LOCAL

Property tax may be needed to bridge budget gap in Waynesboro

Zach Glenn zglenn@therecordherald.com

The Waynesboro Area School Board viewed a preliminary version of the 2016-17 budget which includes a 2.768 mill increase in the district’s property tax rate at a Tuesday night meeting.

If approved, this is the first time that Waynesboro has increased its taxes since 2012 — when there was a 1 mill increase. Waynesboro’s tax rate of 86.50 mills could increase to roughly 89.2 mills. Waynesboro’s tax rate for next year could be about 14 mills less than Greencastle’s proposed rate of 103.15, which was discussed last week.

Estimated revenue for the 2016-17 budget in $53,269,219 and the estimated expenditures are $53,665,795, which leaves a $396,576 deficit.

The board expects to vote on a preliminary budget next week and must have a spending plan in place by June 30.

Discussion 

“School boards in Pennsylvania have a very tough decision when it comes to taxes. In other states you can reassess the value of properties, but in Pennsylvania the value of a home will never increase (in theory),” said Eric Holtzman, business administrator for the Waynesboro Area School District.

In addition to raising taxes, Holtzman suggested two other steps to bridge most of the gap in the budget. Since the district self-insures, one way to save would be to decrease the amount set aide for medical payments.

Waynesboro could further bridge the gap by projecting a 2 percent increase in state funding instead of a 1.5 percent increase. The 1.5 percent increase is conservative since the average state increase has been 1.9 percent over the last five years. That number is also expected to be higher than normal because of the number of education initiatives that Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has, according to Holtzman.

If both measures are taken before reaching the final budget the deficit will be reduced to $28,000.

One area of concern for Billie Finn, a member of the board who sits on the budget committee, is that when she totaled salaries in the district, her number was higher than the budgeted amount.

“When I received the last budget report ... I had asked you to provide a list of employees, their salaries and their retirements. I put that number in my spreadsheet and I did not get close to your number,” said Finn.

Disparities between the two could have been due to a number of issues such as certain items on the budget being counted twice or expenditures being grouped under the wrong line item in either Finn or Holtzman’s budget, according to Holtzman.

Finn also asked if next year’s budget includes money for bridging the roughly $800,000 gap in the middle school construction project or for change orders on the project. Those expenditures are currently planned to be on the 2017-18 budget.

“One recommendation will be to look at a bond on the tail end of this fiscal year so you don’t need to make a payment until the 2017-18 fiscal year,” said Holtzman.

Contact Zach Glenn at 717-762-2151, zglenn@therecordherald.com or on Twitter: @zglenn_RH