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Testimony-Task Force on School Cost Reduction, Dallastown

February 2007

Don Yoder - President of the School Board - Dallastown
Fred Botterbusch - Vice President - PSBA and board member Dallastown
Stewart Weinberg PhD - Superintendent - Dallastown

Purpose
A Growing School Districts perspective - Dallastown
The impact under current state funding of costs created by growth is unfair and needs to be changed.

5-7 minutes oral presentation to highlight the significant trends and factors driving costs in growing school districts

Statistical data slides included:

  • Slide 1 Dallastown Enrollment
  • Slide 2 Dallastown - Total State Revenue
  • Slide 3 Dallastown - Basic Education Subsidy
  • Slide 4 Dallastown - % of Revenue Sources to Total Expenses
  • Slide 5 Dallastown - Special Education Subsidy
  • Slide 6 Dallastown - Example of Funding Deficit From New Development
  • Slide 7 Dallastown - Analysis of Homes to Fund One Child
  • Slide 8 Isolating on Growth the current funding formula provides less per student the faster you grow.

Highlight Summary

Review of the slides

  • Slide 1 - Dallastown is growing faster than many districts in the State
  • Slide 2 - The State Revenue per pupil is also growing just not as fast as our underlining growth.
  • Slide 3 - The Basic Education Subsidy Per Pupil is actually going down
  • Slide 4 - This means the Percentage of Total Revenue from the State is decreasing as a Percentage of our Total Expenses. The percentage is decreasing both in Basic Education and in Special Education.
  • Slide 5 - Special Education costs are increasing very rapidly. The State Subsidy is only slightly increasing causing the Percentage of Subsidy to Total costs to rapidly decrease.
  • Slide 6 - This example of an actual new development in our district illustrates we cannot grow out of the problem. The fast the growth the bigger the problem.
  • Slide 7 - The numbers of homes to fund one child is actually going down but our school child per home is going up and is above 1.5 per home.
  • Slide 8 - If you isolate for growth by comparing schools of similar aids ratios the faster you grow the less you receive per pupil.

Summary
Growth of our population and according the school district enrollment is a normal and ongoing event. The growth in enrollment at Dallastown in the last few years is hurting our school and passing a disproportion share of the burden on to our homeowners.

Growth of the enrollment of the school will increase costs proportionally in all areas: basic education, special education, and in facilities costs.

These costs will not all increase in the same pattern:

  • Instructional costs - variable
  • Support/Administrative - variable step
  • Facility costs - fixed step

Growth of school districts needs to be expected and anticipated by the state funding formula. Growth is not included in the State formula and is only superficially adjusted for as an exception. The current system does not work for growing schools as demonstrated by our data.

The Dallastown Story is about one school district's growth and the impact on our facilities costs. This story highlights the shortcomings of the current State funding formula as it relates to providing these costs.

We recommend that a per pupil reimbursement system be established that will allow the reimbursement of education costs to move to the students and not to the school. This methodology will allow growing school districts to receive their fair share of educational funding.

The Dallastown Story
Background on the school district
 The Dallastown Area School District is located in York County , 34 miles south of Harrisburg , in the south central part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania . The district's 52.5 square miles of Susquehanna Valley rolling countryside includes a diverse population of manufacturing, agriculture, and service industries. Due to its proximity to Maryland , many of this suburban district's residents commute to Baltimore area jobs as well.

Our high performance expectations are combined with competent teachers and supportive parents to achieve student success. We provide an educational experience for each student to grow in the ability to think rationally, critically and creatively, to read and listen with understanding, to willingly accept responsibility by participation, and to make responsible decisions based on knowledge and reasoning. Dallastown students acquire subject content knowledge, participate in complex thinking activities, understand the significance of our democratic way of life, and their rights, duties, and obligations under it. It is our promise to guide the students of Dallastown Area School District to recognize the importance of a wholesome family life to the individual and society, foster a desire for an upright moral life, cultivate an appreciation for all human beings, develop proper interpersonal skills, and form learning and social habits that lead to a happy, productive, and purposeful life.

The mission of the board of school directors and the staff of the Dallastown Area School District , in partnership with family and community, is to provide a safe and student-centered learning environment that will enable each student to become a successful, responsible, and contributing citizen of this changing world. To do that, it takes $78,000,000, 704 employees, seven building programs, school improvement planning, staff professional development, and a sincere commitment to student success to achieve it.

Demographic Trends For Dallastown Area School District

Population
Population in both York County and Dallastown School District has increased over the past 20-25 years. It is anticipated that growth will continue in the school district, thereby increasing student enrollment.

Live Birth Data
Live birth rates in the school district have been stable. The District can anticipate a growing kindergarten enrollment.

Historical and Projected Enrollment
Over the past 10 years, K-12 enrollment within the district has grown by 792 students. This growth represents an increase of 8.5%. In the last several years this growth trend has dramatically increase to 2-3% per year. The represents an

Additional 200 to 300 students each school year. This trend is likely to continue for the next 7-10 years.

