State College Swim Program May Survive Budget Cuts

Once targeted for elimination, a swimming program for State College elementary and middle-school students may stay afloat, after all.

School board members agreed Monday night to try to make the program more efficient, but appeared unwilling to eliminate it entirely. Third- and seventh-graders receive swimming instruction and safety lessons through the initiative, which buses them to the State College Area High School natatorium for 10 hours of classes.

Dropping the program could shave as much as $20,000 a year from the district budget and return some instructional time to the classroom, some administrators have said, suggesting cost cuts. But board member Jim Pawelczyk said he would like the district to explore other options, such as offering the swim classes after school instead of during the school day.

Dorothea Stahl, another board member, suggested that the district develop a proposal to eliminate middle-school — but not elementary-level — swim classes. State College students also receive swimming instruction when they reach the high-school level.

Superintendent Richard Mextorf said the administration will remove the proposed swim-program cuts from budget discussions and develop some alternative proposals for aquatics. He said everyone agrees that ‘offering swimming is a really nice thing’; the question is whether the current program ‘meets with our current realities,’ he went on.

Board members on Monday night continued their discussion about other ways to cut and contain costs for the 2010-2011 school year. They have pledged to raise property taxes no more than three percent this year, a decision that means they need to trim some $3.4 million from the current expense budget of $109 million, business administrator Jeff Ammerman has said.

Administrators have developed 31 cost-cutting proposals to help the district reach that goal. (All can be viewed online through the district’s website.)

The single biggest cost cut under consideration would eliminate 18.5 positions through attrition, reducing labor expenses by $1.075 million. Board members said little publicly on Monday night about that idea and planned to talk in a closed-door session about personnel matters.

District spokeswoman Julie Miller said the attritional savings could be achieved if the board agrees to leave open the positions vacated via retirements and other departures. To help fill those gaps, Ammerman told the board, the district could reorganize the existing employees and ask some of them to serve in different capacities.

Mextorf said the changes could prompt the district to ‘restructure what we need in a new way.’ About 1,400 full- and part-time workers are employed in the State College schools.

Among other cost-cutting ideas the board discussed Monday:

• Board members informally agreed to reduce administrators’ salary increases from four percent to 1.5 percent, for a savings of $150,000.

• An earlier proposal would have eliminated the late-activity-bus service to save $75,000 a year. Board members asked the administration to consider alternatives, such as downsizing the service instead of ending it.

• Board members agreed to forge ahead with a new, $50 fee for in-car driver-education instruction and to increase student parking fees at State High by $10 a semester. Together, those initiatives will bring in about $32,000 a year.

• The board agreed to pursue higher fees for the use of school buildings by non-school organizations. That could bring in an extra $20,000 a year.

• Board members also advanced a plan to require elementary-school parents to buy basic student supplies for their children. Annual costs for each family are estimated at $10 per student; the change is expected to save the district about $30,000 a year. (Students at the middle- and high-school levels already provide their own basic supplies.)

Board members are scheduled to continue their budget talks at a public session at 7 p.m. Monday next week in the administration building, 131 W. Nittany Ave. Among other ideas, they will discuss an administration proposal to conserve $1 million in the short term through financing options. That proposal would allow some capital improvements to be financed through the issuance of new debt, at least for the time being.