By Mary Spicer
VERNON TOWNSHIP — It took Crawford Central School Board a total of nine votes Monday night to pass the district’s 2009-10 budget and also approve an increase in school property taxes for district residents.
Unfortunately, when summarizing the results in a story published in Tuesday’s Tribune, this reporter managed to combine the subject of the eighth vote — approval of the district’s $51.2-million 2009-10 budget, which passed by a 6-1 margin — with the 6-0 vote count in favor of the ninth vote, which set the district’s millage levy.
The final vote in favor of the district’s 2009-10 budget should have been reported as Asuman Baskan, John Christie-Searles, Carol Jones, David Miller, Stuart Rothman and Ross Prather in the majority, with Jan VanTuil casting the sole dissenting vote. Frank Schreck had already left the meeting and the resignation of the ninth member, Christine Lazusky, had been accepted earlier in the evening.
Minutes later, when the board voted on a resolution setting school property tax rates at 46.78 mills for district residents living in Crawford County and 77.71 mills for district residents living in Mercer County’s French Creek Township, Miller had stepped out of the room and VanTuil joined the majority; that resolution passed 6-0.
A long battle to balance
Nine votes were necessary because balancing the budget at $51.9 million while keeping the increase for Crawford County residents at only 1.9 mills required eliminating a previously-approved $360,000 foreign language program.
During their June 23 study session, board members Schreck, Jones, Christie-Searles and VanTuil had tentatively agreed to eliminate the program. Rothman and Baskan disagreed at the time, while Miller and Prather were absent.
The board’s first vote Monday night was to rescind the resolution adopted Oct. 27, 2008, establishing a new World Language Program. With a 4-4 tie, the resolution failed. Baskan, Miller, Rothman and Schreck successfully managed to keep the program in place, while Christie-Searles, Jones, VanTuil and Prather failed in their effort to have it withdrawn.
After Superintendent Michael Dolecki explained that funding the program would add .88 mills to the budget, upping the 1.9-mill increase to 2.78 mills, “We can’t just throw $360,000 into the budget,” Prather said.
Baskan disagreed, saying that the budget included a “nebulous figure” for the world languages program that could be pared down. “Other cuts are possible,” she added.
Dolecki said that if the budget was passed without rescinding the program, state law would require administrators to whittle out $360,000 in personnel and programs within 24 hours.
Shortly after Schreck announced that he wanted to vote “no” on the budget but that he had to leave the meeting in a few minutes, the vote was taken. With only Jones, Miller and Baskan casting ‘yes’ votes, the budget failed to pass.
At that point, Prather urged board members to reconsider their decision to not rescind the world languages program. However, Carl Moore, the district’s attorney, explained that parliamentary procedure allows only those who originally voted in the majority to make such a motion.
With Miller and Baskan both strongly urging that the program remain and Rothman unwilling to make the motion to put the topic back on the table, the discussion continued.
“When we talked about it in the fall, we said we were excited about this program — but not at the expense of something else,” Assistant Superintendent Charles Heller finally said. “There’s really nothing else we can cut.”
Miller moved to reconsider rescinding the program; his motion passed with only Baskan casting a dissenting vote.
The motion to actually rescind the program passed 4-to-3, with Miller, Rothman and Baskan in the minority.
From there, the board unanimously agreed to reconsider the budget. However, with VanTuil, Rothman and Baskan dissenting, the budget resolution once again failed because Pennsylvania’s School Code requires annual budgets to be approved by at least five school board members, not a simple majority of those present at the meeting.
After even more discussion, Rothman said that resolving questions he had about the district’s capital improvement budget — money set aside in previous years that would not have any impact on the 2009-10 budget anyway — would enable him to change his vote on the budget.
With that, the board unanimously agreed to reconsider the budget.
This time around, VanTuil cast the only dissenting vote and the 2009-10 budget passed by a 6-1 margin. Within minutes, new millage rates were also in place.
According to Guy O’Neil, the district’s business manager, the 1.9 mill increase includes .5 mill for the district’s ongoing elementary construction program and .5 mill for improvements at Crawford County Career and Technical Center. The balance, he said Tuesday, “is for salaries and benefits — and everything else.”
Mary Spicer can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at mspicer@meadvilletribune.com.
