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From Staff Reports
Locally elected and appointed officials voted on the following matters in the past week:
Federal
• The House voted 217-207 in favor of the Paycheck Fairness Act. U.S. Reps. Fred Keller, R-Kreamer, and Glenn Thompson, R-Howard, voted no.
State
• The Senate was out of session.
• The House was out of session.
County
• Lycoming County commissioners voted 3-0 to approve a grant and monitoring agreement with Mansfield University for police training. Tony Mussare, Rick Mirabito, and Scott Metzger voted yes.
School Districts
• The Williamsport Area School Board approved Lisa Nible, 1404 Walnut St., to fill a vacancy on the board left by the resignation of Nancy Somers last month. The remainder of Somers' term runs until the end of November. Nible will officially be sworn in by a member of the judiciary prior to the next board meeting, May 4. With Nible's appointment, the board is still down one member as the resignation of Marc Shefsky, effective April 13 was also approved at the meeting. The board has 30 days to fill Shefsky's spot and voted to advertise the position and conduct interviews at their next meeting, rather than interviewing for both positions at the meeting.
• JERSEY SHORE -- The Jersey Shore Area School District will take advantage of curent low interest rates and is set to save $185,468, by refinancing bonds from 2012 and 2015 after the recent approval by the school board of the proposed action. Following a presentation by Jamie Doyle, managing director of PFM Financial Advisors LLC, the school board adopted a resolution authorizing the refinancing of four existing bonds with a general obligation loan from Key Government Finance. The company had offered an interest rate of 0.8 percent, fixed through maturity, with no bank fees. The bonds that were refinanced had a principal of $8,069,000.
• Although the proposed 2021-22 budget introduced at a recent South Williamsport Area School Board meeting did not have a tax increase built into it, discussion that followed centered on a possible increase in real estate taxes in order make up the difference between projected revenues of $19,086,721 and expenditures of $19,357,541. According to Jamie Mowrey, district business manager, an increase of .32 mills would be needed to offset the deficit. If passed the increase would add $32 to the tax bill of a property assessed at a $100,000 value. The current tax rate for district property owners is 16.78 mills.
• Montoursville Area School Board voted to approve 38 district students for the Intermediate Unit 17 Extended School Year Program from June 21 to July 22 at a cost of $72,950.