Jun 19, 2008 By Patty Yauger 3 min read

CONNELLSVILLE – Several Connellsville Area School District board members were absent Wednesday from the scheduled budget meeting. Directors Ed Zadylak and Jon Detwiler, who also serve as financial committee members, attended the second of two sessions set last month by the board.

Those not attending included directors Francis Mongell, Karen Blocker, Loretta Lint, James Fabian, Denise Martin, Jeffrey Harvey and Kevin Lape.

Shortly after the scheduled 7 p.m. start of the meeting, business manager Eugene Cunningham received a telephone call and then informed Zadylak and Detwiler that he was to proceed with the meeting.

However, because a quorum of the members was not in attendance, a meeting was not conducted. Instead, the three discussed the budget figures that indicate an imbalance of revenues and expenditures.

“I guess (Thursday’s) festivities got in front of this,” said Detwiler, referring to today’s court hearing.

The district, along with Mongell, Blocker, Lint, Fabian, Martin and Harvey, are defendants in a civil lawsuit tied to action taken in May to consolidate the district by closing three elementary schools and realigning grade levels.

The action has been challenged by a coalition of nearly 40 residents who want the buildings to remain open and the kindergarten through grade 12 alignment to remain intact.

The hearing is scheduled to take place today before Fayette County Court of Common Pleas Judge Ralph Warman.

Cunningham, Detwiler and Zadylak said that they received no advance information that the other members were not going to be in attendance.

Detwiler, Zadylak and Lape were not named in the civil lawsuit as defendants.

The budget figures, meanwhile, indicate a deficit of $768,900 – down from nearly $3.5 million early on in the process, according to Cunningham, with savings realized from health insurance cost reductions, retirement contributions being lower than anticipated, the retirement of nine staff members and revisions to debt payments.

Also included in the budget is the cost savings tied to the closure of Dunbar Borough, South Side and Connellsville Township elementary schools.

According to Cunningham, the district will save an estimated $154,100 in utility costs for the three buildings.

However, Zadylak said that the savings should be additionally boosted with the furloughing of the 77 staff members at the three buildings, but no official action has been taken to reduce the number of employees.

Zadylak said that he planned to inquire of district Superintendent James Duncan as to where the teachers, aides, monitors, cafeteria workers and custodians from the closed buildings would be transferred, but was unable to do so because he, too, was absent from the Wednesday meeting.

“There should be a substantial savings (with the furloughs), but we all know that isn’t going to happen,” he said.

Zadylak speculated that the $64.2 million budget would be adopted, with a majority of the board withdrawing the money needed to balance the spending plan from the fund balance.

The board is scheduled to meet Monday to set an agenda for its regular meeting next Wednesday.

The final budget must be submitted to the state Department of Education by June 30.