Budget talks start in tough year
FRANCONIA » Putting together the budget for the 2021-2022 school year will be “interesting to say the least” and one of the toughest he’s done, Souderton Area School District Director of Business Affairs Brian Pawling told school board members at the board’s Nov. 11 Finance Committee meeting.
The 2019-2020 school year started with a ransomware cyber attack on district computers and ended with school buildings being closed in March by the coronavirus pandemic. The current 2020-2021 school year provides students with in-person or online options for classes as the pandemic continues.
Pawling said he is recommending that the district again, as it has done in recent years, opt out of asking for exceptions to allow a larger tax hike than the state’s three percent cap for the 20212022 budget.
The district only qualifies for about $100,000 of exceptions, so even if it did choose to apply for the exceptions, it would add only a small amount to the total budget, he said.
Finance Committee Chair Donna Scheuren said she agrees there’s no reason to apply for exceptions to the cap.
The board will vote on the opt out resolution at its Dec. 17 meeting, a timeline for the budget shows. The proposed 2021-2022 budget will be presented at the April 14 Finance Committee and April 29 full board meetings, with a final vote coming at the board’s June 17 meeting.
Property taxes increased by 0.9 percent for the just under $133
million 2020-2021 budget, which sets the tax rate at 30.32 mills. For a home assessed at $156,110, the district median, the school district property tax bill is $4,733.26. Each mill equals $1 of tax per $1,000 of assessed property value.
Pawling said he hasn’t heard much yet about what to expect from the state for next year’s budget.
“I’m not optimistic, so I’m certainly not gonna be budgeting increases in our state subsidies,” Pawling said.
Some of the subsidies are based on formulas that would keep the funding at about the same level as currently, he said.
Federal funding is only a small part of the school district budget and probably won’t change much, he said.
Pawling said he’s concerned there could be a decrease in the amount of homestead/farmstead exemption funds. The state money, which comes from legalized gambling, offsets some of the taxes paid by homeowners on their primary residence.
During the meeting, Pawling also summarized federal and state grants to the district this year for COVID-19 related costs.
A $572,036 grant from the PCCD (Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency) is for technology, personal protective equipment and cleaning supplies related to the pandemic, information in the presentation showed. The money comes from federal funding that is passed through the state, Pawling said.
About $370,000 of that grant has already been received by the district with the remainder coming in the next few months, he said.
A $361,916 ESSER (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund) grant comes directly from the federal government, he said.
“We can use that to offset some salaries and benefits related to our distance learning,” Pawling said.
The district is also receiving $597,744 of Montgomery County CARES Act funding, he said. The CARES Act is the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
That money is being used to pay salaries and benefits for long-term substitutes hired by the district for distance-learning and in-person learning programs, Pawling said.
The district is also receiving $79,189 from Governor’s Emergency Education Relief (GEER) funding.
“That’s specifically for special education costs and continuity of education costs related to special ed,” Pawling said.
Another $24,656 is being received from PEMA/ FEMA, the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The money is for supplies used in connection to the schools being closed in March.
The PCCD and ESSER funding was included in this year’s budget, but the others were not because the budget had been completed before information was received about those, Pawling said.