The Salisbury Township School District school directors got their first glimpse of the 2019-2020 preliminary budget at the Jan. 7 operations committee meeting.

Directors George Gatanis, Mary Ziegler, Sam DeFrank, Audrey Frick and Carol Klinger were in attendance.

Chief Financial Officer/Board Secretary Michael Taylor, CPA presented the preliminary budget which will need to be adopted at the Feb. 6 school board meeting. The deadline to adopt the preliminary budget is Feb. 20 as it is due to the Pennsylvania Department of Education by Feb. 25.

In the revenue section of the preliminary budget, Taylor expects the state and federal contributions to remain the same with the exception of an increase from the state for the Public School Employees’ Retirement System and the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

Two notable line items of revenue include the reduction of taxable assessed value at $15.5 million ($292,000 in tax revenues) and $151,000 from Lehigh Valley Health Network.

Increased expenditures include salaries and benefits (two-thirds of the budget), transportation costs to nonpublic and charter schools, special education and charter and cyber charter costs.

All existing positions are included in the preliminary budget with the exception of one known retirement. Taylor said each retirement saves the district $40,000.

The PSERS rate will increase 2.57 percent - from 33.43 percent to 34.29 percent.

Taylor said there is no projected increase for health insurance in the budget as costs are remaining the same.

The value of one mill for 2019-2020 is $1,314,818.

The preliminary expenditures are $38,665,570. The preliminary revenues are $37,161,527.

Current millage for the 2018-2019 school year is 18.8955.

The allowable increase as per the Act 1 Index is 2.3 percent or .4346 mills. The total allowable millage for 2019-2020 is 19.3301 which would generate $571,420 which is not enough to cover the projected deficit.

The district can ask for exceptions to the Act 1 index because of the increased expenses of special education and PSERS.

Taylor provided the board members a chart noting what would happen with no tax increase, what would happen with an Act 1 allowable increase of 2.3 percent and what would happen to the budget with the Act 1 increase and an exceptions tax increase.

An increase for a home assessed at $207,437 at 2.3 percent would be an additional $90.15. If the Act 1 index and special exceptions tax increase were approved, the increase to the resident with a home assessed at $307,437 could be $188.74.

Each of these options still have a deficit in the budget but Taylor assured the board this is just a preliminary budget and there are still budget issues which need to be resolved including the state budget, tax assessment adjustments, employee retirements, Carbon Lehigh Intermediate Unit special education services, charter school enrollments, budget savings and additional requests.