At the March 7 operations committee meeting of the Salisbury Township School District, members heard a presentation on bond borrowing from Wes Haul, senior analyst, Public Financial Management, reviewed preliminary to final budget changes, began the policy readings and discussed a new high school stadium scoreboard.

Board members reviewed a number of scoreboards offered by Fair-Play and Daktronics. The board is favoring a digital board which would allow for advertising and are hoping a corporate sponsor will be willing to partner with the district in the purchase of the board.

Scoreboards currently at the Wilson Area School District and Northern Lehigh School District were also reviewed. Prices ranged from $40,000 to $95,000.

Director of Maintenance, Building and Grounds William Brackett said controls for the scoreboad are wireless now but a fiber optic cable line will need to be trenched to the press box if going with a message center.

Brackett said D’Huy Engineering will need to be involved in the project to get the permits needed.

The board chose a board by Daktronics at a cost of $69,000 and authorized Brackett to move forward with the project so it can be installed this summer.

The bond borrowing presentation included two options to borrow the $2 million needed to fund the HVAC system renovation at Harry S Truman Elementary School this summer.

The level debt service option and the wrap around debt service option were presented.

The level debt service option has a 15-year-term and a 0.14 millage impact to taxpayers.

The wrap around debt service option has a 14-year-term and a 0.05 millage impact to taxpayers. This option will cost the district approximately $200,000 more in interest due to delaying the millage impact.

After a long discussion, the board decided to go with the wrap around debt service option and will continue to save money each year in the capital reserves account for future projects.

Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss said he had concerns about the wrap around debt service option.

“We will have to be disciplined to put money in the capital reserve account each year. What if we have a bad budget year? We’d have to make cuts,” Ziegenfuss said.

Directors Audrey Frick and Christopher Spedaliere presented the first set of policies for review and approval. The district is working with King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul to update all district policies. Policies 1.1 through 1.6, 4.2 and 6.1 will be presented at the March 16 meeting for final approval.

Business Administrator Robert Bruchak reviewed the preliminary to final budget for 2016-2017 and noted a public presentation of the proposed final budget will be held 7 p.m. May 2 in the administration building. The public is asked to attend to view the budget and ask questions before the adoption May 18. The final budget will be adopted June 15.

In reviewing revenues and expenditures and not knowing what the state contribution will be, the budget has a $1,356,495 deficit.

The wish list for the district was cut to include new positions including a special education teacher, an interventionist at HST, a third grade teacher at HST, a human resources coordinator position and a part-time administrative assistant at the administration building.

Two other expenditure changes include an increase of tuition at Lehigh Carbon Technical Institute of $26,368 due to increased enrollment and an increase in debt service of $124,988 to fund the air handler system at HST.

The athletic trainer service agreement was reviewed. OAA’s agreement offer shows a decrease in price for a five year contract with no increase over time and the intent to take over the ambulance service. The district is currently under contract with St. Luke’s University Health Network for ambulance services.