With just a little more than 24 hours until the Bristol Township School District was state mandated to pass a budget, the school board approved a $133.4 million spending plan.
The board voted 7-1 for the budget. Board member Earl Bruck was the lone dissenting vote, stating he voted against the budget as a protest to the lack of help from legislators in Harrisburg. Board member Jerry Bachman was absent from the meeting.
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The new budget means the median assessed property will owe an additional $85 next year in taxes. Aside from the increased tax rate, the district will have to draw about $3 million from the reserve fund to fill a roughly $4.2 million budget gap.
The budget gap has been blamed on the delay in opening three new elementary schools, increasing pension contributions and special education costs. Steffy said at a previous budget meeting that the delay in consolidating elementary schools has cost the district at least $2 million in savings for the 2015-2016 budget.
Business manager John Steffy told LevittownNow.com the approved budget plan would not account for an additional $2 million that would be funded to the district if Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed budget plan is approved with education funding intact. The budget is currently being debated is Harrisburg.
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Roughly $10,000 in funding for extra curricular programs will remain as it is for the 2015-2016 budget. However, district officials plan to see if any savings can be obtained from it over the next several weeks.
The budget will see a full-time technology supervisor and an operations position eliminated. Two other full-time employees will be shifted to part-time positions, Steffy said.
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Mike Walsh, the president of the union to represents the district operations workers, voiced is displeasure that he did not learn of the cuts until last week’s budget meeting. He said he wished the district gave him time to discuss more cost saving measures.
The board told Walsh they would meet with him over the next few weeks and could reopen the budget.
The board floated the idea of requesting a .5 percent increase to the Bristol Township earned income tax to pump an additional $4.5 million into their coffers. Steffy confirmed that no one had reached out to the township about the proposal.
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Discussion of cuts and new funding strategies filled the final budget meeting of the year.
“We do this every year,” Bristol Township School Board member Fred Black said of last-minute talk of cuts to the budget.
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The district is the last in Lower Bucks County to pass a budget and usually is among the last.
School Board President Angela Nober said next year she plans to overhaul the budget process so the district is not waiting until the final moments to pass a spending plan.
