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By a unanimous vote, members of the Williamsport Area School Board approved increasing the real estate tax rates by .35 mills to 17.24 for the upcoming year. The current rate is 16.89 mills.
The increase means that property owners will pay $35 more per $100,000 of the assessed value of their properties and it is estimated to add $503,000 in new monies for the district.
The Earned Income Tax will remain at 1.5 percent and the real estate transfer tax at .5 of 1 percent for the upcoming year.
Total revenues in the new budget amount to an estimated $105,068,512, said Wanda Erb, business administrator. Expenditures are estimated to be $99,768,748.
Erb said that salaries and benefits, at 59 percent, account for the greatest amount of expenditures, followed purchases, which includes cyber charter school tuitions and services from other educational entities.
The 2020-21 final general fund budget enacted by the board last year did not reflect a tax increase.
Erb projected if the district continues to use reserves to cover expenses over a five-year period, the fund balance would continue to dwindle.
"If we have an instance where say the state doesn't fund our budget like they did in 2015-16 and we are needing to pull money from our carryover reserves to meet the ongoing daily monthly expenditures of the district, we would only be able to basically meet payroll one to one and half times during that period," Erb said.
The fund balance is the amount of reserve funding a district needs to cover expenditures for a certain period of time. Erb said that the auditors suggest four months and the Government Finance Officers Association recommends two months.
The board also approved the farmstead and homestead exclusion real estate tax assessment reductions for the school year beginning July 1,2021.
According to the exemption resolution, 7,424 homesteads and 25 farmsteads qualify to receive the reduction. The final maximum real estate tax reduction amount to each approved homestead is $322.92 and to each approved farmstead is $161.46.
In other financial business, the board approved the following insurance policies for the period of July 1, 2021 to July 1, 2022: property, automobile, excess liability umbrella, educators legal liability, crime, inland marine, general liability and cyber/data compromise policies through the Lancaster-Lebanon Public Schools Insurance Pool at an estimated cost of $337,050.
They also approved worker's compensation through UPMC Health Benefits Inc. at an estimated cost of $691,156.
Board members present were: Lori Baer, Jane Penman, Jennifer Lake, Patrick Dixon, Lisa Nible and Cody Derr. Absent was Barbara Reeves and Star Poole.