Housing
This has, and will be, one of the main indicators driving the development of additional school facilities. Housing continues to grow at a rate that is somewhat unpredictable. The information gathered from the municipalities indicates more than 600 residential lots still remaining to be developed in previously approved sub-divisions.

In addition, there are approximately 4,000 lots being planned within the school district boundaries. It is important to note that as of the date of this report, the speed at which these lots will be developed could not be determined. Historically, sub-divisions take approximately 7-10 years to "build-out". Therefore, based on the anticipated number of lots [3,900 +], and the number of students from each house on those lots, the district should anticipate growth in enrollment for the next 5-7 years.

These statements are based on the information available as of this report and should be reviewed on a regular basis to determine overall trends and the impact of actual housing starts on the district.

Housing Yield Rates
Housing yield rates were developed based on the current number of students attending Dallastown schools and the type of housing in which they reside. Projected enrollment can be anticipated by applying current yield rates to similar projected housing types. The results indicate an increase in student population of approximately 1,200 students. The timing of this impact is unknown, however, can be estimated to occur over the next 5-7 years.

Public Utility Systems
In most fast growing districts throughout the country the availability of public utilities such as sanitary sewer is a determining factor when considering the rate of growth. As new housing units are connected to the existing systems, capacity is decreased thereby limiting future growth until new systems and capacity can be added. Local municipalities were contacted to determine the available growth capacity of their current sanitary sewer systems.

York Township
Officials indicated that based on their current usage [existing housing units], an additional 4,000 single-family homes could be connected to their sanitary sewer system.

Springfield Township
Officials indicated that based on their current usage and the number of housing units currently approved for construction, but not yet constructed, an additional 250-300 single-family homes could be connected to their existing sanitary system.

Based on this information it can be stated that there is opportunity for significant growth in York Township , however, growth is limited in Springfield Township until additional capacity is added.

Costs are rising due to the same reasons costs are increasing in other areas: energy, health care, special education and pensions due to fluctuations in the stock market. Coupled with our increasing enrollment and the lack of adequate state funding (Pennsylvania is among the bottom 5 States in the nation for financing education) the funding burden falls on the homeowner.

History of or Schools Growth
 Dallastown Area School District will continue to grow as more and more families move north from Maryland. Because of our school boards' conservative decision making we have resisted the building of new schools and therefore all of our elementary schools have portable classrooms. We have a combined middle school and high school campus and have recently expanded that campus to handle our secondary growth. All of our schools have exceeded their designated student size standard and now we face the issue of building a new school.

We are in the planning and design phase for an intermediate school, grades 4-6, for 1800 students expandable to 2000. The detailed planning documents can be found at our website www.dallastown.net . It is important to understand that we have driven this process by key statistical relationships that represent our schools commitment to our citizens. These statistics include square feet per student, cost per student and class size and again reflect the conservative decision process of our board.

Our Current Challenge
 The Dallastown School District has run out of educational space and easy solutions. We now need to fund a new school and we cannot expect to receive much help from the State. The school district has a very favorable cost of capital structure which has saved significant educational dollars. Our current cost of capital is less than 4%.

Our intermediate school concept allows us to enhance our educational opportunity by centrally locating our students and provides for efficient use of old and new space. We are realigning our school structure to a K-3, 4,5,6 and secondary campus. After the intermediate school is completed we will have additional space at all of our elementary buildings and at our secondary campus.

Despite these decisions the current State reimbursement formula is only anticipated to reimburse our school approximately 7-12% of our costs. The rest of our construction costs will need to be funded from our homeowners.

The state formula for reimbursement of construction costs is complicated but is more driven by the aids ratio (ability for local tax payers to pay) than the need to demonstrate growth. Therefore the majority of the cost of our new building will fall on our local citizens.

A potential solution - A new State formula methodology
A new State formula needs to be developed to allow school districts like Dallastown to receive funding to support our growth and preserve our educational standards. Otherwise the local school district has to relay on their taxpayers to pick up all the growth costs. This is not only unfair to the local taxpayer but will eventually hurt some of the highest performing school districts in the State.

The State does provide some growth adjustments currently. These adjustments are not only inadequate they are not even driven primarily by growth but by many other factors like the local districts ability to pay. The way to adjust for growth in a dynamic and accurate method is to attach the reimbursement to the student.

A new State formula needs to be based on reimbursement attached to each student so that growth can be planned for and accommodated as our school populations moves throughout the Commonwealth.

A per student costs and per student reimbursement system is the answer to keep our educational funding system in touch with our educational needs throughout the Commonwealth.

This type of system can be flexible enough to allow for the changes in significant differences in student enrollment. The current system does not move funds to the student needs it moves funds to the schools based on outdated rules and old data. The faster the growth of a school district the more the system fails and the consequence means the local taxpayer compensates the State shortcomings or the educational system fails.

Thank you for the opportunity to present

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