When budgets are tight, school districts sometimes have to dip into reserve funds to make ends meet.
It’s not something they like to do, but these are desperate times.
“We can’t count on doing this every year,” said Dr. Paul B. Eaken, Fleetwood superintendent.
This is the second year in a row that Fleetwood has relied on its reserves; the district spent $1.4 million to balance the 2011-12 budget.
Map of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States Public School Districts (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Attrition.
It’s a word that has no doubt become quite familiar to school board members across Berks County as they look to shed expenses.
And the No. 1 expense for a school district? Personnel.
Cutting staff is a tough choice, but one many Berks school districts have faced. In all, 15 districts have said they will trim their ranks for the 2012-13 year.
Because cutting jobs has a big impact on people’s lives, attrition has become the preferred method.
A map of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with its neighborhoods labeled. For use primarily in the list of Pittsburgh neighborhoods. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Local mountain bikers are celebrating early, and their excitement is aimed at Homewood.
There, in a former metal fabricating plant on an entire block, biking aficionado Harry Geyer is creating The Wheel Mill, the state’s first indoor park for bicyclists — mountain bikers, BMX racers and free-stylists and even cyclists who like to keep their wheels on the ground.
Mr. Geyer is leasing the building at 6815 Hamilton Ave., to which he also moved the office of his construction and remodeling business. He has access to 57,000 square feet; Global Links has 23,000 square feet of warehouse space on the eastern end.
Possibly as soon as late summer, Mr. Geyer will open the bike park, rolling it out in stages from one immense room to another so that eventually, people won’t have to drive to Ray’s MTB Indoor Park in Cleveland.
HARRISBURG, PA – The House Finance Committee today wrangled with a controversial idea — eliminating school property taxes and replacing the money with higher state personal income taxes and higher state sales taxes.
Rep. Jim Cox, R-Berks, said property taxes on residential and commercial buildings are a major burden for many owners, especially senior citizens on fixed incomes.
“Even when the mortgage on a house is paid off, the owner still has to ‘rent’ it from the government by paying school property taxes, and that isn’t fair,” he said. Some owners have lost their homes when they were unable to pay rising property taxes, he added.
If you like variety, this will be the summer for you.
A few days of hot weather, followed by storm, then a few days of cooler weather. Repeat.
That could be what awaits us from June to August, based on several long-term forecasts.
“Maybe this is a summer where we don’t have long heat waves of a week or 10 days of 90 degrees,” said Millersville University meteorologist Eric Horst. “Instead, they come in smaller clusters, a couple of days in the 90s and then a front goes through and we get relief.”
Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/644340_Summer-weather–A-variable-outlook.html
Editor’s note: This is SPOT ON! There are a number of Pennsylvania grocery store chains on the list that you will recognize instantly:
The biggest complaint: too few open checkouts, followed by crowded or dirty aisles.
Shoppers were surveyed on four categories: service (including employee courtesy and checkout speed); perishables (food quality); price and cleanliness.
The highest-rated supermarket chain was Wegmans Food Markets, headquartered in Rochester, N.Y., and operating 75 stores in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Virginia and Maryland.
Read more to see the wall of shame: http://money.msn.com/investment-advice/americas-least-favorite-supermarkets
Map of Pennsylvania, showing major cities and roads (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
HARRISBURG, PA — Pennsylvania‘s unemployment rate is now too low for it to continue offering 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits, the U.S. Department of Labor and Industry says.
Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate was 7.5 percent in March, down from a 12-month high of 8.3 percent in September.
Right now, jobless Pennsylvanians receive 26 weeks of state-funded benefits and, once that runs out, 47 weeks of federally funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation. The extended benefits provided 13 weeks of additional aid beyond that 47-week window.
Cops: Theft of scrap metal becoming an epidemic
The cases make the news with frequency.
Last month, a thief stole copper piping from a Moosic Street home owned by the wife of the late former Scranton Police Chief James Klee.
There are houses that have flooded when thieves tore out copper piping. A man whose electrocuted body was found under a utility pole in Wright Twp. was killed trying to steal aluminum from power lines.
In November, Dunmore police arrested a Scranton man who twice broke into a PPL Electric Utilities plant on Larch Street to steal copper wire.
Police say that scrap-metal thefts have become an “epidemic” that is hard to fight.
It’s back for another year! Click on the link to see what’s going on in Pennsylvania this year during fair season. Don’t sit home and be bored. Get out there and explore Pennsylvania!
Click here for a PDF file of PA Fairs:
Standard of the Governor of Pennsylvania http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-pa.html#gov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
HARRISBURG - Pennsylvanians who are concerned about rising school taxes should take their complaints to local school boards, not the state government, Gov. Tom Corbett said Wednesday.
“I think the taxpayers need to help themselves,” Corbett replied when a caller on Philadelphia’s Talk Radio 1210 WPHT asked what can be done to help ease the pressures on taxpayers.
In his monthly appearance on the “Dom Giordano Program,” the Republican governor suggested that excessively small class sizes and overly generous contracts with teachers unions are part of the reason many school districts are struggling financially.
“I would love to see the taxpayers speaking up at the school board meetings,” he said.
Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Berks County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Berks County tied for the 19th-highest growth rate among Pennsylvania’s 67 counties from 2010 to 2011, according to new U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
“This is good news for Berks County,” said county commissioners Chairman Christian Y. Leinbach.
