COAL TOWNSHIP - The Shamokin Area School Board voted Tuesday to adopt its tentative operating budget and approve a food service contract for next school year.
The 2013-14 general fund budget was approved on a unanimous 9-0 vote. It totals $29,956,150, and revenues and expenditures are balanced.
A deficit of nearly $1.8 million will be erased by using funds from the district's reserve account.
The budget includes the expected property tax increase of 0.6869 mills, which is an additional 69 cents on each $1,000 of a property's assessed value. The increase is the maximum allowed under state law without seeking voter referendum.
If the budget and property tax is given final approval next month, next year's millage rate would rise to 27.1064.
Taxes are levied against a property's fully assessed value. Each mill equals $1 for every $1,000 of the assessment. For a home assessed at $30,000, the tax bill under the new levy would be $813.19.
One mill of property tax generates about $65,000 based on the district's 84-percent collection rate.
Cafeteria services
A 5-4 split vote was cast by school board directors to again contract with The Nutrition Group to operate cafeteria services.
The voting pattern mirrored last year's vote to privatize cafeteria services.
In favor were Bob Getchey, Ed Griffiths, Jeff Kashner, Treina Mariano and Brian Persing. Opposed were Ron McElwee, Charlie Shuey, Bernie Sosnoskie and Tracy Witmer.
The Nutrition Group was paid $55,823 in administrative and management fees in 2011-12. It will earn $55,772 under the new contract next school year, a 1.7 percent increase. The increase is dictated by state Department of Education and the Consumer Price Index, according to Nancy Kohl, regional vice president for The Nutrition Group.
A vote on the contract last month failed on a 4-4 tie. Getchey was absent from that meeting. On Tuesday, he acknowledged he was the deciding vote, saying he spoke to several cafeteria employees and the far majority preferred to work with The Nutrition Group rather than become district employees.
Despite criticism from students and some parents alike about cost and variety, Getchey said his unannounced visits to the cafeteria was enough to prove to him that variety of food choices was not an issue. Cost, however, was. He, Shuey and Witmer all agreed that the cost of lunch and a la carte menu items should be dropped.
Kohl estimated cafeteria revenue at more than $117,000 this school year and $86,000 under next year's contract. She said her firm provides savings in purchasing and labor costs exceeding $100,000 combined and also brought in an additional $17,000 for following federal guidelines on school lunches.
Shuey was respectfully critical of The Nutrition Group, saying he believed the revenue generated in the cafeteria was misleading since the district pays management fees to Kohl's firm. Griffiths noted that the district had long had to take money from the general fund to make up for cafeteria funding shortfalls when the district operated its own food services.
Shuey said he believes the cafeteria should be revenue neutral, saying it is "ethically wrong" to be making revenue on student lunches. He was critical that the cafeteria deficit has risen under The Nutrition Group's watch, increasing to more than $7,000 this school year.
Kohl said the school board controls the cafeteria prices. It could change the revenue earned by voting to lower prices on menu items to fall closer in line with Shuey's view of a revenue-neutral cafeteria. As to the increased deficit, she said it directly resulted from school board policy on handling delinquencies in student lunch accounts.
The district is locked into a contract with Coca-Cola, agreed to under terms that provided Shamokin Area a new school board. The contract limits competition in beverages offered.
A grandparent, Sandra Lorenz, brought to the meeting a bottle of water that costs $1.60 in the cafe but, as she said, less than 25 cents at Wal-Mart and less than 15 cents at Sam's Club. She criticized the sale of prepared food items, saying the cafeteria could save money and provide better product if fresh foods were prepared.
Penny Ring, a cafeteria employee, spoke on behalf of her fellow colleagues who are pleased with The Nutrition Group, of which she said was a large majority in the middle/high school. She gave a passionate plea that the cafe staff work hard to prepare original food items for students and took exception to Lorenz's assertions that much of what is prepared is frozen.