Review Photo/JAMES LOEWENSTEIN Parent Kristy Mosier asks the Towanda School Board to move the bus stop for her children to a road with less truck traffic.

Towanda School Board looking at $1 million shortfall in its 2010-11 budget

The Towanda School Board on Monday established a new chemistry course at Towanda High School and continued to work on the district's budget for the 2010-11 school year, which currently has a shortfall of a little over $1 million.

The new chemistry course that was established, which is called Chemistry in the Community, "will be an opportunity for some students who shy away from chemistry and physics because they are somewhat intimidated by the name of the course," said Principal Dennis Peachey. The mathematics used in the course will not be as tough as in the regular chemistry course, he said.

The course, which was developed by the American Chemical Society, focuses on issues in society, such as the limited availability of water in the western United States, and teaches chemistry concepts in connection with those issues, said Mike Hudyncia, a science teacher at the high school.

The course also has a heavy hands-on component to the teaching, which could involve, for example, getting water samples from a stream in Towanda and measuring the pH, or acidity, of that water, Hudyncia said.

The same course is also taught in some other local school districts, Peachey said.

Budget

For the first time, the school board got a chance to look at projected revenue and projected expenses for the school district's proposed 2010-11 budget, and at this point there is shortfall in the budget of a little over $1 million, said Doreen Secor, school district business manager.

The projected expenditures for the school district for the 2010-11 school year are $24,103,668, while the projected revenues for 2010-11 school year are $23,058,117, she said.

However, the size of the shortfall could be decreased for a number of reasons, Secor said.

She said the expenditures include all of the capital improvement projects that have been requested for the coming year - including a $200,000 resurfacing of the high school track and a $50,000 replacement of piping at the high school pool - and the board could choose not do to some of those projects, she said.

She also said the school district could apply for a waiver from the state for how $340,000 in federal stimulus dollars could be used, which, if granted, would ease the shortfall.

Currently, the $340,000 can only be used to establish new programs or expand existing programs which would boost student achievement, but if the waiver were granted, the school district would be able to use the money, for example, to hire new teachers to replace retiring teachers to keep class sizes low, Secor said.

School Board President Peggi Munkittrick said the size of the shortfall is actually much less than it usually is at this stage of the budget process.

The school board has passed a resolution limiting any increase in the property or occupation tax this year to 4.1 percent.

The revenues in the proposed budget include a 9.22 percent increase in state basic education funding for the school district, which was included in Gov. Ed Rendell's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2010-11, Secor said.

However, Secor said she did not know if the school district will receive the full increase in basic education funding.

The 9.22 percent increase would raise the state's basic education funding to the school district by $597,495, bringing it up to $7,077,094, Secor said.

The increase is in line with Rendell's Costing Out Study, which looked at the amount of money that would be needed to adequately fund school districts in Pennsylvania, Secor said.

However, Towanda school officials said that Sen. Gene Yaw and state Rep. Tina Pickett do not support the level of state funding for schools this year that is called for in the Costing Out Study, Towanda school officials said. The lack of available state funds this year has been cited as the main reason for not funding schools at the level recommended in the Costing Out Study.

Two parents, Kristy Mosier and Suzanne Ferris, also asked the school board to establish a school bus stop on the road they live on, Boat Club Road in Durell.

Currently their children, some of whom are younger than 11 years old, have to walk to a bus stop on state Route 187.

They said the heavy trucks from the gas industry make the bus stop on Route 187 less safe. And Mosier said that she is concerned that many people working in the gas industry are not from this area, and therefore could be a risk to their children.

The school board directed Mosier and Ferris to work with Secor on the matter.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or e-mail: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.