An amended plan to help the Sto-Rox School District emerge from its financial struggles – and at the same time bolster student performance and enrollment – has gotten a thumbs-up from the state Department of Education.
The district board approved the plan by a 3-2 vote on Sept. 25, and acting state Secretary of Education Carrie Rowe issued an approval letter last week.
Rowe wrote that the state recognizes the amended recovery plan as a “major step toward improved functioning on behalf of the school community” and said implementation of the 112-page blueprint “will lead the district toward financial solvency.”
Not everyone sees it that way, however.
Cameron Culliver, president of the board of trustees, was one of two trustees to vote against approving the plan along with Daniesha Hunter-Rue. Alice Cooper, DaLisha Hoszowski and Angel Myers voted in favor of the plan.
Culliver said that while he is proud of the progress the district has made since the state placed it on moderate financial recovery status in July 2021, he couldn’t support the amended plan because he had too many questions about it.
One of those questions pertains to the plan’s 30-page list of initiatives, action steps and monitoring functions covering the areas of instructional and operational programs; talent management; resource management; culture, climate and safety; and administration and governance.
Culliver questioned what might happen to the district if it failed to follow through on some of the amended plan’s specific initiatives. “If we don’t meet these exact standards, would we be considered in violation?” he asked.
Culliver specifically questioned one of the amended plan’s goals, which is to return students currently attending charter schools back to the district campus. Currently, the district must pay the tuition of its home students attending charter schools, which costs the district revenue.
“We’re hoping and praying we can bring the kids back,” Culliver said of students currently living within the school district but attending charter schools. “But if we don’t, what happens in the future?”
Nancy Raible, the district’s current chief financial recovery officer, said the plan isn’t meant to be a “gotcha” opportunity for the state. Rather, she said, the plan is designed to “create the conditions for measurable growth through intentional, sustainable efforts that will be supported by the PA Department of Education until such time as the district has the capacity to qualify for five years of monitoring and then full exit from (moderate financial recovery status).”
Culliver also alluded to the fact that the amended plan calls on the district to utilize tax increases, including those to the Act 1 Index, “to close budgetary gaps or to pursue investment(s) that align with the District’s mission and/or academic innovations.”
Raible said the tax increases were part of the original recovery plan, which was adopted in March 2022, so it’s not a new thing.
Raible said one of the difficult aspects of being in moderate financial recovery is that the board is obligated and directed to look at tax increases minimally up to the Index to make sure the district is living within its means.
Raible, or whoever is in her position, has the option of recommending a lower – or no – tax increase, depending on how the district is progressing financially each year. The goal, she said, is to make sure the district finishes each financial year in the black, and to be able to do so without one-time funding bonuses that have come through in recent years due to COVID-19 and other programs.
Raible said that when the district originally was placed in recovery mode, it was simply trying to stabilize things financially. “Now when we look at trends, we see our trajectory is more positive,” she said. “But in the absence of (one-time) money and grants, can the district function without them?”
That’s the test the district will begin to face with the amended recovery plan, Raible said. The district would need to show a positive fund balance for three consecutive years before it could apply to move out from under the state’s oversight. Even then, if the state would concur, it would monitor the district for five more years to make sure all was well.
Culliver isn’t alone with regard to concerns over the prospect of property taxes going up every year for the next five years. Taris Vrcek, executive director of the McKees Rocks Community Development Corp. and a lifelong community member, said relying on increasing taxes “is not something I can really stomach.”
“There’s already a huge burden placed on our residents, and taxpayers really can’t take any more,” added Vrcek, who during last month’s meeting encouraged the district to postpone approving the amended plan.
Vrcek last week urged school district to work with community civic and business leaders to come up with ways to increase the local tax base so the district isn’t so reliant on the average property owner to foot the education bill.
Ken Hohman, who served on the district board from 2015 to late 2022, said the district needs to be “more friendly with the community” as a way of increasing revenue. He pointed to fundraising projects like the one that resulted in a new turf field at the high school as evidence that the community would support worthy educational causes.
“We need to bring the community back, bring businesses back to support the district and get alumni involved,” he said.
In terms of revenue generation, Vrcek said several projects are in various stages of development within the school district boundaries, and if they come to fruition, they could provide a financial boost to the community and ultimately the school district.
Vrcek said an increase in taxes for individual property owners is the only potential revenue stream that the amended recovery plan explored to any degree. “That’s not a good plan, when other revenue streams could have been looked at,” he said.
Vrcek said the district might explore merging with Pittsburgh Public Schools as a way of accessing more financial resources for its students. He also criticized the current state formula for funding public education.
“There is something ethically wrong when an adjacent district like Montour has millions of dollars of surplus and is able to provide so much more per student while Sto-Rox struggles and continues to cut into programming,” he said.
“Our children should all have a level playing field. They’re all equally worthy and should all have an equal educational experience.”
Vrcek said he doesn’t hold district educators, administrators or board members responsible for the predicament the district is in.
“I can say that working firsthand with them, they are creative, innovative, dedicated and all in for our kids,” he said. “They are doing their best and doing beyond what most districts would be able to do with nothing. It’s not the dedication or talent level of people. It’s the situation.
“The situation is very broken and it needs to be fixed. And we need to get together to do it. But rolling the dice and putting it all on increasing the taxes of residents who already are overtaxed is not the way to go.”
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