Uniontown to use state money on books
Uniontown Area School District property owners can still expect a 2-mill tax hike this year. When the school board reopened the 2002-2003 budget Monday after the state gave the district a little extra in the annual subsidy, the directors could have lowered taxes or given out a refund. They also could have paid off some debt or restored funding to any educational programs they reduced or cut.
Their choice was to put the money back into the educational programs.
“The $77,313 additional money from the state is in the instructional category,” said William Rittenhouse Jr., who heads the school board’s finance committee.
Rittenhouse said the funds would be escrowed toward a planned purchase of life sciences textbooks for kindergarten to 12th grade. He said after the meeting that there was no lowering of the taxes because school officials had made so many cuts during preparation of the budget.
“We thought of the textbooks and we wanted to include something for textbooks. You have to keep buying them because you get out of sequence,” he said.
The budget total is $32,000,036 with the tax rate at 52.15 mills.
The school board on approval of the budget the first time June 28 banked on a 2 percent increase in the state funding before final passage of the state budget. The school district actually received an increase of 2.4 percent.
The state legislators passed their own budget later than most school districts that now have to reopen their spending plans to account for their actual state subsidy.
The vote on the final budget was 7-1. Director Susan Clay voted no and Director Nancy Herring was absent.
In other matters, the school board approved a new wage agreement with the principals and central office administrators that goes into effect this school year and continues through 2006-2007.
The vote was 5-3 in the agreement’s favor with Directors Tammy Boyle, Dorothy Grahek and Ken Meadows voting no.
The pact gives the principals and administrators a 3 percent raise in this first year and a 4 percent increase in each of the following years.
The pay increase this year will cost the district $19,468, a figure Rittenhouse said was included in the budget.
The added cost in 2003-2004 is $35,056, in 2004-2005 is $35,458, in 2005-2006 is $36,876 and in 2006-2007 is $38,351.
Otherwise, provisions remain the same in what is formally called the Act 93 agreement.
The school board also hired a number of teachers for the upcoming school year.
They named Jason Miller as a high school earth and space science teacher at level one of the teachers’ agreement, Michael Mehalek as a high school biology teacher at level two of the teachers’ agreement, Michael Silbaugh as a high school chemistry teacher at level one of the teachers’ agreement, Robert Manges as a high school social studies teacher at level one of the teachers’ agreement, Earl Wingrove as a high school technology education teacher at level one of the teachers’ agreement, and James Lombardi as high school music teacher/band director at level four of the teachers’ agreement. The starting salary at level one is $24,500.
The board approved employment of Lori J. Kadar as a first-grade teacher at Franklin School at level one of the teachers’ agreement, making her hiring retroactive to Jan. 22.
They agreed to create and post a fourth-grade position at Benjamin Franklin School under the Class Size Reduction Act.
The board also hired Laurie McElroy as a confidential secretary in the curriculum office at the entry-level salary of $28,500. They further named Scott VanSickle as the assistant girls’ varsity basketball coach for $1,751.75.
In his first meeting as superintendent, Chuck Machesky thanked the school board for giving him the opportunity to serve as superintendent and announced he will establish a $1,000 scholarship in honor of his father each year he remains in the office.
He said he would start this scholarship on his family’s behalf “to give something back” to the district. He said he would work with the guidance counselors and the only parameters would be that the scholarship goes to “an honest and hardworking student.”