by elaine haskins good-bye to superintendent carnival...
TRANSCRIPT
Vol. 134 - No. 116
Sunny. Highs in the up-per 60s.
Full report, A2
18 pagesClassi� ed ......................... B4Comics ............................. A7Lifestyles ......................... A4Lottery ............................. A9Opinion ........................... A8Public Notices ............... B4Sports ............................... B1
75 Cents
• P. John Navarra, 86• Lillian J. Skraba, 85 • Norbert B. Snell, 81• John Swan Jr., 67
The Ridgway Area School District bade fare-well to its superintendent and started on the fast track to fi nd a replace-ment. A2
Carnival timeBrockway Fire Co. fi-
nalized plans for the car-nival on June 23-27 at Tay-lor Memorial Park. A6
Pirates winPittsburgh Pirates’
Starling Marte and Grego-ry Polanco score in against the Chicago Cubs. The Pi-rates won, 4-0. B1
Hidden towersOne might be hidden in
a cross on a church lawn. Others are disguised as a cactus in the desert, a silo in farm country or a palm tree reaching into a sunny sky. B8
Good-bye tosuperintendent
Tomorrow’s Forecast
Index
ObituariesA9
MORE INSIDE
Page B1
FRIDAY-SATURDAY, JUNE 13-14, 2014
DuBois City Manager John “Herm” Suplizio, front right, delivers the city’s check toward the shooting range project at Camp Mountain Run to Sandy Township police Officer Ken Kiehlmeier while Sandy Township Manager Dave Monella hands the township’s check to DuBois police Sgt. Shawn McCleary. In the back row, from left, are Craig Singer, vice president of programs for the Boy Scouts; Bucktail Council Scout Executive Gregg Bennett, Bryan Shaffer, engineering technician for United Electric; Shane Farrell, operating manag-er of United Electric, and John Drum, camp ranger. In the background, DuBois and Sandy Township police officers prepare for another round of practice. (Photo by Nick Hoffman)
By Nick Hoffman
PENFIELD — Let there be lights.So said the City of DuBois, Sandy Township, the
Boy Scouts of America and United Electric Coop-erative.
City and township police officers need a place to conduct firearms training and qualifying shoots.
The Boy Scouts have the land. United Electric has the electricity.
City Manager John “Herm” Suplizio and town-ship Manager Dave Monella presented checks Wednesday for the municipalities’ respective shares of $3,500 each to install lights at a shooting range at the BSA’s Camp Mountain Run.
The initiative will allow electric service to be ex-tended to a building at the range, where floodlights will be erected and outlets installed.
The range is and will continue to be used by city and township police to meet their training and qualifying needs.
The Scouts will develop an adjacent field for ath-letic events, with lighting available.
The lighting will expand and enhance the fire-arms range and give officers a permanent quali-fying site. Previously, they have used sites in Brookville and near Brockway and a back yard on Wayne Road.
Township police Officer Ken Keihlmeier, who is president of the Fraternal Order of Police Free-dom Lodge 93, and DuBois police Sgt. Shawn Mc-Cleary, vice president of Freedom Lodge, accepted the checks from the township and city.
Suplizio said the effort is just one example of how working together turns out to be a “win-win” for everyone involved.
For the city or the township alone to develop a range would be a considerable, even cost-prohibitve, expense. By joining forces, he said, the cost was manageable and United Electric’s assistance made it more affordable. In addition to meeting the local police officers’ needs, the Scouts benefit as well.
“This is how working together makes us all bet-ter,” he said, adding that the city’s and DuBois Area School District’s collaboration on the Show-ers’ Field improvement project in the city is another example of pooling resources for everyone’s benefit.
Joint project shines light on Sandy Township,DuBois police departments
By Elaine Haskins
DuBOIS — Two residents voiced concerns about the proposed 2014-15 general fund bud-get for the DuBois Area School District at Thursday’s meeting.
The preliminary budget of $55,876,729, which was presented at the May 12 meet-ing, represents a 6.73-mill property tax in-crease (8 percent) in Clearfield County and a 1.0487-millage increase (3.7 percent) in Jef-ferson County due to the annual stabilization required by the state and increasing up to the allowable index plus exceptions.
The millage rates are 91.0083 in Clearfield County and 29.6687 in Jefferson County.
Taxpayers in Clearfield County with a cur-rent tax bill of $1,544.85 will pay an increase of $123.33, if approved. Those in Jefferson County with a tax bill of $1,417.82 will pay an increase of $46.59, or 3.3 percent.
Approved taxpayers will see a reduction in their real estate taxes due to the homestead/farmstead reduction.
Final adoption of the budget is planned for Wednesday’s board meeting.
John Balliet of DuBois said after looking at the proposed budget revenue last month, “I couldn’t see where the 8 percent increase re-ally solved any of the district’s budget prob-lems either in the short- or long-term. I guess in some ways it was kicking it (the can) down the road, but there are other considerations
Residentsquestion tax increase in DuBois school district
The white flags dotting City Park in DuBois Thursday morning mark the spots where vendors will set up their booths for the annual Community Days celebration today and Saturday. The park will be teeming with activities for children and adults, capped off by Saturday’s firemen’s parade at 5 p.m. and the fireworks spectacular around 9:30 p.m. Handicapped parking will be available starting after 5 p.m. today at the DuBois Medical Supply. During the parade, the sidewalks next to DuBois Medical Supply parking lot will be used as a handicapped viewing area. Event organizers remind those attend-ing that for safety reasons people are asked not to bring dogs or bikes to the park during Community Days. (Photo by Nick Hoffman)
By Elaine Haskins
DuBOIS — Class size is one of the issues that the DuBois Area School District will have to address as officials work through the budget crisis, according to Superintendent J. Mark Heckman.
Heckman said at Thursday’s school board meeting that he has been receiving phone calls from some parents about class size across the district and, in particular, the fifth-grade classrooms at Oklahoma Elemen-tary for the 2014-15 school year.
“As everyone in the room knows, we’ve had some financial issues and we have attempted to not hire people when retirements happen just because we are trying to live within our means and provide the best education that we can afford,” Heckman said. “What I’m going to say is in the future we are bound to see some increases in class sizes because of that.”
Regarding the class size that was in ques-tion, Heckman said there were three sections in fifth grade at Oklahoma and decreasing it to two sections will put 27 students in a class.
“It’s a large number but manageable,” Heckman said.
However, there have been a few late enroll-ments, he said.
“I just wanted to publicly say we are go-ing to wait until late registrations and see if we have any additional people before we make any decisions about that. We are cognizant of class size and the need for manageable sizes. We also need to live within our means, too,” Heckman said.
Director Lloyd McCreight asked if there were 29 at C.G. Johnson Elementary in Reyn-oldsville last year.
Heckman said there were and “we had fin-ished the year at 30.”
“My focus when I was staffing and with the administrators, we tried to keep all of our primary classes to low 20 and as the students got older, the class size crept up a bit,” Heck-man said. “There was a question why another school had three sections.” The reason was because it had 64 students and making it two sections would mean there would be 32 stu-dents in each class.
“So it is really truly based on number not location,” he said.
Parents concerned about class size
See School, Page A9
A1 Front Page