CASD expects to cap tax hike at 2.6%

School district won’t take exceptions to Act 1

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times
CALN — Coatesville Area School District taxpayers can likely expect a tax hike for the 2014-15 school year, but it appears that the increase will fall within the state’s Act 1 guidelines — a drop from last year’s increase of 3.6%, under the preliminary proposed budget adopted.

The Board of Education will spend the next months working on the budget document with the administration and must come up with final numbers by June 30. The January budget document is just the first step in a multi-step process of budget approval as mandated by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

The proposed $147.8 million budget would represent an increase of more than $3 million over the current budget. The proposed milage increases .81 mils to 32.0036 mils and increases revenue from local real estate tax by $2.32 million.

The district said that the average homeowner with an assessed value of $106,246 — the averaged assessed value in the district — would see an increase of $86.18.

According to Ronald Kabonick, the district’s business administrator, who declined an interview but agreed to answer questions in writing, the district won’t seek exemptions to the Act 1 Index of 2.6% (because of Coatesville’s market value/personal income ratio, the district gets a boost to its index rate, which is 2.1% for neighboring districts). In last year’s budget, the district did take exemptions for pension costs.

One major change: the district is no longer selling its delinquent taxes — which in the short term means a loss of some $4 million in revenue. Another change: this budget calls for a budgetary reserve of some $3.67 million. The district currently has one of the smallest reserve funds in the county, less than 1% of the budget — 5% is more typical, and lower amounts increase the interest rates on bonds for future projects and prevent the district from refinancing current bond issues.

As is the case with most school districts, the single largest expenses come from salaries — about $48 million in the budget proposal. Benefits, which are typically the second largest expenditure, here account for about $25 million in spending. But the second largest category of spending comes from “other purchased services” in the amount of $35 million.

Kabonick said that covers “contracted professional education services” provided by an intermediate unit, employee training and development services, lawyers, architects, auditors, accountants, therapists, audiologists, negotiation specialists,  dieticians, technical and data processing support, and safety and security.

Much of that spending comes from sending students to the Chester County Intermediate Unit for vocational and other specialized education, but about $1 million of that figure is slated for legal costs, a continuing point of controversy in the district.