The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Local News

November 11, 2008

Already doing what’s proposed: Program report to schools is repetitive

By Courtney Anderson

SHARON — A consultant’s report on ways Sharon City School District could save money by cooperating with neighboring districts contains “a lot of food for thought,” the district superintendent said.

The first thing that came to John Sarandrea’s mind, he said, was that Sharon is already doing most of what the study suggests when it comes to sharing services, which the report doesn’t take into account.

Sarandrea said he’s heard his colleagues say similar things about the Common Cents Initiative reports being presented to participating schools.

Seven Mercer County schools are participating in the state program, which provided $1 million for consultants to look at possible ways to improve efficiency in 11 different areas.

The law, which requires any savings be spent on academics, was introduced by state Rep. Mark Longietti of Farrell, D-7th District.

Longietti Tuesday said he hadn’t seen any of the reports and hasn’t been involved in the process, but had heard concerns from local school administrators. He said he has passed those on to officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Education, which oversees the program, and they are supposed to talk to the consultants and perhaps make changes to the recommendations.

If the final reports are boilerplate and didn’t consider what schools were already doing, “then I’m disappointed in the work the consultant has done,” Longietti said.

“My understanding is they were specifically looking at information available at each school district, examining where there could be cost savings and how school districts could join together to achieve those cost savings,” Longietti said. “If they’re looking at that information and ignoring it and just making blanket recommendations, I think that’s a waste of time.”

The Sharon report, which was presented at a meeting Monday, projects the district could save $125,000 to $212,000 through things like joint purchasing. Business Manager Tresa Templeton said the district already buys things like janitorial supplies and office supplies through Midwestern Intermediate Unit IV programs. And it already belongs to a food consortium and ones for electricity and natural gas, she said.

One strategy talked about, Sarandrea said, was that if you’re already in a consortium of some sort you should try to grow it, he said.

Sarandrea didn’t venture a guess as to how much of that projected savings is actually possible when things the district is already doing are taken out of the equation.

For example, the district could save $28,000 to $55,000 by combined purchasing on paper, office supplies and copiers, the report states. Sarandrea said a better deal on copiers would be great, but that’s “easier said than done” because each district has contracts that expire at different times.

One interesting thing Sarandrea said was discovered through the study is that outsourcing food service programs does not save money, as many might assume. He said the savings comes from how food is purchased.

The study shows a possible savings of $44,000 to $67,000 through joint food service management for districts and up to a total of $18,000 in savings by making technology or textbook purchases through a consortium.

It also suggests ways to save $500 to $5,800 through transportation services or joint purchasing of vehicles and fuel. Sarandrea said those numbers are small because Sharon only provides bus service to special needs students.

The report lists “no opportunities currently identified” for ways the district could save money on administration, safety and security, finance and payroll or human resource administration.

The state Department of Education selected Deloitte Consulting and Pittsburgh-based Lyceum Group LLC to work with the districts.

School boards have until Feb. 16 to decide whether to implement the suggestions.

Longietti said he hopes things get worked out in the next couple of months.

“The whole idea was to come up with a product that was worth serious consideration,” he said.

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