Board approves 2024 budget with no tax increase

Pittsburgh Public School directors approved a $719.4 million operating budget with no tax increase.

The 2024 budget passed Wednesday in a unanimous vote.

In all, the budget includes $689.4 million in revenues and $719.4 million in expenses. The $29.9 million deficit is being covered by the fund balance.

It is $34.4 million higher than the 2023 spending plan and increased slightly from the preliminary budget released last month, which showed $684.2 million in revenues and $713.9 million in expenditures

Of revenues in the budget, $389.9 million is from local sources and $292.8 million is from state funding, documents show. Top expenditures include $204.8 million in salaries, $134.7 million in benefits and retirement and $197.2 million in purchased services.

The budget, which passed with little discussion, came after a month of pushback from school directors, many of whom previously expressed concerns about the district’s depleting fund balance. With the fund balance being used to cover the 2024 deficit, the budget line will no longer adhere to the board’s minimum 5% fund balance policy.

That means the board could not rely on that money to balance its 2026 budget if there is a deficit. It would also continue a year- over- year decrease since 2021, when the fund balance totaled $86.6 million.

District officials over the past year have begun discussions over how to reduce expenditures moving forward. One option being considered is consolidating school buildings to account for declining enrollments. As things currently stand the district’s school buildings have room for 40,000 students. But today the Pittsburgh Public enrolls around 19,000 students.

While the consolidation plans have not been finalized, several parents, many of whom said the spending plan lacks transparency and sufficient community input, called on the board during a public hearing early this month to reconsider the option, with many fearing the district could close Pittsburgh Woolslair PreK-5, a STEAM — science, technology, engineering, arts and math — academy in Bloomfield.

Potential plans for consolidation could be presented at the start of the year.