$67M budget draft has $2.6M deficit

POTTSTOWN » The Pottstown School Board’s first look at a preliminary $66.7 million budget shows a $2.6 million gap between revenues and expenditures and the school board has indicated it is willing to enact the maximum tax increase permitted to help close it.

A presentation on the spending plan was first made to the school board’s finance committee on Feb. 13.

Business Manager Maureen Jampo said part of that deficit is driven by rising charter school tuition costs, something Jampo briefed Pennsylvania Education Secretary Pedro Rivera about during his visit Feb. 14.

According to her presentation, Pottstown’s charter school tuition costs have risen 44 percent in just two years, from $2.5 million to $3.2 million.

Pottstown school officials have joined a statewide effort to lobby for reform to Pennsylvania’s 20-year-old charter school law, specifically how tuition is calculated.

But without a change in Harrisburg, that tuition cost

is expected to continue to rise.

Another part of that deficit is driven by the $2.5 million in assessed real estate value the borough lost in 2019, resulting in a loss of revenue to the school district of $104,694 at the current millage of 41.96 mills.

If that millage is raised by the maximum allowed under the state’s Act 1 index for Pottstown — 3.8 percent — it would mean a millage of 43.56 mills.

Even doing that, and using $291,000 from reserves, the district would still face a shortfall of $1.5 million, according to Jampo’s calculations.

School board member Thomas Hylton is the chairman of the board’s finance committee.

Hylton, who has never voted for a budget with a tax hike and made clear he has no intention to start, nevertheless told the committee, and then the full board, that he realizes his position is not held by the majority of the board.

To ease the workload on the district’s admittedly thin administrative staff, Hylton said the committee agreed that rather than have the staff put together a broad variety of alternatives, that it should assume the board majority is willing to raise taxes to the state maximum of 3.8 percent.

That way, it can focus on finding ways to close a budget gap of the $1.5 million that remains after a tax hike, than to try to close the entire $2.5 million gap.

Last year, the administration had proposed not replacing retiring music teacher Michael Vought, but the school board kept the position after broad protests from the community.

That same night, the board voted 8-1 to adopt a preliminary $63 million budget that raised property taxes by 3.3 percent.

Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez said that if Pennsylvania’s fair funding formula were in place for all education funding, Pottstown would be receiving an additional $13 million a year in state aid.

That money could be used to undertake facility repairs, program improvements and cut taxes rather than raise them, he said.

There is still much more work to be done on the budget, which does not have to be adopted until the end of June, and those numbers will no doubt fluctuate as the weeks pass and more accurate and updated information is received.

This article first appeared as a post in The Digital Notebook blog.