Panther Valley School District will save $357,000 over the next 10 years thanks to favorable interest rates.

However the school board is still working to make up a budget deficit of more than $1 million for the 2020-21 school year.

The school board will vote next week to finalize a bond refinancing on $6.48 million worth of debt. The refinancing will save the district $357,000 over the life of the bond. The district will see $70,000 worth of savings reflected in the 2019-20 budget, and another $75,000 in next year’s budget.

Business manager Ken Marx announced the savings during a budget workshop Wednesday night.

Marx said that the district usually finishes the year spending less than its budget. In 2018-19, the district projected an $800,000 loss but finished with a $400,000 loss.

He said the problem is that the district has approved a budget which loses money.

“Every year this school is budgeting a loss. In 2013-14 we had $6-7 million in the fund balance, now it’s gone because every year we kept taking from the fund balance,” he said.

During the workshop, board members and teachers discussed some of the cuts proposed by the district for the 2020-21 budget. Marx received actual figures as opposed to budget estimates, which were presented at a meeting last week.

Marx said they’ve identified about $165,236 worth of cuts.

$127,469 of that would come from potentially ending the district’s contract with LCCC, which allows district residents to take courses at a discounted rate. Superintendent Dennis Kergick said he has learned that ending the contract is not as easy as once thought.

“It’s not as cut and dry and simplified as people made it,” Kergick said.

One area proposed for cuts is travel reimbursement for teachers. However Marx said cutting that would require limiting attendance at conferences and training. The district’s contract with its teachers requires the district to reimburse teachers when they travel to a mandated event.

They also discussed ways to keep the school open for outside groups, like youth sports. Marx said the weekend events often require paying custodians overtime because it’s difficult to get part-time custodians to cover the shifts.

Resident Angela Krapf said the district could save by not sending home duplicates of letters to families with multiple children.

The board also discussed the cost of having bus monitors ride the bus with students. It costs $106,903 for 14 bus monitors per year.

Intermediate school teacher Pauline Romanowski said bus behavior is so bad that the district would have to increase the penalties for students if they decided to do away with bus monitors to ensure the safety of everyone riding the bus.

“Be aware that it could be a safety issue if we don’t do something different with discipline. I’ve seen the video,” she said.