Will the budget pass? The deadline is tomorrow (June 30). I'm going to take a guess and say yes.
February Business meeting? Don't ask.
District Event
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
SCHOOL BOARD MONTHLY BUSINESS MEETING
The February Business meeting of the Board of School Directors will be held at 7:30 pm in the LGI Room on Wednesday, June 29, 2011.
Time: 7:30 pm
22 comments:
"February Business meeting? Don't ask."
I won't. Just note that up to $25000 doesn't go very far these days. Bye bye 10 aides and other cuts; you were "unnecessary expenses".
Pennsylvania Senate makes last attempt at school voucher bill
By Sari Heidenreich
PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Last updated: 10:42 am
HARRISBURG — In a final push to get school voucher legislation passed before recess on Thursday, the state Senate today will work on a bill that would provide taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers to children in failing school districts.
The Senate Education Committee will consider amending a bill, which already passed the House, with a two-year voucher plan for low-income children who attend the lowest-performing 5 percent of Pennsylvania schools, according to lawmakers close to the issue.
The bill provides for the expansion of the Educational Improvement Tax Credit (EITC) program, which gives business-funded scholarships to low income students.
Gov. Tom Corbett met with House leaders yesterday to discuss "education reform," said House GOP spokesman, Steve Miskin. Corbett met with House Speaker Sam Smith and House Majority Leader Mike Turzai. Senate leaders left the floor for a late-afternoon meeting on vouchers, a senator said.
The push comes while Corbett publicly reiterates that he wants a voucher plan passed by Thursday, and after the Wall Street Journal published a critical opinion piece this week about the voucher progress in Pennsylvania, saying the GOP effort as resembles "Keystone Cops."
Corbett, who identified vouchers as one of his priorities, said yesterday "we have been working on (a voucher plan), and we have been working on it behind-the-scenes."
According to Senate GOP spokesman Erik Arneson, Friday is the earliest that rules would allow the Senate to vote on the amended education bill.
"As of this moment, we are not scheduled to be in session on Friday. That could change - discussions regarding HB 1330 and school choice are ongoing," Arneson wrote in an e-mail this morning.
Rep. Tom Quigley, R-Montgomery County, author of the bill set to be amended, said House Republicans will discuss the issue this morning and "get a serious count internally" to see if they have the votes to pass the bill if the Senate sends it to them.
Quigley said the bulk of the bill still will be about EITC and he thinks "there's a majority of the people who want to see the EITC passed." He said this would be a good selling point for some who are unsure about vouchers itself.
Rep. Paul Clymer, chair of the Education Committee, expressed concern that amending the EITC bill could lead to delays in the passage of a program he said was very important to many school districts.
Read more: Pennsylvania Senate makes last attempt at school voucher bill - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/breaking/s_744434.html#ixzz1QgIwxgCn
If it don't work out, there's always the middle of the night some time later when people aren't paying attention...............................
Gov. Tom Corbett's last-minute school voucher push appears to falter
Published: Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 12:29 PM Updated: Wednesday, June 29, 2011, 2:23 PM
By JAN MURPHY, The Patriot-News The Patriot-News
The General Assembly is facing troubled waters in its effort to push a voucher bill through at the last-minute before the summer break.
View full sizeCHRIS KNIGHT, The Patriot-News A House Republican leadership source said staff worked through the night trying to cobble a compromise on a voucher plan that could pass both chambers.
An agreement has not been struck, and Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, said an agreement had to be done today if a voucher law were to get done before the summer break, according to the source.
Corbett on Tuesday said there was still time to get a voucher plan through the Legislature. A Senate GOP leadership staffer suggested the Senate was willing to give it a shot if the House thought it could get it out of that chamber and to the governor.
A House source said the House is willing to look at a plan if the Senate sends one over, and that is where it was left.
The last-ditch effort fizzled almost as quickly as it arose.
So, how did the meeting go?
perhaps you should have gone!
Okay shame on me. So, how did the meeting go?
MORRISVILLE SCHOOLS
District makes partial payment to tech school
Posted: Wednesday, June 29, 2011 10:55 pm | Updated: 12:25 am, Thu Jun 30, 2011.
By GEMA MARIA DUARTE
Staff writer | 0 comments
Morrisville School District will make a payment of more than a half a million dollars “in good faith” to Bucks County Technical High School. In addition, the district will request that the technical school be audited.
The school board voted 8-0 to make the $522,027 payment at Wednesday’s meeting, an agenda item added toward the end of the meeting. School director Gloria Heater wasn’t at the meeting.
School board President Bill Hellmann said the district will make the “payment in good faith and is evidence of the school district’s desire to equitably and accurately resolve the technical school funding issues. The solicitor is further directed to request that the Pennsylvania Department of Education audit the (technical school) to determine if it is being operated and its current funding formula is in accord with the state mandate that the (technical school) provide a thorough and efficient system of public education.”
Although Hellmann and school director Marlys Mihok wanted to say more about the issue such as the outstanding amount due to the tech school, board solicitor Thomas Profy IV advised them otherwise because the issue is in litigation.
Hellmann later described the outstanding amount as “a significant amount.”
The district has been holding payments for months, because officials believe the tech school is overcharging Morrisville for educating 53 borough students who attend the occupational school full time. The district is being charged about $740,000 for this school year.
