No tax hike for 2nd year

State aid, health care savings help close budget gap

POTTSTOWN >> With a unanimous vote Monday night, the Pottstown School Board made history.

The board adopted a $59,553,150 budget that — and this is the historic part — for the second consecutive year does not raise property taxes.

However, despite its historic implications, the budget was adopted without comment by any of the nine school board members who voted for it, or the administration that crafted the spending plan.

Although the final budget does increase spending by $2.4 million — or 4.2 percent — savings in health care costs, a $100,000 increase in earned income tax revenue, a $2.3 million increase in state revenues and $130,000 withdrawal from reserves all helped to balance the budget without a tax hike.

The budget’s adoption means the millage rate of 39.2522, one of the highest in Montgomery County, will remain the same for the 2016-17 school year.

With the average residential property assessment of $79,500, that means a tax bill for the average homeowner will remain

$3,120.55.

And for the 4,195 registered homesteads in the borough, state gambling revenues will result in a tax reduction of $377.64.

Despite successfully holding the line on taxes for two years in a row, Pottstown continues to face structural budget challenges.

Primary among these is the ever-falling assessed value of property in the borough.

In the past year, the borough’s total property assessment dropped by $5,566,510, according to business manager Linda Adams.

And because Pennsylvania schools lean so heavily on property tax revenue, that lowered assessment means Business Manager Linda Adams started the budget process with $392,510 less revenue than the year before.

Fortunately, a $403,608 grant from the Kellogg Foundation offsets that loss and helps pay for the PEAK and Pre-K Counts efforts in town.

In fact, more than 9 percent of the total budget — $5.4 million — is funded through grants.

Also worrisome is the fact that Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget cuts special education funding by 2.7 percent — this on the heels of eight straight years of flat funding — which the district can hardly afford given its high special education population.

According to the budget made available at Monday’s meeting, salaries — which comprise 41 percent of the budget — increased by less than 2 percent, although administrative salaries jumped by 9.3 percent and professional education salaries only increased by just over half a percent.

Benefits — which make up another 25 percent of the budget — increased by less than 1 percent.

There is no increase in the half-million-dollar athletic budget.