Steel+Valley+OKs+budget+with+.4573-mill+increase

=By Stacy Lee= =//Published by the McKeesport Daily News//= =//6/29/11//= = = = = =Steel Valley school board has adopted a 2011-12 final budget that includes a tax increase and has started hiring back staff members who previously were furloughed.= =Directors approved a .4573-mill tax increase by a 6-1 vote Tuesday night, setting the school district millage at 24.5273. One mill generates approximately $660,000 for Steel Valley School District if collected at 100 percent.= =Board vice president Kimberly M. Kubancsek dissented. Directors Joseph Ducar and Michael Terrick were absent.= ="I don`t think our citizens can afford (the tax increase)," Kubancsek said when asked about her vote.= =A 2011-12 general fund budget with revenue of $25,649,164 and expenditures of $24,467,184 was adopted by the same motion.= = Business manager Mark Cherpak said the district has a negative fund balance of approximately $1 million. This tax increase is expected to wipe out the negative amount by the end of next school year. = ="That will take a year because these gains in revenue will happen over the whole year," Cherpak said. "By the end of next school year, we should be back to breaking even." = =Last month, the board furloughed 40 district teachers and cut two other teaching positions to part-time. Some of those teachers have been recalled from the furlough list.= ="I`m basing the callbacks on the recommendation from Mr. Colebank on the secondary level and Mrs. Borges on the elementary level," district superintendent Dr. William Kinavey said. "We`re looking at the data."= =Ed Colebank is district director of academics, information and technology, and Diana Borges is district director of pupil personnel and special services/elementary education.= = Rebecca Russell and Brandi Chalus both were given half-time positions, while Mark Fallon was brought back to full-time for the 2011-12 school year. No specifics on their actual positions were provided.= = The positions of Park Elementary fifth-grade elementary teacher and part-time district-wide music teacher were restored for the upcoming school year. = =Director Susan Ballas voted against reinstating the part-time district-wide music teacher position and Russell being brought back.= =Board president Beth Cannon, Director Thomas Olson and Kubancsek abstained from the vote on Fallon`s recall.= =Kinavey said the addition of the Park Elementary fifth-grade teacher will reduce the class size from 34 to 22.= =As far as the other elementary class sizes, Kinavey said the average is 23. He said the average class size is 24 for the middle school and 22-27 for the high school.= = Kinavey said the district is slowly bringing back employees. = = "Stay tuned, we`ll have more callbacks in July," he said. = =Susan Wilder, Lori Oleksak, Tameka Akins and Lisa Lawson were appointed as special education teachers, while Vicki Deutsch, Dianne Cain and Karen Barabas were appointed as special education paraeducators.= =A motion made at the May 24 school board meeting to furlough a Barrett Elementary School security guard for the 2011-12 school year was rescinded Tuesday.= =A preliminary budget that included the tax increase was OK`d last month before any district employees were reinstated.= =The board also authorized the issuance of a tax anticipation note of $1.5 million from Citizens Bank.= = Read more: [|Steel Valley OKs budget with .4573-mill increase - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review] [] =

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