Budget talks start with $6.4M shortfall

School board members work to reduce deficit, avoid large tax hike

ROYERSFORD » Just two months into the 202122 school year, the Spring-ford School District kicked off the start of its months-long process of planning the 2022-23 budget.

As is so often the case, it started with some scary preliminary numbers — particularly a potential $6.4 million deficit.

Closing that deficit with nothing but a tax hike would mean a 5.47 percent property tax hike, said board member Clinton Jackson, but that is unlikely to happen.

First, this year the district’s state-imposed tax cap, called the Act 1 Index, is 3.4 percent. That means the school board could not raise taxes higher than that percentage without going to the voters for approval.

Second, the usual course for budget deliberations is for that deficit to shrink as more accurate numbers come in throughout the course of the year, said Finance Director James Fink.

If he worked in the private sector, Fink said, he would not even begin working on the budget until he had six months’ worth of numbers to show the trends. But Pennsylvania’s budget process legally requires school districts to begin budgeting months before the state starts its own deliberations.

Working with the figures he has now, Fink was able to provide some forecasts, particularly with things that are already known, like personnel costs. He also said current projections suggest an additional $200,000 to $250,000 in medical insurance premiums.

One particular concern Fink outlined is the potential impact of inflation.

“We’re reading about it, we’re living it,” he

said. Fuel costs could have a big impact on a school like Spring-ford that runs 77 buses every day, he said.

Right now, projections show expenses going up about 4.45 percent in the coming school year for Spring-Ford Fink said.

On the plus side, the steady rise of property values, and the revenues that rise brings, in Spring-Ford continues at about 1 percent a year, Fink said.

The target date for the adoption of the preliminary budget is Jan. 24, said Fink, although the final budget will not be adopted until June.