Saving Cities & Schools
PANELISTS:
Ann Stacey, Panel Moderator; Owner/President, Stacey & Associates
Dr. Dave Davare, Director of Research Services, Pennsylvania School Boards Assn.
Fred Reddig, Executive Director, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development
Pat Brogan, Chief of Staff, City of Lancaster
Timothy Shrom, Business Manager, Solanco School District
Ann Stacey, Panel Moderator; Owner/President, Stacey & Associates
Dr. Dave Davare, Director of Research Services, Pennsylvania School Boards Assn.
Fred Reddig, Executive Director, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development
Pat Brogan, Chief of Staff, City of Lancaster
Timothy Shrom, Business Manager, Solanco School District
Click here to download Pat Brogan's power point presentation.
Click here to download Dr. Davare's power point presentation.
Click here to download the Lancaster schools power point presentation.
Click here to download Dr. Davare's power point presentation.
Click here to download the Lancaster schools power point presentation.
Scribe Notes
by Stephen Scanlon
SCHOOLS
Dr. Dave Davare, Director of Research Services, Pennsylvania School Boards Assn.
The public education theme was presented as facing six primary challenging financial issues. They can be summarized thus:
Devare asserted that the challenge facing public education in Pennsylvania is that it needs to face the funding/tax relationship by developing a reasonable funding formula and it needs to address the property tax issue (including land-value tax authority). He indicated further that Pennsylvania needs to address unreasonable mandates such as prevailing wage. And he expressed that the state needs to re-examine the cyber-school options even while developing alternatives to the current process. The attached set of tables and graphs offer further comment.
Timothy Shrom, Business Manager, Solanco School District
The previous message covered the issues facing public education funding statewide. This one looked at the same issues from the experience of the Southern Lancaster County School District. In short, the six financial challenging themes noted above are reflected at the local district level. The attached series of tables and graphs identify the district’s fiscal history and projections.
CITIES
Fred Reddig, Executive Director, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development
The Governors Center provides a continuum of services to local governments including information, training, and technical assistance. The South Central Assembly, he noted, is well positioned as an entity to rationalize the many layers of local governance.
Tax revenues shrink in weak economies even while expenditures rise faster than revenues.
Legacy costs, including pensions, won’t go away, and deferring the true cost of benefits today to pay for them tomorrow, given the typical life cycle stages of a municipality, is unsustainable.
Five stages of municipal development:
1. Low taxes with prosperity,
2. Stress placed on government for services,
3. Equilibrium,
4. Insufficient revenue / tax base, and
5. Declining tax base, population flight, potential Act 47 filing.
The real issue is how to provide sustainable local government. This can begin with providing officials with tools for right sizing, including, for example, councils of government, regional police departments, and organizations such as the South Central Assembly to help municipalities transcend together the inefficiencies of small individual local governments.
People cross multiple boundaries daily, he noted. So why should services be limited to within those boundaries?
Government cannot do it alone. A coalition for sustainable communities with business and government working together is called for. Such a coalition would work to:
Pat Brogan, Chief of Staff, City of Lancaster
The City of Lancaster is pursuing a strategic plan with public/private engagement. It began with the certain knowledge that with expenses surpassing revenues the future was bleak without real change. Lancaster needed to upgrade its corporate and physical infrastructure, while at the same time addressing a serious fiscal situation. The organizational infrastructure was made over. And a commitment was made to improve the culture of service delivery.
A visit to Lancaster today or attention to its media coverage will indicate progress being made on the environment strategic plan. It includes:
Lancaster continues to make progress by:
And Lancaster is seeing results. Brogan provides an attachment that further addresses these and related points.
Dr. Dave Davare, Director of Research Services, Pennsylvania School Boards Assn.
The public education theme was presented as facing six primary challenging financial issues. They can be summarized thus:
- State funding, which is directly linked to
- Property and other local taxes
- Merger, consolidation, sharing
- Distressed school districts
- Alternatives: vouchers and charters
- Mandates
Devare asserted that the challenge facing public education in Pennsylvania is that it needs to face the funding/tax relationship by developing a reasonable funding formula and it needs to address the property tax issue (including land-value tax authority). He indicated further that Pennsylvania needs to address unreasonable mandates such as prevailing wage. And he expressed that the state needs to re-examine the cyber-school options even while developing alternatives to the current process. The attached set of tables and graphs offer further comment.
Timothy Shrom, Business Manager, Solanco School District
The previous message covered the issues facing public education funding statewide. This one looked at the same issues from the experience of the Southern Lancaster County School District. In short, the six financial challenging themes noted above are reflected at the local district level. The attached series of tables and graphs identify the district’s fiscal history and projections.
CITIES
Fred Reddig, Executive Director, Governor’s Center for Local Government Services, Pennsylvania Dept. of Community and Economic Development
The Governors Center provides a continuum of services to local governments including information, training, and technical assistance. The South Central Assembly, he noted, is well positioned as an entity to rationalize the many layers of local governance.
Tax revenues shrink in weak economies even while expenditures rise faster than revenues.
Legacy costs, including pensions, won’t go away, and deferring the true cost of benefits today to pay for them tomorrow, given the typical life cycle stages of a municipality, is unsustainable.
Five stages of municipal development:
1. Low taxes with prosperity,
2. Stress placed on government for services,
3. Equilibrium,
4. Insufficient revenue / tax base, and
5. Declining tax base, population flight, potential Act 47 filing.
The real issue is how to provide sustainable local government. This can begin with providing officials with tools for right sizing, including, for example, councils of government, regional police departments, and organizations such as the South Central Assembly to help municipalities transcend together the inefficiencies of small individual local governments.
People cross multiple boundaries daily, he noted. So why should services be limited to within those boundaries?
Government cannot do it alone. A coalition for sustainable communities with business and government working together is called for. Such a coalition would work to:
- Level playing field
- Highlight the value to ensuring the health of a community
- Develop better community leadership
- Re-establish a vital middle class in order to bolster revenues.
Pat Brogan, Chief of Staff, City of Lancaster
The City of Lancaster is pursuing a strategic plan with public/private engagement. It began with the certain knowledge that with expenses surpassing revenues the future was bleak without real change. Lancaster needed to upgrade its corporate and physical infrastructure, while at the same time addressing a serious fiscal situation. The organizational infrastructure was made over. And a commitment was made to improve the culture of service delivery.
A visit to Lancaster today or attention to its media coverage will indicate progress being made on the environment strategic plan. It includes:
- Developing public art,
- Design standards and streetscape enhancements,
- Park improvements
- Green infrastructure
- Public buildings, and
- Attention to utilities (water, recycling and solid waste)
Lancaster continues to make progress by:
- Involving the community,
- Instilling the mantra that prosperity is achieved together while perishing results from working apart,
- Investing at the local level in order to attract the middle class.
And Lancaster is seeing results. Brogan provides an attachment that further addresses these and related points.
