By BRETT R. WHITLING
Clarion News writer
Clarion Area School District is researching the costs of outsourcing various services currently provided in-house by district employees.
Clarion Area School Board member Julie Hartley said during the last school board meeting the district’s administration would start to explore cost or cost savings of outsourcing non-professional departments.
“I’m not sure we want to say (which departments) yet because we want to look at all the departments and if there is potential to outsource,” Hartley said. “The goal would be to look at what we can afford and can’t afford as we continue.”
“We have to look at the numbers for the next school year and how we pay for them,” said Hartley.
School districts in Pennsylvania must decide soon if they will cap an potential real estate tax increase to an inflation index set by the state.
Should a school district opt to not cap its potential tax increase, that district must submit a budget to the state Department of Education by the end of January.
When asked what programs specifically are being spared from cuts, Hartley said, “All the classes we provide – like extracurricular activities; that’s the mandate that the community has given us and how we pay for that is an ever increasingly creative and mind-challenging event.”
Clarion Area administrators will explore options of outsourcing and report the results back to the school board.
That will enable the board and finance committee the time needed to work with the numbers before planning the budget for the 2018-19 school year.
In other news, Darlene Matson was hired as a health technician at $17.50 per hour. Duties include assessing and serving the health needs of students received in the health office.
The next school board work session is 7 p.m. Dec. 5, and the next regular school board meeting is 7 p.m. Dec. 12 at the high school.