A tale of two school districts

All those Fayette County school districts that engaged in the requisite hand-wringing and proclaimations of, "We did all we could do," apparently didn't get a chance to read the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on July 15.

Take a look at this little informational gem, residents of those Fayette County school districts that got socked with tax hikes: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11196/1160606-100.stm

Sto-Rox school employees accept wage freeze
By Ryan Brown, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Sto-Rox school employees -- including all teaching, custodial and office staff -- have accepted a one-year wage freeze in a series of contract agreements announced today.

Teachers' two-year contract deal includes a freeze for the 2011-2012 school year and a 3 percent raise the following year. Support and administrative staff agreed to wage freezes in separate agreements.

"I'm very proud and pleased with our entire staff," Acting Superintendent James Manley said. "Everybody right now . . . is taking a freeze."

The agreements follow a June 24 budget approval that managed to avoid furloughs by cutting open positions and spending in supplies, transportation and technology. Some long-term substitute positions also will be cut, Mr. Manley said.

Sto-Rox took a $1.3-million funding reduction in the recently passed state budget.

"They're making a sacrifice," Mr. Manley said. "I hope our state leaders recognize that."

Now let's compare that to the July 14 story in the Herald-Standard, "Brownsville school board passes budget with tax increase":

http://www.heraldstandard.com/news/local_news/brownsville-school-board-passes-budget-with-tax-increase/article_749d2615-c2f0-5417-b3b1-17400101baee.html

Brownsville Area School Board passed a final budget Wednesday that calls for a 3.5-mill increase for Fayette County residents and a 19.74-mill increase for residents in Washington County.

That means a resident with property in Fayette County assessed at $50,000 will pay about $175 more in taxes than last year or about $828 next year.

Directors voted 5-2 on the more than $24 million budget that included the elimination of the district’s music program, requiring the furlough of music teachers.

Directors Andy Dorsey, Ron Dellarose, Andy Assad, Rocky Brashear and John Harvey voted in favor, while directors Nena Kaminsky and Stella Broadwater opposed. Directors Sandra Chan and Francine Pavone were absent from the meeting.

Broadwater said taxpayers could not afford the nearly 30 percent increase in taxes and that the district was $500,000 behind in delinquent taxes last year.

“How much in taxes do you really think you are going to get anyway?” she asked the board.

Brashear said while he does not want to raise taxes in the district, the district has cut everything possible.

“What else can we cut? I don’t want to raise taxes either, but we are elected to do our job however painful that is,” he said. “We cut everything we could cut.”

Dorsey said the millage increase was court ordered by the state to help bail the district out of $5 million in debt from a bond issue taken two years ago.

He said none of the tax increase is figured into next year’s budget.
To help balance the budget, the district cut the music program which includes chorus and band.

Two music teachers will be furloughed as a result.

Maybe we missed the part about all employees in the Brownsville Area School District, from top to bottom, taking a one-year pay freeze like their Sto-Rox brethren. So we read the story three times, thinking we might have skimmed over it. No dice.

In actuality, the Brownsville school board raised property taxes 26.77 percent, taking the millage rate from 13.07 to 16.57. We suspect, strongly, that if the state or federal government raised anyone's tax on anything nearing 27 percent in the midst of the current economic crisis, the Herald-Standard, as the supposed newspaper of record, would at least weigh in on that hike editorially.

We especially like how Brownsville board member Dorsey apparently tried to pawn off responsibility for this huge tax hike on the state. (But we don't discount the possibility that bad reporting may have muddled his point.) But who took out the $5 million in bond debt two years ago? It sure wasn't the state. No, the responsibility for taking out that debt -- and for paying it back -- lies squarely with the Brownsville school board.

We urge the local newspaper to take its head out of the feel-good sand long enough to scour the Internet to see what's going on in some other school districts, like Sto-Rox.

Then maybe they would be better prepared to ask some good, probing questions whenever someone says, "We did all that we could."