By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
After five consecutive annual meetings with numerous speakers – and most against raising taxes – there was just one speaker at Monday night’s Burlington Area School District annual meeting.
And Normandie Byrne, after explaining she had reached an age where she could speak her mind candidly, admitted she was on a fixed income – and wanted to see the district spend what it needed to properly educate students.
“Education should be at the top of the priority list,” said Byrne, who chided the state government for taking public education in the wrong direction, and praised BASD Superintendent Peter Smet for his patience in getting “the job done in spite of things moving in a negative directions.”
The district residents at the meeting voted to approve the 2015-16 tax levy of $20.98 million – an increase of 2.06 percent – by a vote of 51-2.
The attendance was well down from last year, where more than 150 people showed up to vote on the tax levy. The last time the tax levy failed to pass was in 2011. However, it passed later that fall following a special meeting that took a second vote after BASD administration explained that reworking the budget at that point wasn’t practical.
Monday’s meeting also saw Smet give a brief overview of the stakeholder strategic planning, which has put in place a number of goals for the district, including studying the grade configurations at each school.
Because of declining enrollment, the district could possibly switch the number of grades at various schools. Smet stressed, however, that a number of ideas will likely come from Plunkett Raysich – the architectural firm hired for the facilities planning aspect of the study.
“It’s important that you remember, until something is completely studied, completely vetted, and adopted by the School Board, it’s just an idea,” Smet said.
Business Manager Ruth Schenning also briefly outlined the 2014-15 and 2015-16 budgets, showing how the district has cut costs over the last five years.
Schenning’s graphs showed that 61.26 percent of the district’s costs are tied up in salaries and benefits. The benefits costs have dropped about 35 percent, Schenning explained, but she expects that to level off.
“That’s obviously not sustainable,” Schenning said, due to premium costs. “At some point, we’re going to have an increase there.”
The health insurance costs have also shifted from the district more to employees due to a switch to a high-deductible plan and a move away from a PPO plan.
Schenning also showed that the district has utilized all of its levy limit this year as opposed to not levying to the max over the last five years.
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