SnapGlow.TV: Modern Gems Galore! Sometimes a trip to Walt Disney World is just what the doctor - or your boss - ordered.
If you work in Delaware County's William Penn School District, the taxpayers might even pick up the tab.
Joseph Bruni, the district's superintendent, is getting some budget-season heat for approving a five-day professional-development trip to Orlando for 20 principals, counselors and other district employees.
They'll be staying at Disney's posh Dolphin Resort next week while attending classes for PowerSchool, an expensive student-data computer program that the district purchased several years ago but never trained its employees to use.
"It's a beautiful hotel - I know because I spent my honeymoon there," said John McBlain, county solicitor and a former Aldan Borough councilman who is fuming over what he termed an "asinine" expenditure.
The cost of the trip, about $64,000, will be covered by federal funds that are distributed to low-income communities.
Although Bruni defended the taxpayer-funded conference, the timing of the disclosure couldn't have been worse, with Pennsylvania lawmakers locked in a budget impasse and fighting over education funding in Harrisburg.
The district, which serves about 5,400 students in Aldan, Colwyn, Darby, Lansdowne, East Lansdowne and Yeadon, already has the fifth-highest tax burden in the state, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. Last month, the board reluctantly hiked taxes by another 4.37 percent.
"It just sticks in my craw that we raise taxes and are spending money this way," said Robert Reardon, president of the school board. "We weren't aware that they were planning a trip anywhere, let alone Disney World."
The board ultimately approved the expenditure at last month's meeting, but Reardon said he wants to implement a new policy that would require the administration to seek approval for future trips earlier in the planning process.
"If they were going to the Swatara Holiday Inn, near Harrisburg, like I have to do for seminars, that's fine," McBlain said. "Nobody's going to jump up in the air about that."
Bruni said that the location of the seminar was selected by the company that sells PowerSchool, and that the classes are needed to train employees to use the $250,000 program that tracks students' grades, attendance and other information.
"It's only as good as the information you're putting into it," he said.
Because the trip is covered by a federal grant, it won't put a dent in the district's $86 million budget.
"It's not that you're taking people on a vacation. It's called PowerSchool University," he said. "These companies, for whatever reason, choose these spots . . . There wasn't any local training."
The Dolphin Resort is a "deluxe hotel that is ideally situated between wonder and wonderful," according to Disney's Web site. It features 56-foot dolphin statues and "distinctive architectural silhouettes on grass expanses and white sand-shored Crescent Lake, punctuated by elaborate fountains and towering palm trees."
"I hope that they're making them double up in a room," said school-board member Diane Leahan. "As much as I dislike the idea that they're going and spending taxpayer money on that, there is no other choice.
"They're going for this training, then they're going to come back and train everybody else."
Paying the $2,000-a-person tuition plus travel and accommodations could save the district money, Bruni said, because district employees will be able to better manage student data.
"We have to get past doing things with paper and pencil," he said. "It's just not efficient."
But McBlain and others questioned the efficiency of flying 20 employees to a luxury hotel for computer classes. Reardon, the board president, said the expenditure appears "frivolous," especially in a cash-strapped district where taxes are on the rise."
"They just seem to be tone deaf that anybody would object to this," McBlain said of the administration. "These people will return from Disney World when my newly enhanced tax bill hits my mailbox."
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