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Even with budget cuts handed down from administrators Tuesday, Montoursville school board officials said a tax increase above the state index would leave their district with a significant deficit.
Some expenditures as well as state and federal funding sources have yet to solidify, said Brandy N. Smith, business manager.
"The only real information that we have done is going through budgets and finding little things that we can cut," he said. "We sat down with each administrator and went through all the budgets, line item by line item, looking for anything we could find."
To this point, the district administrators were able to increase revenues by $10,548, said Smith.
"The sudden news with the interest rates has really hurt where we're able to take our revenue," she said. "In total expenditures, we have decreased $137,215. We have cut some expenditures there but we have a lot of information we're still waiting for."
Some of those include the Intermediate Unit contract, which handles some special education resources for the district, and charter school costs.
Despite this, the early budget shows a deficit of $783,802 if the district raises taxes to the state-mandated limit, also called the index, by 1.04 mills to 16.23 mills. If the
district were to raise taxes beyond that limit, to 16.74 mils, there would still be a deficit of $384,802.
This year's estimated deficit of $310,729 will spend down the district's fund balance to $3,072,461 by June 30, 2020, according to early budgetary numbers.
Dale Ulmer and Ronald Snell, board members, voiced their concerns in the matter.
"Right now, with the cuts you've been able to make, we're still looking at a tax increase of a little over a mill," Ulmer said to the business manager. "I don't see any way forward to just stay at the index."
The deficit will continue to eat away at the district's savings if the largest tax increase will still leave expenditures behind.
"If we aren't able to fund everything in this year's budget, then it's only going to trickle on through to next year's budget because the expenditures will carry on through and we'll be looking at another mill," he said. "I don't have a magic pencil, I'm hoping the administration can come up with one."
Raising taxes beyond the index would mean another $104 on a $100,000 assessment, said Snell.
"It's bad when, if you increase taxes to the maximum amount allowed by law, you can't even cover the deficit," he said. "That's why we need to have some critical thinking on where we can save money in this district, because it's becoming too much of a hardship on people."
Should the fund balance be spent down to zero, "we're going to be in trouble," said Snell.
Daniel Albert, board member, cautioned against cutting too much from the budget.
"At the end of the day, the idea of cutting, you're going to take away more than a couple opportunities for these students, you're going to take away people from the community," he said. "They're going to go somewhere else to get what their kids want."
For charter school expenditures, Christina Bason, superintendent, said she had brought forward potentially having Montoursville School District start its own charter school, as well as counseling for students considering going into other charter schools.
This would require more spending, not less, she said. Both of these ideas failed to gain much traction in previous years.
The Montoursville Area School Board will continue budget talks at 7 p.m. April 14 in the district office, 50 N. Arch St.
In other business, the district:
• Approved the 2020-21 school calendar.
• Approved the purchase of cafeteria tables for $6,104 using money in the cafeteria fund.
• Approved a three-year agreement with UPMC Susquehanna for the athletic training agreement. $31,212 for 2020-2021, $31,836 for 2021-2022 and $31,836 for 2022-2023.
• Approved of an agreement with Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit No. 16 for student information software for the 2020-21 school year, based on enrollment the cost is estimated at $32,500.
• Approved the Promiseland Bussing daily rates of $2,015 for Feb. 2020.
The next Montoursville school board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 24 in the district office, 50 N. Arch St.