So we’ve weathered a rather rough year in the Scranton School District.  How?  The Board really pulled out all the stops.  While I certainly wish more had been done (and more could have), we made it when I thought a state takeover was a distinct possibility.

The Board deserves credit.

They recently released a statement regarding a special meeting that touts its accomplishments and refers to how it will handle the future.  It recaps a lot of what has been already made public and serves to highlight that they have a commitment to continue tackling this problem.

I want to use this post to focus on what the Board has done and I’m going to start with the tone and culture of both itself and the way the district administration operates.  I understand that morale is low for just about everybody, but I’m talking about policy that helped the Board get through this, and will help it become more professional in the future.

Here goes:

• Utilizing the Pennsylvania School Board Association (PSBA) — Katie Gilmartin, who chairs the Policy Committee, has been, in conjunction with Board President Barb Dixon, working to align the Board’s policies with standard practice.  While this doesn’t sound glorious, following the correct and recommended process amounts to a massive culture change.  The Board, of course, has its disagreements, but despite these, we’ve seen the Board make it through a year that I didn’t think they could survive.  Things like this help.  The PSBA’s experience in dealing with all things School Board can’t be understated– the Scranton School Board even underwent a training with them, which shows the current level of commitment to moving forward.
• Money from the Governor — While I’m sure only one director wasn’t involved in this, I know that P.J. Duffy has been meeting with Senator John Blake regularly for the past two years to help secure funding from the state in order to help mitigate this crisis.  He points out often that our funding formula is incorrect and has spoken to officials at the Erie School District, which had their formula fixed by the state.  We can only hope his continued efforts bear fruit, because Scranton is clearly underfunded.  Regardless, the district got a lifeline of $2 million.  With next year’s state budget already passed, we know that there will be a boost in funding.  It’s rumored that additional surplus funding will be coming from the state again, but a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.  Still, it’s better that there’s some possibility, rather than a firm “no way” to more funds.
• Transparency — As noted in the district release above, we are going to see committee meetings have minutes, finally.  Currently, there are no records of what transpires/transpired at these (which is absurd).  This change is a giant leap forward.  The fact that there were no minutes or videos of Finance Committee meetings from last year at the height of this crisis astounds me.  I only found out about this malpractice by e-mailing and asking to see the records, only to be told they don’t keep them.  Red flag, anybody?  People in the city have no way of knowing what was done to address our budget at these meetings (which obviously wasn’t enough, given where we are now).  Tom Schuster was the chair of finance as this crisis evolved and should’ve championed an open process, but declined to do so.  Thankfully, the new Board is remedying this error.
• Investigations — Both the Sansky situation and the bus contract are being looked at in an official capacity by various entities.  We’ve already heard from the Auditor General on the bus contract and a grand jury is looking, at the very least, at Sansky’s million dollar deal (the paper’s figure only includes records that the SSD didn’t destroy, which total 7 years– he made more than what’s reported).  While these are basically out of the Board’s hands right now, when we finally get prosecutions or reports, the Board will be able to take action.  Half of the city is looking forward to justice.  And real justice means repayment.
• Set up “Shared Services” — I have been advocating for this since I ran back in 2011.  There’s massive overlap in government services locally, and it’s time to pool those services to save money.  I’m glad the Board is taking this step.  While it hasn’t moved as quickly as I’d like, the fact that it’s happening at all is another major step forward.
• Layoffs  —  There’s no other way to say it: these are awful, and I believe not necessary, given the Board’s decision to borrow.  And paired with the fact that the savings is only $200,000 for year one.  But the Board reduced the original 89 teacher layoffs to about 25, and they deserve credit for that.  There were furloughs in the maintenance/clerical union, as well.  This includes library clerks, gym/swim attendants, in addition to regular maintenance staff.  While the members of the Board may seem distant to a lot of us, I know many took these layoffs to heart.  Nobody wants to cast a vote that costs somebody a job.  It’s just a lot of bad choices.
• Staff Reduction via Attrition — One reason the teacher layoffs weren’t quite so severe was because of retirements or resignations.  A lot of teachers have been applying to other districts to get out of dodge, which saves money.  And people who were eligible to take a hard-earned retirement saw the writing on the wall and got out as well.  I’m certain you’ll see a repeat of this next year.  Further, the maintenance/clerical union’s staff was greatly reduced as well via attrition and retirements, producing savings.
• Tax Increase — Nobody likes a tax increase.  And another is likely coming next year.  But it’s the quickest way to plug the gap and it’s a sad necessity.  I’m going to be writing about further solutions, and I’d like to see the Board consider pairing tax increases with rebates for seniors (the Old Forge School District does this).
• Borrowing — The district borrowed a little over $10 million.  I’m not a fan of seeing us dig deeper, but this balanced the budget.  What I’d like to see, even though we’d be paying closing costs and fees associated with this, is an entire debt restructuring.  The district’s debt service is massive.  It needs to be reduced.  A total refinance, while complex, would help reduce debt service.  This is new director Paige Cognetti’s realm, so keep an eye on what she does as Finance Chair next year.  It makes a lot more sense that we have an MBA from Harvard there than what we’ve seen in the past.

So it hasn’t been all doom and gloom, as I’d feared.  Instead, we’ve been upgraded to partly cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms.  Credit goes where it’s due and the fact that the Board was able to weather this year’s storm leaves me cautiously optimistic that it’ll be better equipped to handle what comes next year.

My next post will cover the players in the game.  Who has gotten blame, who deserves it, where the fault lies, why this is happening, and so on.