Times Observer photo by Josh Cotton Warren County School District Board President Paul Mangione, left, speaks during Monday night’s board meeting. The 2024-2025 budget was approved and includes a two mill property tax increase.

The Warren County School District board has approved a budget for the 2024-2025 year that includes a two mill property tax increase.

According to Director of Business Services Jim Grosch, the spending plan includes $89.2 million in revenue and expenses of $91.5 million, leaving a deficit of $2.275 million.

“This does include all of the governor’s revenue that he anticipated in February,” Grosch said.

But the state hasn’t approved a budget and that funding can be considered squarely up in the air.

The budget passed 5-2 with Dan Sullivan and John Wortman voting in opposition.

Wortman thanked the administration for its “hard work” on the budget.

He then shifted his comments to highlighting the district’s debt service, which he said is $7.1 million in the 2024-2025 budget.

Putting that number in context, he suggested that it takes over 30 percent of the district’s local taxing power to cover the debt service.

“We’re fortunate we receive the monies we do from the state,” he said. “We only generate $28 million” from local property taxes.

For a house with a $20,000 valuation, Wortman said the tax bill for debt service is over $350.

“(I) truly believe we need to work on putting the district where that number can be reduced over time,” he said, “so we can focus on directing more monies toward quality facilities, (staff) salaries, students programming, extracurriculars.

“I don’t want to see the repetition of continuing to take out debt to (subsidize) a configuration that is not sustainable.”

Unsurprisingly, budget discussion trickled into discussions about school reconfiguration.

Board member Stephanie Snell called Sheffield a “target” of that effort and said it’s important to see where the savings from closing Sheffield would come from.

“I don’t think there’s one high school teacher there that’s just high school,” she said.

“I’d like to see the breakdown through all the schools of Warren County,” Sullivan said, “so that way we can see what we’re actually paying for.”

Board member Tammi Holden asked that analysis to include the district’s virtual academy.

“If the board is going to make a decision, we need to make a decision by September,” Wortman said. “I do not believe this should drag out. It’s not fair to parents, faculty, administration.

“Whatever the board decides needs to be made as soon as possible.”

“I am not in any way recommending that we rush into anything,” Superintendent Gary Weber said.

He outlined that the timeliness of the decision is tied to impacts to the budget and staffing processes.

During committee meetings held before the special meeting where the budget was approved, Wortman raised the prospect of delaying both computer replacements and science curriculum resources in light of the need to raise taxes in the budget.

Both received wary responses.

“We repurpose as many computers” as we possibly can, Weber said, telling the board that the district has tight windows for replacement and that delaying one year throws off that schedule.

“We had a time in the district when we did that (and) put them off for a long time,” he said. “It got really bad. Functionality was terrible.”

Jennifer Dilks, the district’s coordinator of technology, added that the warranties are up on some of the computers meaning they can’t be sent in for service.

“I agree with you that it’s best practice,” Wortman said. “My thought would also be if we have to raise taxes by two mills, we’re spending too much money this year.”

Board President Paul Mangione asked where the line would be drawn if the board decided to kick the can on these purchases, noting that the board was one doing that with everything.

“Once we started to go with these multi-year plans, it has given administration some flexibility there. Some of the expenditures are very expensive.”

The science-related purchase is “due to PDE (the Pennsylvania Department of Education) changing the requirements.

“That is what has driven our budget more than anything – the state or federal government pulling the rug out from underneath us. (There is) really not… a lot of wiggle room or areas that we can really affect all that much.”