Tax increase on, furloughs off
WAYNESBURG – Six teacher furloughs were not part of Central Greene’s 2016-17 budget when the board unanimously adopted it Thursday night, during a special meeting.
“Tonight, the budget that we’re looking at adopting does not include furloughs,” board president Andrew Corfont said to a crowd of teachers and community members. “There will be no furloughs.”
The board approved a property tax increase of 1.2885 mills, taking the district’s tax rate up to 27.3929 mills. A person whose property is assessed at $50,000 will pay an additional $64 in taxes this year.
The major change the board made from the tentative budget, approved in May, was a $400,000 increase each in expenses and revenues to what the tentative budget was. The budget was finalized with expected expenditures of $33.35 million and expected revenues of $32.76 million.
The expense increase was the result, district business manager Jim Shargots said, of not furloughing the teachers. The $400,000 increase in revenue, they expect to receive from Franklin Township as part of the 2015 taxes owed them by Alpha Natural Resources, Shargots said.
Corfont said the board heard from their bankruptcy attorney, Keri Ebeck, who is handling the district’s case against Alpha, which declared bankruptcy in 2015. Alpha has not paid the district the $3.4 million they owe in 2015 taxes.
Corfont said Ebeck had positive feedback for them last week and told them she’s hopeful they will see some money come back to the district.
“It’s not good news until the check comes across the desk,” Corfont said.
But the news was enough for the board to decide not to include the six furloughs in the budget, which was the plan last week.
The board talked of furloughing four high school special education teachers and a life-skills teacher and an art teacher at the middle school, as part of the $1.4 million the board decided to cut out of the tentative 2016-17 budget. The cuts were attributed to the $3.4 million they didn’t receive from Alpha.
Corfont thanked the teachers union, the support staff, the community and the budget finance committee for their diligence in coming up with cost-saving measures in a short period of time.
“This hasn’t been easy,” he said. “The board is upset that we’ve been taking the brunt of everybody’s criticism. We’re all here for the same thing.”
Bill Speakman, chief negotiator for the teachers’ union, read a statement Thursday from Melissa Wilson, president of the union, who could not attend the meeting.
“I wanted to be sure to thank the board for their good faith effort in removing the furloughs, eliminations and transfers from last week’s agenda and beginning to look at other options to enable these jobs to be saved, namely, the early retirement incentive that you passed last evening,” Wilson wrote in the statement.
The teachers had pleaded with the board to find another way to save money during a June 20 meeting, where Wilson asked the board to consider an early retirement incentive for teachers, which the board approved Wednesday.
“The association looks forward to continuing to work with you cooperatively to find other solutions that will not inhibit our students’ education like the furloughing of teachers and elimination of programs would,” Wilson wrote in her statement to the board.