No tax hike planned for 5th year

Stimulus funding had been added to revenue, dropping over $450K in expenses.

EAST ROCKHILL >> When the Pennridge School Board Finance Committee met on March 8, the preliminary figures for the proposed 20212022 budget showed $1.9 million more expenses than income.

Since then, $1,463,126 of federal pandemic stimulus funding has been added to the revenue side and $461,191 of expenses have been dropped, Sean Daubert, the district’s business administrator, said at the April 12 Finance Committee meeting.

Most of the decrease in spending comes from changes discussed at the March 8 meeting in connection with the district’s plans to continue increasing the number of special education students receiving their education in district schools rather than the district contracting out for the services, he said.

The proposed budget now has revenues and expenses at $144,790,562, a .68 percent increase over this year, he said.

“That’s a balanced budget with no tax increase,” Daubert said, as board members applauded the news.

“That’s five years without a tax increase,” Superintendent David Bolton said.

With no planned tax hike, the school district property tax rate remains at 135.255 mills, equal to $4,229.44 for a property assessed at the district average of $31,270, a chart in Daubert’s presentation showed. Each mill equals one dollar of tax per $1,000 of assessed property value.

Local funding provides $107,768,381 of the district’s revenue for the proposed budget, with $34,734,055 coming from the state and $2,288,126 from the federal government, information in the presentation showed.

Salaries and employee benefits account for more than 70 percent of the proposed budget costs, with salaries at $66,787,300 — 46.13 percent — and benefits at $40,032,843 — 27.65 percent.

The final vote on the budget is scheduled for the board’s June 14 meeting, Daubert said.