Final Budget Raises Taxes 2.72 Mills or 2.52% — But Fund Balance Figure Is 5.18% of Expenditures (Board Policy Calls for 4%)

After a long meeting filled with discussion about how to use the Melsky money, whether to use some of that money to further reduce the budget and the tax hike, the Board passed the budget as it was presented by the Administration: projected expenditures of 199,278,168 including a $1,000,000 budgetary reserve; projected revenues of $194,071,499; [...]

Budget Hike Still at 3.4 Mills — Could Immediately Be Down to 2.4 Mills with a Fund Balance Closer to the District’s Policy Target

The budget presented at the most recent School Board meeting (and what’s currently on the CRSD website) showed less of an increase than earlier versions due to lower expenditures, but still showed a millage increase of 3.40 mills.  On a home with an assessment of $35,600 (the median from 2006), that would equate to a [...]

When Will This District Start Following Its Own Policy on Fund Balances? That Is, Stop Taxing Us More Than Needed?

For a number of years I have gone before the Board to argue that more money was being kept for the general unreserved fund balance than was needed. My point was that every dollar they took into a fund balance beyond necessary was extra taxation — money that deserves to remain in taxpayers’ pockets. I [...]

The Next Chapter — Will Teachers Who Knew about the Hawkins Affair Get Reinstated to Teaching Jobs in Council Rock?

The Robert Hawkins matter has not ended with the trial, his guilty plea nor now with his sentencing.  Another ugly side of the story was that other teachers apparently knew of the affair and did not report it to authorities so action could be taken to stop it.  Of these teachers, two were terminated by [...]

Good News (Well, Less-Bad News) for Council Rock Taxpayers

Previously as reported here and in newspapers, Council Rock School District was approaching its 2010-11 budget as if they could raise taxes by over 7%, about 7.2% to be more precise.  They were coming up with this figure by calculating in a couple of referendum exceptions on top of the Act 1 index of 2.9%.  [...]

Richboro Middle School Redistricting — Two Options Up for a Vote Tomorrow — Will We End Up with a Geographically Segregated Board?

As I’ve noted before, the School Board has been mulling over ideas to get all Richboro Middle School graduates sent to one high school, as opposed to the current situation where part of the graduating class goes to South and the other part to North.  For the past few years, they have offered students a [...]

District’s Special Counsel Claims Melsky Deal Is Still Basically the Same — We’ll See… Is the Track Record Really That Assuring?

At last night’s School Board meeting after I raised issues over the sudden appearance of an agreement that the District would sell the entire 134 acres of Melsky to Toll Brothers (and after questioning on this matter by school board members, notably Dr. Anagnostakos), special counsel John Donaghy proffered that this was not really a [...]

Holy Cow! Another Change to Melsky: Now Toll Brothers Gets to Buy the ENTIRE Property from Council Rock School District

The agenda for tonight’s Board meeting had a motion proposed for passage that would authorize Board president Bernadette Heenan to to act as the duly authorized agent of the Board of School Directors to execute all documents presented by special counsel to finalize the sale of the Melsky Property. Sounds innocuous enough. But looking at [...]

Location Change for January 21st Board Meeting

I just came across this at the School District’s website: the location for tomorrow night’s meeting of the School Board has been moved.  Instead of being at the Chancellor Center as usual, it will be held in the auditorium at Council Rock High School South.  The meeting start time remains unchanged.

Council Rock Sale of Melsky to Toll Brothers and Leo Holt Going Ahead — This Was First Class Work?

At the January 7th Board meeting Superintendent Mark Klein made an announcement that Toll Brothers would be going ahead with settlement on the Melsky tract purchase by the extended deadline of January 29th. Looking at the documents and the process that brought things to this point, Council Rock taxpayers have a right to ask whether [...]