Salaries and Benefits Make Up 72% of the Budget

Reading the recent Courier Times article about the budget at Council Rock, people may have gotten the impression there’s a lot of items that can be trimmed before looking at salaries and benefits.  The article stated that salaries and benefits comprise 55% of the budget.  That percentage is way understated. Next year’s proposed budget shows [...]

Initial Look at 2010-11 Budget = 6.9% Increase in Property Taxes (Up 7.45 Mills to 115.41)

Thanks to Act 1 (not that there’s a ton for which to be thankful there), School Districts have to present preliminary budgets much earlier in the year than they had several years ago. This is a double-edged sword, since it requires Districts to make more projections when they don’t have a ton of data from [...]

What Is the Responsibility of the School District to Keep the Public Informed? Where Is the Response to Public Comments? What Is the Status of the CRESPA Contract?

Let’s be clear — the Council Rock School Board is a governmental agency.  They have taxing authority over the public.  And with that comes a responsibility to keep the public informed of matters impacting the District and potential problems that could affect the budget and, in turn, the taxes we pay. They don’t just operate [...]

Update on Hatboro-Horsham Teachers’ Contract and Merit Pay

I’ve written a couple of times about the contract negotiations at Hatboro-Horsham, where the School Board is trying to inject some element of merit pay into the salaries teachers receive.  Here is an update from the Intelligencer on-line, posted on the 19th of October, reporting little movement in those contract talks. But the bargaining position [...]

Guest Editorial in Courier Times about the Need for Merit Pay and for Ending Tenure

Today’s Courier Times contains an interesting guest editorial from Simon Campbell in Pennsbury discussing the need to introduce merit pay and to end the current system of tenure. As part of the write-up, the writer cites statements made by Bob Chanin, retiring general counsel of the NEA (National Education Association), the teachers’ union.  The comments [...]

Will the Board Revisit the Evening School?

As I pointed out in a recent blog post, the cost analysis for the Evening School was lacking.  It showed a hefty potential profit for the District, but it failed to reduce that profits by significant costs for the staff time to plan it and run it.  It also seemed to understate costs for utilities [...]

It’s Easy to Show a Profit If You Omit Certain Expenses

At the June 4th School Board meeting, a presentation was made to form an Evening School for adults to take classes such as Bus Tours, Yoga and Ceramics.  The public was not made privy to the documentation that night — it was not included in attachments posted to the CRSD website in advance of the [...]

Two Looks at Salary Figures and Where Council Rock Ranks

Over the last few budget cycles, when talk at Board meetings turns toward how to control costs and minimize tax increases, it’s been pointed out that salaries and benefits represent such a large chunk of the budget it limits how much trimming can be done. Salaries and benefits are over 70% of the budget, and [...]

Hatboro-Horsham Looking into Merit Pay Increase System Instead of Seniority Based Increases

I’ve come across a couple of articles on the doings at nearby Hatboro-Horsham School District where they’re negotiating a new teachers’ contract. (Recall that Council Rock recently extended its teachers’ contract by one year with a pay raise of 2.75% for 2011-12 in exchange for them reducing this year’s raise from 2.5% down to 1.75%.) [...]