At What Cost, KO Consolidation, and Where Will Those Costs Fall?

A look through the 70 pages of Keystone Oaks School District's school consolidation plan, approved at Thursday's special meeting, unleashes as many questions about finances as it provides answers.

Surprisingly, some of those queries are coming from the people most affected by it, its borough officials.

The plan, approved by a 5-3-1 vote, would close Fred L. Aiken and Myrtle Avenue elementary schools effective for the 2012-13 school year and bus all children in kindergarten through grade four to . Upper grade students would attend the combined Keystone Oaks High School and Keystone Oaks Middle School building.

The only remaining option the school district is considering for the two elementary schools scheduled to be closed, is gifting the buildings to the community, Gwen Walker, district director of fiscal services and personnel, said at the meeting.

That boils down to two options for if, and when, the Myrtle Avenue and Aiken elementary schools are closed ... either the home boroughs of Castle Shannon and Green Tree will accept ownership of those buildings and absorb their operating costs, or one or both boroughs will refuse the offer and the buildings will remain school district property.

“You would think they would have approached us about this (donating the school building) before announcing it in a public meeting,” said W. David Montz, Green Tree Borough manager, citing a problematic lack of communication, on Friday. “We have not been approached by the district, so it is premature to say whether we would accept the offer.

“We would, of course, do what we think is best for the taxpayers of Green Tree.”

Either way, under the current plan, the costs for maintaining both schools will continue to be paid by taxpayers of the school district. In essence, two of the three local boroughs would be assuming the responsibility and costs for accepting these buildings, but would no longer have the benefits of their use as local elementary schools.

If the boroughs do take the offer of ownership, they must assume the cost of upkeep (which is currently $146,392 for Aiken School in Green Tree and $209,148 for Myrtle Avenue School as stated on page 60 of the consolidation plan.) These costs are the savings that the school district projects for closing the buildings, but do not necessarily reflect the actual operating costs for utilization of the buildings for any other purpose.

The district did not give estimates on what the basic operating expenses of the buildings might be when closed. Page 62 of the plan originally suggested several options for the two closed schools, including attempting to sell them for profit, leasing them to another organization or “mothballing” them for now.

During the meeting, Walker reiterated that the district was now only considering gifting the schools. Whatever the cumulative savings to the school district may be, after considering the costs inherent to retrofitting the remaining three schools, the local tax base is going to see little or no relief as those school buildings, at best, would only be changing which local taxing body would be paying the bills.

Those costs would actually be divided between the two areas losing its schools if the plan to donate them is accepted. T

he only possible financial beneficiaries would be the residents of , who would no longer be absorbing any portion of the buildings' upkeep through school taxes. However, Dormont's tightly-constricted, aging roads, congested traffic patterns and limited parking, would now need to accommodate all the traffic and security for all the buses for all the schools, all the parents, teachers and visitors, for all district activities, all the time.

The plan also projects financial repercussions from parents who object to busing their children to Dormont and choose to enroll them in either cyber or charter schools. Page 63 estimates a potential loss of 37 students, at a cost of $11,337 per student, for a total of $419,453. Numbers are based on the loss of 5 percent of the student body to alternative schools when comparably-sized Ligonier Valley School District reorganized. Additional costs to reconfiguration enumerated on page 64 include: $3,000 for additional cameras to monitor the junior/senior high access points; additional parking for Dormont School—$5,000; increased transportation costs—$68, 220; and $15,000 for additional custodial supplies and electricity at the elementary school.

New summer programs are anticipated to add about $40,000 to the budget for a total reconfiguration cost of $131, 220. (Some of these costs are one-time costs and some would be ongoing budget items.)

Thomas Hartswick, borough manager of Castle Shannon, did not return calls seeking comment on the possible transfer of ownership of the schools and whether that offer might be accepted.

The effects of the reconfiguration on the student body has only been touched upon in the plan. Look to Patch for further stories on the potential changes that students can expect if the plans go forward.