Part of the reason for that growth is Berks is in the middle of a growing corridor from Lehigh to Lancaster counties, Leinbach said.
Lehigh tied for Pennsylvania‘s second-highest growth rate and Lancaster tied for fifth.
Lake Erie from satellite 2007. Photograph courtesy of NASA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Officials in Michigan and Ohio promised closer cooperation Wednesday in the quest for solutions to massive algae blooms in Lake Erie, a deadly threat to fish and a turn-off for tourists.
Delegations from both states, including their top environmental protection officials, agreed to push harder for reductions in phosphorus discharges from farms, waste treatment plants and other sources while sharing ideas and supporting research. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency pledged technical and financial assistance.
“We all agreed that while more research is needed, that shouldn’t be a barrier to taking action now,” said Susan Hedman, chief of the EPA’s regional office in Chicago. “It’s absolutely clear that we need to reduce nutrient loading to the western end of Lake Erie.”
Slot machines at Wookey Hole Caves (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Editor’s note: PottsVegas never happened but evidently other communities have embraced casinos! King of Prussia wasn’t too good for a casino!
PHILADELPHIA – Pennsylvania’s 11 casinos pulled in more than $233.1 million in gross slot machine revenue last month, setting an all-time monthly high since the state’s first casino opened in November 2006 and cementing the state’s status as the nation’s second-largest gambling market.
The slots totals released Tuesday by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board include revenue from two test nights and one day of operations at the state’s 11th casino, Valley Forge Casino Resort, which opened Saturday. Overall, the figures broke the previous monthly record of $218.3 million set in July, and they represent an 8.5 percent increase over March 2011.
Highmark Place from PNC Park in Pittsburgh, taken 2008 showing the new Highmark branding atop. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Highmark today fired president and CEO Kenneth R. Melani in the wake of a scandal involving an extramarital affair and allegations that he assaulted the husband of his mistress.
The insurance giant’s board of directors announced the firing after a meeting this morning, in a statement that said his termination was “for cause.”
“The board has reviewed this situation thoroughly and has taken decisive action to address the matter,” said board chairman and acting CEO J. Robert Baum.
“For 75 years, Highmark has served this community with integrity and is committed to maintaining the highest standards. We have dedicated, hard-working employees and I know they take great pride in working for Highmark. Our mission of providing quality, affordable health care has never been more important, and I’m looking forward to working with our employees and senior management team in addressing the many challenges and opportunities that lie ahead,” he said.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/local/neighborhoods-city/highmark-fires-ceo-melani-629445/
The last year has been pretty sweet for PPL Electric Utilities customers.
PPL has cut its rates five times because it’s been able to obtain power at ever-cheaper prices and pass those better deals onto its customers.
But while the cost of obtaining power accounts for about two-thirds of the total bill, there’s a smaller, yet significant chunk.
It’s the cost of delivering that power to your door.
And now PPL wants to charge extra for providing that service, enough to negate some of that recent relief.
Read more: http://lancasteronline.com/article/local/615869_PPL-eyes-hike-of-6-3–on-average.html#ixzz1qqSDdRen
If Pennsylvania State Police troopers started disappearing from the roads, would anyone really notice?
Last week, State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan told a joint House-Senate panel that there aren’t enough new cadets in training to fill the vacancies anticipated by veteran troopers retiring.
Noonan said that when the current class of cadets graduates from the State Police Academy in Hershey this summer, the ranks of the troopers will still be down by 10 percent of 4,500 capacity.
Each class of the academy can produce 115 new state troopers.
Image via Wikipedia
Canton, Pa. - I was picking up my mail at the post office recently when a poster on the bulletin board caught my eye.
After looking it over, I learned that Tifany Austin, 17, a junior at Canton Junior-Senior High School who lives in Ralston, has started a unique senior project.
She wants to create a touching memorial in Ralston to remember young people who have passed away in tragic accidents, including car crashes, in the Canton Area School District and surrounding areas.
As part of her project, she is raising money for a metal angel statue to be placed as a memorial in the mini-park by the bank in Ralston. It will be accompanied by a plaque.
Read more: http://thedailyreview.com/news/western-bradford-notebook-1.1282734
A shortage of anthracite coal may have landed Kelly Brown her first movie role.
Brown, assistant manager at coal seller F.M. Brown’s Sons Inc., 717 Lancaster Ave., went on camera last month when documentary filmmaker Alexis Manya Spraic came to town.
Spraic, whose credits include a 2010 Sundance Film Festival selection, is traveling the world to make a film on the future of global energy. Titled “POWER,” it is intended to portray the deeply personal nature of the world’s ultracomplex energy problem.
Spring Township-based UGI Energy Services Inc. has joined with Inergy Midstream LP and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp. to market and develop a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline known as the commonwealth pipeline.
The proposed 200-mile, 30-inch pipeline is expected to be in service by 2015.
Inergy Midstream, Kansas City, Mo., will build and operate the pipeline and be funded equally by the companies.
UGI Energy Services and Capitol Energy Ventures Corp., a subsidiary of WGL Holdings Inc., Washington D.C., are expected to execute the agreements to become anchor shippers on the line.
Image via Wikipedia
Harrisburg, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania’s employment picture continues to brighten, as the rate fell in January to 7.6 percent.
Read more: http://www.timesherald.com/article/20120302/NEWS03/120309926/-1/NEWS
