North Penn CFO Steve Skrocki, inset, shows possible tax increases for 2024-25 and the resulting revenue and projected deficit, during the school board finance committee meeting on April 23, 2024.
A near-record tax increase is now one vote away, as North Penn School District officials have closed out their budget talks for the upcoming schoolyear.
Board members voted unanimously on May 16 to advertise a $322 million budget with a 4.49 percent tax increase, a $197 increase for the average taxpayer that board members have discussed extensively in recent months.
“I want to thank all of those who presented over the last few months,” said board member Kunbi Rudnick.
Starting in February, staff and the board’s finance committee have held a series of special finance committee meetings presenting the 2024-25 budget requests for each department, and outlining the implications of a record-high Act 1 index, the state-set percentage at which taxes can be raised each year without a voter referendum.
The 5.3 percent Act 1 index rate set by the state for 2024-25 is the largest since that act became law in 2006, and in April the board heard projections of how each percentage in tax increase would generate roughly $2.1 million in new revenue for the district, at a cost of roughly $44 to the average residential property owner for each percentage increase, based on an average assessed home value of $150,000.
In early May the board saw the latest version of the overall budget, with a projected $312 million in revenues and $322 million in projected expenses for 2024-25, and heard how roughly 77 percent of the budget goes to salaries and benefits for employees.
The board discussed several tax increase scenarios in late April, ultimately voting on May 9 to proceed with a tax hike of 4.49 percent, which staff have said would generate $9.5 million in new revenue, a $186,700 projected surplus, and a $197 increase for the average taxpayer, based on an average assessed home value of $150,000.
During the board’s May 16 meeting, Superintendent Todd Bauer read a motion asking the board for permission to advertise the budget, with a final vote to adopt it slated for the board’s June 20 meeting, ahead of the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.
A series of unanimous votes then approved the 2024-25 real estate tax installment plan, allowing payments in six equal installments from July to December, and a discount schedule, which offers residents a 2 percent discount on their payment if made during July and August, a flat amount if paid during September and October, and a 7.5 percent penalty for payments in November and December.
Another vote unanimously approved the budget for the School Nutrition Services department, discussed in detail during the May 7 special finance committee meeting, which maintains no increase in school lunch prices for the 10th consecutive year.
During his monthly report to the board, district CFO Steve Skrocki announced that the total cash receipts during April totaled $6.3 million, disbursements totaled $20.8 million, and the district had on hand roughly $135.3 million in total available funds, a figure roughly $15.6 million higher than the same period one year before.
EXTENDED CARE
For the extended care program, director Jackie O’Bierne outlined the annual budget for a program that encompasses all 13 district elementary schools. For 2024-25, she said, 139 incoming kindergarten students have registered for such programs, a total of 586 currently enrolled students have re-enrolled, and 71 new families have registered, with registration still open for the latter group, bringing the total of just over 800 students enrolled.
In 2023-24 the department received just over $196,000 in subsidies, added two new staff to serve 24 additional students split between Gwynedd Square and North Wales elementary schools, and the upcoming budget will replace five staff expected to retire at the end of the current schoolyear, while providing free breakfast and snacks to all students enrolled.
Total expenses for the extended school care fund are projected to be roughly $2.6 million, with roughly $3.1 million in projected revenues based on current enrollment numbers, O’Bierne told the board. That roughly $553,000 surplus will go toward repaying part of a $1.5 million transfer from the general fund to extended care approved in 2021, during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic when such programs could not be run, a transfer the fund has almost entirely paid back.
COMMUNITY ED
District Director of School and Community Engagement Christine Liberaski closed out the budget presentations by outlining what she joked was “the huge, whopping, $200,000 budget” for community education programs planned for 2024-25. In the upcoming year, the department offers summer camps for baseball, basketball, lacrosse, swimming, field hockey, football and more, while non-athletic community ed programs include baking, music, theater, and STEM courses.
“As of May 10 we had 794 students registered for the summer — that was close to 300 more than we were in May of last year,” Liberaski said, with more registered since that number was checked: “Summer is a big time for us, to make sure that our program is thriving, so it looks like we’re going to have a great summer.”
Fall and spring courses will include fitness classes, sports, programming for kids on weekends, financial and legal health, arts and crafts, baking, language courses, technology lessons, and programs at the high school planetarium; full listings are available on the district’s website. Fees for those classes range from free up to a high of $180 for “a very intense martial arts course,” with most in the $50 to $60 range, and over 2,700 area seniors have enrolled in the district’s gold card program offering discounts.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on June 4 and the finance committee meets at 6 p.m. that night, both at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock Street. For more information visit www.NPenn.org.
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