In a speech delivered just prior to his ouster at Monday's special meeting, McKelligott said that, among other issues, his opposition to the special armed security force precipitated his dismissal.
"There is an enormous difference of approach among the school directors," McKelligott told the audience, which included numerous elected officials from the district's six boroughs - Aldan, Colwyn, Darby Borough, East Lansdowne, Lansdowne and Yeadon. "If we cannot celebrate, then we must at least tolerate those differences of opinion."
Yesterday, McKelligott said that he would remain on the board, and that he found his new role "somewhat liberating." Board presidents are not allowed to make motions.
The new budget, which will require a 0.3 of a mill tax increase, will raise the property tax rate to 24.8 mills. The owner of a house assessed at $70,000, the district average, would pay $1,736, an increase of $21.
The budget also includes the two armed police officers; adding two unarmed security guards to the district's staff of four; new textbooks; additional substitute teachers; three special education teachers; and additional staff development.
The new budget, however, does not include 19 positions that had been planned: seven elementary and nine secondary non-teaching assistants, and three elementary guidance counselors. Nor does it allocate money for full-day kindergarten at Evans Elementary School and a reduced class-size initiative at Walnut Street Elementary School.
Many people spoke against the cuts, citing the need to bolster educational objectives rather than spending money to address the sporadic violence experienced most particularly at Penn Wood West Junior High School in Darby.
"It's just a matter of dollars and cents," Thomas Blair of Darby, the board's new vice president, said yesterday. "If we had kept everything [from the original budget], it would have brought taxes up too high. We always work to try to get items back in the budget, but I'm not saying these things are coming back."
Blair, who first proposed the armed force, said that starting in September, the two police officers would patrol the district in separate cars, entering the schools with their weapons only if needed.
"If it's not going to work out, then I'll be the first one to try to change it," he said. "But if I can make a difference by 1 percent, then I feel I've done something."
Deborah Bolling's e-mail address is dbolling@phillynews.com.
