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HASD must be financially prepared

The main question hovering now over the Hollidaysburg Area School District is how district taxpayers are going to react to the proposed $130 million building consolidation plan that, once it gets underway, is to involve four steps covering a total of 12 years.

Details of the project as currently envisioned were presented in a lengthy article beginning on the front page of the Mirror’s Oct. 26-27 edition. The article made clear that much decision-making lies ahead and, at this time, district officials are more focused on the plan’s major components and parameters than on any in-detail considerations that will need to be made once the plan’s most important facets are assembled and finalzed.

One of the most important — if not the most important — in-detail points that will need to be analyzed and firmed-up rather quickly will be how the district intends to pay for what is deemed necessary to continue, as well as advance, the excellent educational program that the district already has in place.

Amid that, district officials need to factor in the reality that the district has an approximate $2.5 million budget deficit at this time and that it is not going to go away without some tough decision making in the months ahead.

Meanwhile, the Mirror article in question acknowledged that the project could in fact end up as a $261.3 million initiative in total debt service till 2058.

Melissa Hughes, senior managing consultant of PFM Financial Advisors, told the school board’s Physical Plant Committee during a meeting in September that “it would take a lot of discipline to identify dollars in your budget to accommodate that.”

Hughes told those in attendance at the September committee meeting that it would take a district commitment to millage tax increases over the next several years to afford what is being proposed.

“It’s both a pro and a con to this being over a very long timeline,” Hughes said, the big pro being is it lets (the district) to bite it (consolidation project) off in little pieces, with the con being it requires the board, over a long period of time, to have a lot of discipline.”

Hughes emphasized that no matter what direction district officials would decide to pursue regarding the facilities involved in the consolidation, “step one is making sure your (financial) house is in good order on the operating side.”

Time will reveal the opinions of district taxpayers, many of whom already feel they are being over-taxed on the school front. Regardless, it is important for the district to opt on the side of fiscal transparency because, if it doesn’t, the district could be embroiled in a taxpayer firestorm that could delay or scuttle the progress that the consolidation portends for the school system.

According to Curtis Whitesel, Hollidaysburg Area superintendent, it will take between six and 12 months before any action is forthcoming on the master plan and that community input will be encouraged prior to any plan-adoption vote.

To obtain that community input and advance a spirit of understanding regarding what the school system is intending to pursue, a series of meetings with the public to delve into the issues and specific points surrounding the consolidation need to be scheduled early-on.

The public also needs to be apprised of the estimated savings that are envisioned through the consolidation.

Consolidation-project planning began reasonably. It must continue in that way to be successful.

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