DV budget picture still blurry

DAVID HULSE
Posted 8/21/12

WESTFALL, PA — With state funding for the current year still undetermined, Delaware Valley School District Business Manager Bill Hessling last week hesitantly set forth a proposed $78.03 million …

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DV budget picture still blurry

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WESTFALL, PA — With state funding for the current year still undetermined, Delaware Valley School District Business Manager Bill Hessling last week hesitantly set forth a proposed $78.03 million expense budget for the 2016-17 school fiscal year, to begin in July. His proposal called for a .68% tax increase, bringing the millage rate to 108.93.

Hessling said on April 21 that he based the budget on a projected 1% increase in revenues.

The board is mandated to produce a budget by mid-May in order to allow a 30-day public review period prior to final adoption in June.

Hessling moved ahead with a proposal incorporating funding and savings from PA House Bill 1589, which did not become finalized until April 24, when it avoided possible veto and became law despite the lack Gov. Wolf’s signature.

Assuming state figures in the bill would be valid, the proposal still left the board with what has become an annual nagging question—funding of the district’s payments to the Public Schools Employee Retirement System (PSERS).

The fund’s investment losses in the recent recession have prompted increased annual payments from school districts. This, combined with the state’s precarious financial condition, has some worrying that PA may reduce its 50% PSERS cost sharing.

To mitigate possible PSERS cost increases this budget year, DV set aside a planned surplus of $347,600 to be moved to PSERS funding in October.

Hessling’s new proposal did not include that extra funding, and the board debated whether a greater tax increase would be warranted in order to do so.

Board member Jack Fisher suggested a tax increase proposal of up to 2%. “This [PSERS] is why the legislature and the governor are at loggerheads. The legislature wants to change and the governor wants it funded better. My idea is to put more away, for the day when we are asked to pay more.”

“If that comes,” responded board member John Wroblewski, “a state reduction [in PSERS support] is not a political reality. Districts would be going belly-up all over.”

Wroblewski argued that more money devoted to PSERS would come from cuts to district programs, rather than from unpopular local taxes. One of those programs that came readily to mind was the international Odyssey of the Mind (OM) competition in which DV students have excelled over the past 21 years. Prior to the budget discussion, the board had invited current OM teams, several of whom have advanced to the May “World” competition at Iowa State University.

Several team members explained how important the competition has been for them personally, how it has expanded their pride in the school and thanked the board for its ongoing support.

With the state’s April 24 resolution covering some of the unknowns from last week, the board will take another shot at finalizing its figures in May.

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