Tina Stoll.
(The following is a submission from North Penn School Board President Tina Stoll. The views expressed within are her own.)
Dear North Penn Community,
The end of the school year is always a very busy time in NPSD. With all the year end activities, including the largest K-6 Triathlon in the country in May, we finished the year celebrating 1091 students graduating from our district and moving on to a new stage in their lives. We congratulate them and wish them all the best!
We’d also like to congratulate our NPHS softball team for winning the PIAA State Championship for the second year in a row and the third time in four years – what an accomplishment!
June is budget month and the NPSD school board finalized its budget for the 2024-2025 school year with a 4.49% tax increase. This is below the 5.3% Act 1 index allowed by the state. For comparison, there are 22 districts in Montgomery County, ten of which increased their tax rates higher than North Penn, including all of our surrounding neighboring districts. Yet even with this increase, NPSD still retains the fifth lowest tax millage in Montgomery County.
The reasons cited by our colleagues in neighboring districts for these increases are the very same issues facing NPSD and every other district in the Commonwealth – the lack of fair funding and unfunded/underfunded mandates, particularly charter school funding and special education funding. The state contributes approximately 38% of education funding, ranking us 45th in the nation – in the meantime, a disproportionate burden of financing public education falls to local property taxpayers.
Harrisburg was finally put on notice with a ruling in 2023 by the Commonwealth Court, which found that the state was not meeting its constitutional obligation to fund public schools adequately. The House just passed HB2370 as a response to this ruling and has sent it on to the PA Senate for approval. I would encourage everyone to check out PA Schools Work website for more information on how this bill would benefit NPSD, with an additional $837,000 per year in funding and $2.3 million in savings with charter funding reform.
For even more information on charter school funding, check out PA Charter Change Home - PA Charter Change to read about how many millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted each year on these “public” schools that routinely underperform and have little accountability to the taxpayers. Four-hundred-and-eighty out of 500 public school districts in Pennsylvania, North Penn included, have signed a resolution in recent years asking the State Legislature for charter funding reform. This should have been an easy fix years ago and yet it has been repeatedly held up in the legislature. One must wonder why?
Contact your state senator (Tracy Pennycuick or Maria Collett) and ask them if they support property tax relief by changing the charter school funding formula and if not, why not? To be clear, this is not to deny anyone school choice, it is to make sure public schools are funded fairly and equitably while reducing the tax burden on local property taxpayers.
About 80% of our budget is made up of salaries and benefits. NPSD has some of the most dedicated professionals in public education and when we invest in them, we are investing in the education of our students. We are proud to have a retention rate of our administrative and professional staff that is over 95%. Teaching certificates being issued by the state are at an all-time low, however, and that does not bode well for the future. It is essential that we remain competitive in the salaries we offer.
Cultivating a supportive work environment where all of our staff, including our support staff, feel appreciated is essential. This creates less turnover and less turnover in staff is better for our children.
Some of the positions we’ve focused on adding to the general fund this year include school counselors, school psychologists, board certified behavior analysts (BCBAs), school climate coordinators, security officers, special education assistants, and classroom assistants.
Finally, as everyone knows, we are beginning renovations of North Penn High School, a building that is 50 years old and long past due for repairs. While we are focused on the NPHS renovation, we also have a 10-year capital projects list that exceeds $174 million in work that needs to be done in our remaining 20 buildings.
The administration and staff has worked diligently in providing the NPSB of Directors information and presentations on their budget requests as we proceeded thru the annual budget process. All our meetings and presentations are available for viewing on NPTV YouTube channel. Additionally, our budget books are available online. Our business office does an award winning job in presenting the details in an easy to read and understand format. Literally everything you could ever want to know about school finance is in these books!
And a reminder that we also have our Property Tax and Rent rebate for our most vulnerable taxpayers. Please note: The state raised the income limits to be eligible, so if you were not eligible in prior years, please check the updated limits to see if you or someone you know qualifies now. Information can be found here, and the upcoming year’s form should be posted in July.
On behalf of the NPSB of Directors, we wish everyone a great summer!
Tina Stoll
President, NPSD Board of School Directors
Term Expiration: 2025
