The May 9 Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board
work session included a polling of school directors support for the amount of
next year’s school tax increase. Six school board directors support a .99
percent Chester County tax increase (4.61 percent Delaware County school tax
increase) which is less than the Act I potential ceiling.

Those directors who signaled support for the
lesser tax increase were Timotha Trigg, Keith Knauss, Jeff Hellrung, Corrine
Sweeney, Frank Murphy and Paul Price. Directors—Holly Manzone, Jeff Leiser and
Eileen Bushelow—said they would not support approval of the proposed budget as
they favor the Act 1 ceiling 1.4 percent tax increase.

District Superintendent Sharon Parker is
still looking for help from the state.

“I hope help from Harrisburg may be on the
horizon,” Parker said. “The state legislature has very recently indicated it
will provide additional funding.”

Business Manager Robert Cochran is also
looking top Harrisburg.

“The state legislature may provide additional
funding to UCFSD to offset perhaps as much as $884,000 of the proposed
$1,097,826 cuts in the proposed budget.”

The school board must pass its budget before
the state budget gets passed, and this poses a quandary for the directors.

“We have to approve a budget without knowing
what the Harrisburg legislature may be doing. While the vote for the proposed budget doesn’t set anything
in stone, it does fix a budget for the required one month public comment
period,” Trigg said.

As the ultimate funding from Harrisburg is
uncertain, the 2011-2012 budget to be voted on May 16 does not reflect
additional funds that might be coming from Harrisburg.

Cochran presented the 2011- 2012 proposed
school budget that trimmed expenses by $1,097,826 to reflect potential funding
cuts proposed by Gov. Tom Corbet.

Details of these budget cuts are found on the
school district Web site http://www.ucfsd.org/pdf/2011_budget_explanation_051011.pdf.

The 2011-2012 school budget will be finalized
at the June 2011 school board meeting when the amounts of the Chester and
Delaware County tax millage rates will be set by the school board.

Other
business

The district Web site would be updated to
include bids on transportation outsourcing. Cochran said that he hoped to have
the bid process finished an online by May 13.

Once the bid preliminary analysis is
complete, the bus transportation employees and the school board directors will
be briefed. The May 16 school board meeting will include a public update on the
preliminary bid analysis.