Would it be possible to get some clarification from Marc Davis or someone else on the School Board: Back in March, when S-F and GSK remained "far apart" in their settlement discussions, the Board was assessing GSK's property at $95 million, while GSK claimed its current value was $45 million. And now they settle at $47 million? In six months of talking, we could only get them to nudge up by $2 million? Or, looked at another way, Spring-Ford gave up 96% of the difference? I hope that the Board is asking some hard questions about how these negotiations were conducted and why the taxpayers were so poorly represented.

Well said, Bruce! Especially since us taxpayers now bear the burden of Smith-Kline's tax break.

Jani-King is NOT doing a good job and whomever determined that has had the wool pulled over their eyes!
Almost $40,000 being spent on the athletic facilities meanwhile the assistants were removed from all the libraries which now are closed to individual students when the librarians are teaching or on duty elsewhere. I thought our main responsibility was to educate and instill a love of learning not improve athletic prowess. It long overdue to get the district's priorities straight.

GSK has more than enough money. always the middle class toting the financial weight so the CEOs can get their raise next year. I agree with Bruce, I sincerely hope the district did everything they could to make GSK pay what was fair.

This is awful, shame on GSK. A couple of comments, no one should ever be allowed on school property except for treachers, students and approved personnel during school hours. With regard to Jani-King, they are awful on so many levels. I am familiar with them and they do not check employees as they should, they hire criminals. They do not have any regard or respect for the property they are suppose to handle and I am so upset that they are on school grounds. In the end this is never a better alternative financially. Teachers make sure you keep an inventory of the items you have unlocked.

Before you start attacking GSK, all circumstances around this should be questioned. Who did the assessment for GSK? Who did the assessment for the township/school district? Why were these assessments "so far apart"? I know I do not know the particulars around this but the township was only returning 6.5 million dollars and now it sounds like they will be returning less. Instead of attacking "big business" just because they are big business, both sides of the story needs to be heard. All I see are a bunch of people who want to throw blame on an easy target. It seems that there is a lot of fault to go around, especially if someone budgeted the income from the GSK property improperly. As far as I am concerned, the jury is out and I'd like to know if any of our township/school district leaders are at fault. At least these we can vote out of office and have some control over the outcome. So please, until we all know the entire story, we should not judge either side. More information is needed in order to determine what really happened. There is definitely not enough information in this article to make any of these determinations.

My original comment in no way questioned GSK. GSK did what any for-profit, publicly held corporation must do - try to maximize return for its shareholders. My point - similar, I think, to what Bruce W. says above - is that S-F taxpayers are owed an explanation about this outcome. How many hours of Fox Rothschild time did we pay for over the past six months of negotiating and what did we get for it? I would be happy to be wrong, but it seems like we didn't get much at all.

Someone benefitted from hiring Jani-King. Jani-King has local ownership/management based out of Eagleville, PA. Some person bought that franchise and is benefiting from the school district contract. There has to be a connection between them and someone on the board. No info. was ever provided on the local ownership/manager. WHO IS IT ANYWAY? That is the question.

As for GSK, they aren't even US owned....they're British owned. And they screwed their own people taxwise too (link attached) : http://truthman30.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/ And how many jobs did they cut when they assimilated Wyeth? Another example of corporate greed at the expense of Joe taxpayer.

Hi Concerned Citizen - Once again, get your story straight. Pfizer purchased Wyeth, not GSK. All companies are being affected by this economy. My wife has worked for GSK for 22 years and is losing her job at the end of this year. Even with this disappointment, I am not going to accuse GSK of any wrongdoing. Making uninformed and emotional charged accusations is not the way to handle any situation. And, by the way, any savings that they do incur, actually helps to keep jobs in the area. They honestly have cut back so much, that GSK employees are doing the work of 2 or even 3 people. Honestly, instead of attacking businesses that actually do provide job opportunities, maybe you should actually figure out a way to keep them in the area so that unemployment doesn't get worse. Instead of making things up in a public forum, how about trying to get informed?