In February, Morrisville stopped a scheduled $151,914 tech school payment due that month and put it in an escrow account. Similar payments in October and December were also placed in escrow. This year’s last payment — about $200,000 due in April — was also put into escrow; only the first payment was released, officials have said.
As the school district moves forward with the tech school issues, it has also moved forward with the permanent hiring of Bill Ferrara as the district’s superintendent effective Friday at the salary of $120,000 for the 2011-12 school year. The contract is for three years. For the 2010-11 school year, Ferrara served as acting superintendent since the departure of Elizabeth Yonson in September.
I was there for about 98% of the meeting. The Tech School payment happened in the 2% after I left. Nothing like a $522,027 payment to the Tech School added under New Bidness.
please note that the payment was most likely ordered by the PA dept of Educa for services rendered otherwise we would have been in breach of our contract and the bylaws and charged with stolen services since those payments were for services rendered in the past. They would not have a leg to stand on for future dispute against new budgets without making what they are calling a "good faith payment". However you will not hear that part from the board,only the part they want you to think happened which was they personally had a change of heart and decided to pay part of their bill on their own without intervention or direction...
Good post.
I wasn't there for the discussion, but the article was giving me a whiff of the partial payment being an attempt at a face saving gesture knowing that the hammer might be coming down.
This is one of the areas where I was concerned about the "facts" put out by the board (mostly Bill Hellmann) for not paying Tech.
Hellmann's claims about how we were overcharged by Tech weren't holding water based on the information I got from other public sources.
I'm not talking about the overall fairness of the funding formula.
I'm saying that the claims that Tech misapplied the formula and hosed MSD weren't standing up to scrutiny.
Msrlys Mihok repeated a modified yet still inaccurate version of those claims at the May board business meeting.
Marlys Mihok did too.
In other news last night:
1. The budget passed (surprise!)
2. Bill Ferrara was hired as Superintendent, it looks like just for the 2011-12 school year. Salary = $120,000.
What else of note?
Regarding Anonymous directly above comments.
Based on what you say about the "Good Faith" payment I have to once again question any trust the public puts into this school board's actions. I have to admit that not everything they do is terrible (Personally I'd say 20% of what they do is positive. At least it is not a 0) but based on their comments and actions, and what later ends up being done or not done in the district they have shown over and over again that you can't trust them. They most often say one thing and do the exact opposite. Whether it is intentional or just poor planning on their part it leads to an extremely huge issue of trust.
Trust is a big problem. When you sling crap and lies, you get all-around mistrust, even on mundane or even positive things.
Several years in, I'm going to go out on a limb and say the board members who sling the crap and lies aren't going to change. They're wired that way.
Hence, I've been trying to implement what you might call a "containment policy" very similar to the U.S. approach to containing, or preventing, the spread of Communism after World War II. I call them on it. I encourage others to do the same. Someone said it the other day on here - a lie repeated can become truth to someone unsuspecting.
Exec Sessions- the Board had another one last nite, lasted 1/2 hr, 45 mins. maybe.24 hrs advance notice is required for exec sessions, right? Is this happening??
Good question. Anybody know what the rule is? It's not mentioned at the meetings that advance notice was given. The public isn't privy to the discussions, you just get a general topic like Personnel or Real Estate, so you can't really tell how important the specific issues are.
I have a big trust issue with this board also. Closing down committe meetings which were open to the public and hOlding what seems to be more executive sessions than ever during monthly board and agenda meetings leads me to believe that the issues once covered in open committee meetings is now being discussed in closed executive sessions. And the public will never know for sure.
How convenient for the untrustworthy group of people known as the school board.
What a great detriment to our community.
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely
On the plus side, I saw quite a few new faces in the audience at last night's meeting, as well as some familiar faces that don't normally attend the meetings. No new speakers that I can recall, though.
I don't know what was driving it, but I thought it was a good sign. I know some were concerned about the budget, and changes or cuts in certain programs, such as music.
Does anybody know more about what some peoples' concerns were or why they were attending?
Updates on www.angryyet.net angry speaks
MORRISVILLE SCHOOLS
For fourth year, Morrisville will educate its students without raising taxes
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Posted: Thursday, June 30, 2011 2:52 pm | Updated: 11:15 pm, Thu Jun 30, 2011.
By GEMA MARIA DUARTE Staff writer | 2 comments
For the fourth consecutive year, the Morrisville School District will educate its students and pay its bills without raising taxes.
The board voted 8-0 to approve the $17.22 million spending plan for the 2011-2012 school year at Wednesday's meeting.
The district expects revenues of $16.97 million, leaving a difference of $250,000, which will be covered by savings. After the 2011-12 school year, the district's savings account will have $2.36 million left, down from the $3.02 million at the end of the 2008-09 school year.
The millage rate of 177.3 remains unchanged. The owner of a property assessed at the district's average of $20,820 will pay $3,691 in taxes. One mill is equal to $1 in taxation for every $1,000 of assessed property value.
The 2011-2012 school year budget "represents a decrease of $1,050,521 from the 2010-2011 budget, or 5.8 percent approximate decrease," said district business administrator Paul DeAngelo.
Ten aide positions were eliminated. The budget also includes a spending and salary freeze for administrators. Early teacher retirements and severance packages also reduced budget costs in the coming school year.
Thursday was the state deadline for approving a budget.
Really,No cuts huh, then what are the differences in between last years budget and this years representing in instructional/sports activities? not all are early retirement. be real DeAngelo and stop kissing the asses of those sitting a few seats from you.
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