Community Matters

Monday night was the Board of Supervisors Meeting and TESD Budget meeting.  I attended the BOS meeting and will offer a few thoughts in a later post.  Ray Clarke attended the school district meeting and offered his opinion on the evening which I provide below. In reviewing Ray’s notes, I was pleased that it appears [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 96 Comments »

Last week, the Pittsburgh Business Times published their 2012 Guide of Western Pennsylvania Schools, which lists the school district rankings for the Pittsburgh area and the entire state of Pennsylvania. The newspaper analyzed all the school districts’ performance based on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) Exam results. According to their website, the formula [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 8 Comments »

I attended this week’s Finance Committee meeting for the school district.  As we are all acutely aware, TESD is facing major budget challenges like every other school district in the state.  The challenge for School Board directors is what strategies to impose to meet the demands of the budget crisis.  Over the next few years, [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 3 Comments »

I attended Rep. Warren Kampf’s town hall meeting, which focused on the state pension system and its impact on the budgets at the state and local level, with specific attention on the additional burden for our school district. Kampf provided an in-depth overview of the state pension system for state workers and teachers and the [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 13 Comments »

Over the next few years, Tredyffrin Easttown School District will be faced with a $16 million budget shortfall; but the pension crisis is not the only contributing factor. For many years, a growing economy propelled increases in stock prices, enhancing the coverage of many pension plans, public and private. In the old days, the nature [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 16 Comments »

Based on attending the TESD Finance Committee meeting, it looks like the custodial outsourcing in the school district is ‘off the table of consideration’ for another year.  If you recall, the most significant cost-saving measure to the District remaining from last year’s budget was ‘outsourcing of custodial services’ with a savings listed as $950K.  After [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 19 Comments »

I attended the Board of Supervisors meeting last night; Ray Clarke attended the school district meeting and has graciously provided his notes for use on Community Matters.  The preliminary 2012-13 school district budget was approved with a $2.5 million budget gap — continuing to cut expenses or dipping into the fund balance?  I know from [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 5 Comments »

Pennsylvania is facing a multi-billion dollar public pension crisis – now is the time for pension reform in Harrisburg.  The Public School Employees Retirement System (PSERS) and the State Employees Retirement System (SERS), the two systems administering retirement accounts for state and public school employees, are severely underfunded and will become insolvent without an increase [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Easttown School District, Warren Kampf | 13 Comments »

Periodically I have posted about the Unionville Chaddsford School District (UCFSD) and their ongoing teacher contract negotiation struggles of last year.  Deadlocked contract discussions required the PA Labor Relations Board to intervene and assist with the bargaining impasse. However, even after the release of the fact-finding report, it took months for resolution and the signing [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 52 Comments »

I attended the T/E Finance Committee meeting last night as did Ray and Carol Clarke.  However, other than one other resident, the 8-10 T/E school district teachers in the audience outnumbered us.  Presumably, as the District begins the teacher contract negotiation process, there will be a continued presence at school district meetings from the teachers [...]

Filed under: Tredyffrin Township | 8 Comments »