The Daily Local (dailylocal.com), Serving Chester County, PA
Tax hike looms in DASD
Downingtown releases preliminary budget; members agree tax ceiling should be set
Thursday, February 10, 2011
By ERIC S. SMITH
EAST CALN — The Downingtown Area School Board approved a preliminary budget that includes a 3.3 percent tax increase on an 8-1 vote after a lengthy discussion at Wednesday night's meeting.
Every board member who voted for the preliminary budget said they would not support a 3.3 percent tax
increase in the final budget but needed to set a ceiling for the tax rate given the level of uncertainty currently surrounding the budget. Board member Robert Yorczyk, the lone dissenter, said that if the goal is to be below a 3.3 percent increase then the board should set that goal now.
Richard Fazio, chief financial officer for the district, said the uncertainty surrounding the budget is a result of ongoing negotiations with the teachers union and the fact that the new governor has not released his budget which will affect public education funding.
"I don't think any of us want to support a tax increase," said board member William Fagan. "I don't think any of us want to vote for (3.3 percent). But we can't go up later, we can go down. I won't support the final budget at (3.3 percent), but we need to set the rate where we can adjust it."
Fazio said the district is looking at a $192 million budget with ever-decreasing revenues. He said, at a finance committee meeting in January, that even with the 3.3 percent tax increase and about $2.5 million from the general fund balance, the district is still about $2.2 million in the hole and needs to make cuts. He said that for the first time in the history of the district, revenues will decrease from one year to the next and he expects the 2011-2012 revenues to be about $3 million less than this year's revenues.
Some board members suggested Monday that Fazio draft a variety of budgets that have a 0 percent tax increase, a 1.4 percent increase (the ACT 1 index level), a 2.3 percent increase (Act 1 with a special-education exception) and 3.3 percent (which also includes an exception for the increasing pension obligations).
Board member Robert Eldredge said that approach would include a lot of "ambiguity" and the administration would simply be choosing random programs to cut. He instead suggested that the administration suggest the next viable cut and continue to do so until the board reached a comfortable level.
Board member Thomas Ost-Prisco said he would "like to see a budget as close to a 0 percent tax increase as possible," but admitted that the cuts will be difficult.
"Everyone is going to have to do some soul-searching to see what they are willing to give up," Ost-Prisco said.
Fazio said the administration is attempting to make all the cuts it can before they affect education. He added that ultimately education may have to be affected.
"There is no way to reduce a budget by millions of dollars and it won't affect the educational programs," Fazio said.
To contact staff writer Eric S. Smith, send an e-mail to esmith@dailylocal.com.
URL: http://www.dailylocal.com/articles/2011/02/10/news/srv0000010895558.prt
© 2011 dailylocal.com, a Journal Register Property
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated. Although I asked people to sign their comments (or at least use their initials), I have only been getting 'anonymous' comments. I have changed the settings to that the posts will need some sort of identifier.