MINERSVILLE - Superintendent M. Joseph Brady responded Monday night to a June 18 article that ran in The Republican-Herald and the Scranton Times-Tribune that a proposed Senate Democratic Caucus plan may declare Minersville Area as a distressed school district.
"Minersville Area School District has never been distressed in all of the time I'm here and I assure you, it's not distressed now," Brady said Monday. "We are financially sound and solid."
The article states the Senate Democratic minority is proposing to provide special state aid to distressed school districts for a second year in a row in the next budget for six districts in Northeastern Pennsylvania, including Minersville Area in Schuylkill County.
According to a quote by Senate Appropriations Chairman Jake Corman, R-34, Bellefonte, senators are looking at how much aid would be provided, how to define which of the 500 school districts are considered distressed and the aid distribution formula.
Corman could not be reached for further comment Tuesday, as his Harrisburg office said that he was in meetings.
The article also stated that the Democratic caucus proposal would distribute $39 million in distressed district allocations among 33 districts across the state, including $1.5 million for Scranton, $1.1 million for Wilkes-Barre Area, $253,000 for Carbondale Area, $136,000 for Minersville Area, $950,000 for East Stroudsburg Area and $1.3 million for Mount Pocono.
The factors that the Democratic caucus want to use are wider than the state law that declares a school financially distressed, and according to the caucus, the proposed factors would take into account the number of students in poverty who are eligible for free or reduced lunch.
The broader criteria will steer extra funding toward these "distressed" school districts.
The information from the caucus states that Minersville Area had 563 students in poverty in the 2012-13 school year and Brady said that he doesn't understand why the district is mentioned when there are districts in the county that have many more students in poverty.
One of the proposed schools is Austin Area School District in Potter County that is said to have only 100 students in poverty.
"They're calling us distressed and there's a difference between financially distressed and distressed for this purpose," Brady said Tuesday afternoon. "It's being interpreted as financially distressed and we're not."
Brady said that in the past, there was a small group of districts in the county that were considered distressed, including Cass Township before it merged with Minersville.
"They then appointed board of control to come in and take them over," he said.
Information from the Democratic caucus about the distressed school proposal can be found at www.pasenate.com by clicking on the state budget link and then the distressed schools document under "2013-14 State Budget Documents."
In other business Monday, the board approved the 2013-14 General Fund Budget with revenue in the amount of $14,974,003 and expenditures in the amount of $15,773,576.
It was noted that the fund balance will accommodate $779,573.
The real estate tax for 2013-14 was also approved at 38.67 mills.
This is the sixth year in a row that there has been no increase.