South Fayette School Board passes proposed budget with maximum tax increase
The South Fayette School Board passed a proposed budget May 22 that includes the maximum tax increase.
The $59 million budget includes a tax increase up to the 3.1 percent that the Act 1 Index allows, which would increase the millage rate from 26.7 to 27.5277 mills. Despite the .8277-mill increase, the district still expects to face a $2.7 million shortfall, which will be drawn from the $23 million fund balance.
If the proposed final budget is passed next month as is, South Fayette taxpayers would pay $2,752 for every $100,000 of assessed property value. It would be the 10th time in the last 12 years that the school board raised taxes in the district that has grown by more than 40 percent in enrollment since 2009.
Finance Director Brian Tony said he was recommending going up to the index, but that could change next month.
“We’ll wait and see how much information we can accumulate over the next month,” Tony said.
Along with increased enrollment, South Fayette is also dealing with ballooning pension costs like many other school districts in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System expenditures total more than 13 percent of South Fayette’s budget.
The largest increase in the budget is staffing, which projects $1.8 million for 17 new positions, most of which are teachers. Tony said five of those positions and a total of $882,822 of the budget are “contingent,” meaning they’re not guaranteed to stay in the budget.
“We budget five positions every year, as needed: two teacher positions, two paraeducator positions and one bus driver,” Tony said. “No one requested those. We put those in every year. Some years we don’t need any of them, but some years we do.”
The proposed final budget included $420,000 of cuts from the preliminary budget in April, as Tony announced May 15 the business office made cuts in a variety of places, including the sciences, the library, social studies and technology. Since January, the projected budget has been cut by more than $1.5 million.
Tony said not all of the numbers in the budget can be finalized by the end of June, as certain funding comes from the state, which isn’t expected to have its budget done before the board’s June 26 voting meeting.
“The governor’s office is always late in giving us any changes in revenue,” Tony said. “We don’t know if there will be increases or decreases.”
The proposed final budget passed with a 6-2 vote, with Teresa Burroughs and Lena Hannah both voting no.
The board will discuss the final budget June 19 and will vote on June 26.
Also during the meeting:
- Tony announced the expenditures in the 2017-18 year are projected to finish $1.7 million less than what the board budgeted for last June. Rather than pulling $2.3 million from the fund balance, the district is projected to only pull $617,000.
- Lockette announced the possibility of having an active shooter drill on campus in October.
- The board will have only one meeting in July. There will be no July 24 meeting. The only meeting that month will be on July 17.
- The board accepted the retirement of Dean Stewart, director of maintenance and grounds. Stewart, who has been at the district since 2008, will retire on Sept. 29.