By Wm. Shawn Weigel

The Unionville-Chadds Ford School District administration has finally addressed public inquiries into a last minute reduction in the 2009-10 operating budget.

At last Monday’s regular business meeting, Superintendent Sharon Parker addressed comments made publicly at the August meeting by school board candidate Jeff Hellrung.

At that meeting, Hellrung asked Parker and the board regarding a last-minute change just before adoption and the $638,000 oversight that created the change, and to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the reduction.

The increase amounted to 4.1 percent, which Parker said was consistent with the limits imposed by Act 1, instead of the over 6 percent initially proposed by the board.

Parker said that the budget was reduced because $638,000 in exceptions were not approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, forcing the district to adhere to the Act 1 index increase.

The exceptions, if approved, would have allowed the district to increase taxes above the index limit.

Parker said the district planned to tax beyond the 4.1 limitation set by Act 1.

“We know our application would have been approved,” she said.

The reason for the unapproved exceptions, Parker said, was the result of human clerical error.

“When the error was realized in June it was too late to resubmit the application … to raise taxes above the 4.1 percent,” Parker said.

The budget reduction, Parker said, was accomplished by reducing planned reserves in the self-funded health insurance plan and the Public Schools Employees Retirement System, with no funds drawn away from student programs, services or staff.

To prevent an oversight of this nature from happening again, Parker said that the district is instituting a series of electronic prompts and will use back up personnel for reports and applications.

“No one is filing an application to the PDE without a peer partner,” she said, adding that she and District Director of Technology and Communication Rich Hug both worked on a recent document together to ensure it was done correctly.

“I believe that the matter had been addressed,” she said.

Parker said that while several years ago, reports were submitted by pen and paper hardcopy to the PDE, the process is now mostly done online.

“When you have a copy in hand and you take it to the post office to mail it, you have some level of hope or assurance that it is being filed in a timely manner,” she said. “This was a question of human error.”

Parker said that the reason the district has not spoken openly until now was because the district was made aware of the oversight “virtually hours before the June 15 meeting.” She added that at that time, the issue was a personnel matter.

“There is no attempt to hide this information,” she said. “It is simply that there was a human data entry error.”

She added that the district would not attempt to raise taxes next year in such a way as to compensate for the error.

During the public comment section, board candidate Keith Knauss said that whether the board learned about the oversight in April or June was immaterial, adding that there were multiple opportunities to inform the public despite pointed questioning.

“The superintendent fails to address the transparency issue,” Knauss said.

He also speculated as to whether or not the administration would take similar steps to cover up any other incidents in the future.

“I can’t imagine a time when I would willfully deceive this community, or when I would deceive this community by ignorance or unfortunate accident,” she said. “I would hope that the faith and trust so many people have placed in me is well placed. And I believe it is.”