In May 2016, the Pennsylvania State Legislature passed House Bill 1552 to make a fair funding formula part of the Pennsylvania School Code. The fair funding formula analyzes data to determine how much money is needed per district to provide an appropriate education for their students.

The Education Funding Commission was formed to study funding disparities from one district to another and determine how to create equality between the most underfunded and overfunded districts.

According to the fair funding formula, Pennsylvania ranks as the ninth lowest in state funding for public education, leaving local taxpayers to absorb the majority of the cost of education expenses.

Formulas for districts are determined by the expense to educate each student, additional resources needed to educate students with special needs, the number of students living in poverty, the size of the district, the median household income and property taxes generated by the community.

During the Feb. 6 operations meeting, Dr. Tom Seidenberger, circuit rider for PA schools, gave the board a summary of the data for the district.

According to Seidenberger, the EFC has been studying data for three years and the fundamental information gathered is exact and not an estimate.

Funding, stated Seidenberger is a “three legged stool” representing the actual number of students, the make-up of the student population and economic factors of the district.

Districts with over 30 percent of their student population living in poverty receive additional credits, Seidenberger noted.

Each factor determines a ratio for the district and how the district is funded each year.

The data, continued Seidenberger, used for the funding formula is gathered from the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the federal government which generates the figures for federal poverty levels.

According to the data, the expense for “weighted student” or the student based budget at Salisbury is $16,426.68 with a total expense for all “weighted students” of $1,788,719. In the past year, both the median household income and the students living in some level of poverty in the district have increased.

Seidenberger said it is still unclear how Senate Bill 76 or the Property Tax Independence Act will affect funding for schools across the commonwealth.

Following the presentation on fair funding, William Brackett, director of facilities at Salisbury, introduced Barbara Lippman and Michael Sarcinello from Environmental Control Systems. ECS has been working to remediate the bus garage cleanup stemming from a fuel leak in 1998.

Lippman said the underground storage tank identification fund is paying 100 percent of the expenditures to remedy the situation.

“The most prudent way to go about this, is to go with the site specific clean-up standard for soil and ground water,” Sarcinello said. The contaminants will be left in the ground and a covenant will be placed on the deed of the property to indicate the contamination. The property could be restricted to non-residential use, continued Sarcinello. The cost to deem the contamination as site specific and close out the process would be $42,000.

The creek adjacent to the bus garage has not been affected by the spill, noted Sarcinello.

Lippman said $100,000 remains in the clean-up fund and the entire $42,000 would be paid by the fund.

School Board President Frank Frankenfield said the property affected is in a flood zone and nothing could be built on the land.

With the amount of money remaining in the fund, ECS could return to the site and test the water in the underground wells periodically, if the claim remains open.

According to Brackett, a delivery driver inadvertently had a fuel spill while refilling the underground unit which leaked into the asphalt, the soil and the underground wells. Brackett suggested closing some of the wells to prevent further issues.

Lippman said the area had been cleaned and there is no longer any evidence of contamination at the bus garage area.

“ECS has made major accomplishments in the cleanup efforts at the site,” Lippman said.

Frankenfield lauded ECS’s efforts to cleanup the site.

Brackett questioned whether the committee was comfortable making a decision on how to proceed with the site, given the information by ECS.

“We are trying to be the best neighbors possible and I am comfortable making a vote,” Director Joseph Gnall said.

Frankenfield concurred with Gnall responding, “We are being transparent and will have the deed corrected and have the area re-tested in three to five years.”

Brackett suggested also having the four contaminated wells monitored and should no further signs of improvement be realized at the five year mark, to close the wells.

The committee agreed with Brackett’s suggestion.

The next item on the agenda was the expense to cover the water booster pump repair at Salisbury Middle School. According to Brackett, a booster pump was installed during the boiler and hot water update done in 2009 at SMS. Before the installation, the lower level of the middle school was plagued by poor water pressure. One of the pumps and one of the control panels has since failed. New control technology and the pump will be replaced at a cost of $14,588.

Board Secretary Robert Bruchak stated the agenda for the next board meeting will include opening an account for the students at Salisbury High School who created an environmental club and the Salisbury Township School District Audit.

Bruchak said the audit was “clean” and was “performed using the accounting principles accepted by the United States of America.”

As an overview, the assets listed on the budget are approximately $68,000,000 while the liabilities are reported at nearly $95,000,000.

Bruchak said recent changes in accounting principles for audits requires pension plans to be reported as liabilities and the estimated $45,000,000 the district owes to the state for the pension plan is recorded as a liability.

The fund balance was reduced nearly $2 million by a transfer of the funds for the HVAC project at Harry S Truman Elementary School.

Considering items for the budget, Bruchak said even though the township has a request for proposal out for a food service management company, it was imperative the board signed the agreement with the Le-Nor-Co Purchasing Group for their food procurement purchasing.

Le-Nor-Co is a large procurement group that purchases food for schools primarily in Lehigh and Northampton counties and has the buying power a small district like Salisbury does not.

The expenditure to secure Le-Nor-Co is $2,000. Should the district choose to accept an offer from the RFP, Bruchak reported a portion of the expense could be reimbursed to the school. The committee agreed to keep the agreement with Le-Nor-Co current.

Director Mary Ziegler brought about discussion of the food service RFP and asked the committee why everyone was “against outsourcing the service.”

“I don’t want to see people lose their jobs, but if we could guarantee that our present staff would not lose their jobs, why would they be against it?” Ziegler asked.

“Because there is still a fear they would lose their jobs,” Bruchak responded.

Frankenfield said when the RFPs come in, “there will be a lot of opportunities and options to keep the staff, but it is about the quality and expense of the food and we cannot continue to be in the red.”

“It’s change, there is going to be some kind of change. They cannot come in here and do status quo. We wouldn’t want them to do status quo, we are losing money with status quo. We are hoping to do both, to improve the quality and the financial condition of the food service department,” Bruchak said.

“One of the things we talked about internally,” Superintendent Dr. Randy Ziegenfuss said, “is that we want to keep our workers. That means that maybe when they retire or leave, we would replace them with the company’s work force.”

According to Ziegenfuss, one of the criteria in the proposal mandates Salisbury operates in the black in food services within a specific time period. Should the chosen company not be able to deliver that mandate, they would have to reimburse Salisbury for a specified portion of the loss.

“We have a financial duty to do what we can do to mitigate the issue and cut losses as money gets tighter and tighter,” Bruchak explained.

The committee also approved a 2.5 percent increase for the district’s elected tax collector for the first year of the four year contract and, level funded for the next three years. The salary for the position must be indicated prior to the election for the seat, stated Bruchak.

Regarding additional budget changes, Bruchak stated there weren’t any budget changes since the budget presentation in January and recommended during the next board meeting, the board approve the preliminary budget as presented and apply for exceptions. Bruchak reminded the committee the district had to go above the ACT I index in order for the state to approve the exceptions.

The next operations meeting will be held March 6.