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Diocesan Annual Appeal surpasses goal

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Kiwanis scholarships available for high school students in Swoyersville, Luzerne and Forty Fort

<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212; So what will it be? Eliminate libraries, music and art? Furlough the newest teachers? Hope for sufficient retirements to succeed by attrition? Slash sports? The Wilkes-Barre Area School Board has promised a $4 million cut in the upcoming budget, and rumors are rampant even as officials are tight lipped.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a sensitive topic,&#8221; noted Christine Katsock, chair of the school board budget and finance committee. &#8220;Everyone will have to wait until May 23.&#8221; That&#8217;s the next monthly meeting when a preliminary budget is expected to be up for a vote.</p><p>Details may be unavailable and the final cuts almost certainly will come in a wide range of budget items, but there is sufficient state data available to give a picture of just how much $4 million affords.</p><p>For starters, 21 employees have submitted retirement notices, and Katsock has promised 17 will not be replaced. She did not say which ones, but the list is pretty narrow considering two of the 21 positions&#8212; Superintendent Bernard Prevuznak and Business Manager Leonard Przywara &#8212; will need to be filled somehow, though it&#8217;s technically legal to run a district with a superintendent of record who is not a full-time employee and to contract business management out, as do some area districts.</p><p>According to state data, 16 of the remaining 19 (no data was readily available for two) were paid a total $1.1 million in wages. Add the cost of benefits and the district is well beyond one-quarter of the way to saving $4 million.</p><p>Stressing these are not plans for cutting, and the numbers are from 2014-15 data, here&#8217;s some math to give an idea of what $4 million in cuts can look like:</p><p>&#8226; Art, music and libraries are the usual suspects in early rounds of cuts, and rumors about them disappearing next year abound. According to state data, Wilkes-Barre Area paid $917,030 in salaries for art teachers, nearly $1.18 million for music teachers and $591,086 for library sciences. Total savings by eliminating all three would easily exceed $2.7 million when benefits are considered.</p><p>&#8226; While a district cannot simply cut positions by seniority, from newest up, doing so would require furloughing about 75 professional employees with experience in 2014-15 that ranged from one to five years.</p><p>&#8226; If the district opted to eliminate positions solely by retirement, and those at the top of the seniority list retired first, about 50 employees would have to retire and not be replaced to save $4 million.</p><p>&#8226; Critics have often contended the district is top heavy, a claim rejected by administrators for years. Excluding the superintendent post, if every administrator, supervisor and coordinator job in the district&#8217;s professional staff were eliminated, it would save about $2.3 million in wages. It&#8217;s important to note, however, that in some cases these positions are filled part-time by people who hold other duties.</p><p>If you&#8217;re thinking sports is the place to cut, the state has data on that, too, the latest available from 2013-14. If every sport expenditure from athletic trainers to transportation is cut, the savings would be a bit more than $2 million, still well short of the $4 million target.</p><p>If all existing sports are kept but shifted to some type of &#8220;pay to play&#8221; program where the athletes had to come up with money to cover costs, the savings would fall even shorter. Total cost for uniforms and supplies was $503,102. Play all the events at home or otherwise eliminate transportation costs and another $394,058 are saved.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>WBA School Board has promised to trim that amount from budget</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

What does a $4 million cut in spending in the Wilkes-Barre Area School District look like?