When Gov. Ed Rendell's statewide teleconference with school board members on Act 72 started yesterday afternoon, about 30 local school officials were gathered in a conference room at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit's headquarters.

By the time Rendell finished at 6:45 p.m., more than an hour later, there were only three left.

"My expectation was that I would get something that I didn't already have," said Keystone Oaks school board member David Rauth, who left early. "But this was not helpful at all."

Baldwin-Whitehall board member Beverly Coon had been accompanied by three other board members, the district's superintendent and business manager. But Coon was the only one in the group to stay to the end.

"I think some of the folks who came were hoping to hear that he might extend the deadline and that he might take an extra look at the exceptions," Coon said.

Act 72, also known as the Homeowner Tax Relief Act, requires school boards to decide by May 30 if they want to accept slot machine revenue for property tax reductions. Districts that accept the funds must agree to increase their earned income tax by 0.1 percent and to put most future tax increases beyond the rate of inflation to a referendum.

Rendell made it clear he doesn't see a need for a deadline extension and that he believes the 10 exceptions that allow boards to raise taxes beyond the rate of inflation for certain expenses are more than generous.

He repeated several times throughout the conference that Pennsylvania is one of only five states that has no fiscal control over school districts, pointing out that a number of states have referendums without exceptions.

The governor said the Legislature didn't want to give slots money to school districts without requiring referendums because it wanted to make sure local boards didn't take advantage of the property tax relief by immediately raising taxes.

That comment annoyed a number of school board members watching the broadcast at the AIU headquarters.

Rendell said projections that slots will raise $1 billion for property tax relief were based on solid studies that would be made available to school officials who want them.

Rendell also repeated what he called "advice" but local school board members described as a "threat" when he warned that districts might as well accept slots funding since the Legislature will likely impose referendums on all school districts in the near future.

He couldn't say for sure whether the entire pot would be divided among those of the state's 501 districts that opt in by the May 30 deadline.