Summer Program Budget Discussed, Approved at KC Board Meeting

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – One of the hot button issues discussed at Thursday’s Voting Meeting of the Keystone Central School Board was the budget for the 2025 Summer Program.

Recently, it was reported that the Clinton County government withdrew their financial support of the Keystone Central Summer Program.

“This is very important for the children of Clinton County and I think the county needs to step up and be responsible to help us do things during summer for the children,” School Board President Butch Knauff said.

“We all want programs for our children in summer,” Board Member Elisabeth Lynch said, “but we never went out to make cooperative agreements with other organizations like the local YMCA and churches that also hold summer programs.”

The original motion to pass the budget to the tune of $60,000 was superseded by a secondary motion to pass it with a maximum school district expense of $51,000 if donations could be received from local municipalities and organizations to help offset the difference.

School Board Member Roger Elling spoke up, agreeing that $51,000 is good, “but I am looking at it as we all know inflation is through the roof, so I am also thinking along lines of $60,000 so if we don’t get donations we at least have that amount.”

“At $60,000 we are increasing it a bit but not going overboard; I think $60,000 is a better number than $51,000 for the summer program,” Elling said.

Because the secondary motion was to pass a budget at $51,000, the board voted that down unanimously in favor of passing the original budget amount of $60,000. This motion passed unanimously.

After the summer program discussion, an executive session was held from 7:48 p.m. to 8:02 p.m. for “personnel issues.”

Before concluding the meeting, Board Member Chris Scaff spoke on behalf of himself and fellow board member Tom Cannon.

“Tom brought up the issue of disrespect and demeaning people at a previous meeting, but it still continues. There are some people here that have bent over backwards to help the three of us new folks get acclimated, and some people that have just disrespected us and have not cared to even get us up to speed on where we are. We have been shown nothing but disrespect and attitude and we have been treated as if we are beneath people. I will not even think about calling this a team of 10 unless we can promote a positive atmosphere of unity or even take a step towards it. We need to do that. I am going to ask a question, I don’t care who gets mad at me, I am going to ask that question. That’s why the people of region one voted me in. We had to make promises that we would be transparent, upfront and done. If you want a team, let’s be a team. If people cannot be respectful, transparent, and team players I would welcome their letter of resignation. You guys (our staff) are our rock stars shaping the future for our students.”