Northampton Area School District may receive an additional $300,000 in its 2017-18 budget from the Pennsylvania Department of Education under Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposed 2017 budget, if the state budget is approved by the legislature.

NASD administration isn’t counting on it.

In his Feb. 7 budget address, Wolf proposed a $100 million increase in basic education, $25 million more for special education and $75 million more for preschool.

According to district officials, the increase would break down to about $212,000 more for basic education and about $75,000 more for special education in the 2017-18 NASD budget.

Wolf also has proposed reducing state reimbursements to districts for transportation. NASD receives $3.1 million from the state of its estimated $6 million transportation budget. NASD officials are uncertain how much, if any, of the transportation funding would be cut by the state.

NASD Superintendent of Schools Joseph Kovalchik and NASD Business Administrator Terry Leh said they are “zero funding” the amount the district receives from the state in the 2017-18 budget. They are using the funding amount received from the state for the 2016-17 budget and not including potential additional state funds.

NASD expects to receive approximately 30 percent, or $30.7 million, of its 2017-18 budget from the state.

Also, at the Feb. 13 school board meeting, a payment in change orders and credits for unused allowances for the Northampton Area Middle School and Secondary Campus project has totaled $349,214.82.

“It’s 0.47 percent of the $80.7 million budget,” Kovalchik told a reporter for Northampton Press after the meeting when school directors voted 8-0, with one director absent, to approve the change order payments.

The work included, among other items, meeting municipal codes, adding a railing at the main staircase, window frame changes, classroom instructional boards and the planting of trees, according to Kovalchik, who noted the change orders are “less than one-half of one percent, which is unheard of on an $80 million project.”

To implement the change orders, school directors voted 8-0 to submit PlanCon Part I, Interim Reporting, to PDE for approval.

School directors also voted 8-0 to extend the contract between NASD and Direct Energy and to authorize NASD Director of Operations Robert J. Yanders to implement the contract, which is a three-year extension, June 1 through May 31, 2020. NASD has saved about $100,000 through the existing contract.

Kovalchik also announced the Feb. 9 snow day make-up date is June 2.