscal state that the EASD finds itself in were discussed, among them, pensions and the teachers union contract. Residents accused the board of mismanagement of taxpayer money in past years, as last year only one other school district in the entire state of PA asked for a double-digit tax increase. This year, neighboring Wilson Township is only asking its residents for a 2.6% tax increase, which is well below the state cap. From behind their Apple laptops, board members insisted that the costs were largely out of their control, but assured residents that they would "turn over every stone." How about turning over their Apple laptops for starters? The cheaper Dell laptops seemed to be enough for the reporters in the room.


So a lot of time was spent discussing renovations to the pool, and although the amount of the pool accounts for only 8% of the money that needs to be cut from the budget to eliminate a tax increase, the nature of the discussion between residents and board members around this single topic shows just how important resident attendance at these meetings is, if appropriate cuts are going to be made.


There are two newer members to the board, Jen Holzberger and Sarah Bilotti, who at least seem to be asking the right types of questions. Jen Holzberger announced finding $108,000 of unapproved contract fees from D'Huy after just a few minutes of reviewing the budget on her own. She went on to say that if each board member could begin to do the same diligence, they might find other places where discrepancies could be resolved to reduce the budget. Sarah Bilotti, at the previous Finance Committee meeting, had challenged the expense of paying for four presenters slated to explain their bid on a capital project to the board. It was only $750, but "still, why do we need four people to come, rather than just one?" she asked. A resident leaned over to me, and said, "how about a conference call?" So while most of the board seem pretty set in their ways, there are some glimmers of hope in the newer members that the future of the EASD might be a little more fiscally responsible, although still not thinking as creatively as the residents as to how money could be saved. They will need continued pressure (and creative problem-solving ideas) from residents to bring about the deep cuts that we are after.


Two board members made requests of residents to elicit our help in bringing down the increase:


1. Dr. Vulcano (husband of City Councilwoman Sandra Vulcano) appealed to residents to write our Governor, State representatives and senators to demand that casino gaming money be given to the schools to offset property taxes. According to Vulcano, when put to the voters whether or not to accept casino money, voters were told it would offset EASD property taxes, but accused the State of "cheating the people and lying to the people" and awarding the casino money to the cities instead. I have to verify this and will go into more detail in a future post.


2. Ms. Holzberger urged residents to write their State officials to press for relief for the school district in the retirement savings crisis, because, for some reason, school districts have to pay into the State employees pension fund each year (keep in mind that EASD employees are not State employees), and it's a big chunk of money that gets passed on to the taxpayer. I will be looking into this in greater detail as well in future posts.


All in all, the most cost-conscious ideas seemed to be coming from Ms. Holzberger, but it is very important for residents as we get to know our board members meeting by meeting, to judge how well our elected officials are doing their jobs, by their deeds, not their words.


In the end, the board voted 7-0 for the preliminary budget with an 11.85% tax increase to residents.