Although the economic slowdown brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Parkland School District revenue, administrators and the board are working to avoid a tax increase for 2020-21.

Superintendent Richard Sniscak spoke to The Press.

“COVID-19 is a new wrinkle in our budget plan,” Sniscak said. “We’ll have to use more of our fund balance to have a zero tax increase and balance the budget.”

Business Manager John Vignone commented on the matter.

“It’s hard to increase taxes with everyone going through such bad times,” Vignone said. “Keeping the same rate is good for the taxpayer but comes with a price.

“We may have to appropriate $11.2 million from the fund balance. Other years it was around $6.5 million.

“We never used this much.”

When Vignone presented a budget update to the board at the end of February, the gap between projected revenues and expenditures was $5.8 million.

At the time, he anticipated lowering the difference through attempts to decrease expenditures and find additional sources of revenue.

“Every single revenue has been decreased,” Vignone noted.

Earned income tax, real estate taxes and transfer taxes are all yielding less since the COVID-19 shutdowns, Vignone explained.

Projected expenditures for 2020-21 stand at $194,155,961. The existing tax rate is 15.71 mills.

Vignone has been consulting with representatives from the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials to examine areas of the budget which are being affected by the overall economy.

He said the fallout from the pandemic will influence the budget for several years.

“We’re looking at a three-year bubble,” Vignone said. “We’re going into this in a little bit of a blind way. No one knows where we’re going to end up.”