Plum Students, Parents Fight for BCMC Program

School budget season is upon us, and Plum and Riverview school district officials are attempting to balance their budgets by the end of June.

School board for each district met this week to discuss the current status of their budgets. Plum's $58 million budget currently has a deficit of close to $1 million, and Riverview's $18.7 million budget deficit stands at about $100,000.

Details:

Plum School District

After starting the budget process with a $4.3 million deficit, officials have been able to trim that down to just under $1 million.

Included in some of those cuts were a reduction in salaries for employees under the transportation union, a possible layoff and the elimination of the district's participation in the Boyce Campus Middle College program.

The school, also referred to as BCMC, provides an alternative for students who don't feel like they fit in the regular high school setting. In the guidance-based program, the faculty serves as facilitators, counselors, mentors, student advocates and focus group leaders. Classes are held at CCAC-Boyce Campus in Monroeville.

Students from the Plum, Gateway and Penn Hills school districts participate in the program. Until this year, Woodland Hills also was a part of the program.

For Plum, the cost is $234,000 to send 17 students to the program.

Students and parents supporting the program wore blue shirts with "I'm Worth It" written on them, and spoke up about their successes with the program. Several talked about failing in the regular high school setting and proceeding to succeed at BCMC on the honor roll.

Most students also said that if the program is taken away, they wouldn't return to the district, choosing to attend cyber or charter school.

District officials said if that were to happen, it would cost about $157,590—resulting in a monetary savings.

Board member Tom McGough thanked the students and parents for addressing their concerns. He suggested that the board consider:

• Paring back all programs by 5 percent to avoid taking from just a select few
• Work with the staff to strategize, since 2/3 of the budget is personnel costs
• Create a non-profit education foundation where businesses, alumni and members of the community could contribute donations for district programming.

Officials agreed to look into creating a foundation to help with future budgets. Board member Kevin Dowdell, however, said cutting 5 percent from all line items is not realistic because many of the district's costs are fixed.

Board member Andy Drake said officials also will be meeting with the teachers' union.

The current budget does not include a tax increase. The next finance committee meeting will be held at the end of May.

Riverview School District

Riverview school officials are in the process of trying to close a $100,000 budget deficit.

"We are so close this year," district business manager Frank Thompson said. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Currently, the district's rate is 25.355 mills. Thompson said the millage rate will be reduced to at least 20.1733 mills to remain "revenue neutral" after the county reassessment.

However, the district was approved for exceptions under the Act 1 index. Thompson said with those approvals, the district could increase the millage by up to 0.951 mills.

Officials will continue to discuss the budget on May 13 at 7 p.m. at the central office on Tenth Street.

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