The Northampton School Board met Monday, April 8 with a busy agenda resulting in a four-hour meeting.
During the meeting, there were presentations from the Northampton Area Public Library by Library Director Veronica Laroche and district budget updates by Superintendent Joseph Kovalchik and Business Administrator Craig Neiman.
Due to the proposal by Vice President Kristin Soldridge at the March meeting to reduce the district’s funding to the Northampton Area Public Library from $270,000 to $50,000, Laroche prepared a presentation that offered the library’s history, general services provided to the community, early education programs offered, elementary, tween and teen programs offered, adult programs offered, outreach performed by the library and statistics for 2023 to establish the library’s need for continued support by the district.
Laroche’s presentation explained that the school board agreed to be the library’s main source of financial support in 1964 and have done so ever since.
In total, the library serves 98 square miles and in 2023, there were 52,613 individual visits, 97,261 collection items circulated, 314 programs provided, 5,034 individuals that attended programs the library offered and 584 homebound visits to provide library services to ill, injured and elderly individuals.
After the presentation, Soldridge asked if the library had gone to other municipalities to ask for funding and Laroche shared that this is something they are considering this year.
Next, during the 2024-2025 proposed budget update, Neiman presented several updates to the initial proposed budget presentation from the January meeting.
One of those updates was the governor’s February 6 budget proposal that proposes an additional $200 million through the student-weighted formula, a new “adequacy investment” of $871 million, a flat $8,000/student tuition rate for each cyber charter student and several other small dollar items that could impact the district budget.
Neiman also presented two changes made to the district’s expenditures, including the Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School enrollment/formula increase from +$300,000 down to +$260,000 and the Northampton Cyber Academy enrollment increase from +$600,000 down to +$400,000.
Additionally, Neiman provided different tax options that the board will vote on in May or June to make the June 30 cutoff date, which now accounted for tax options if Moore Elementary School closes and tax options if it is voted on to remain open. The options are based on the average 2023 homestead assessment of $63,000 and district deficit of $3,405,037.
If the school board does not vote to keep Moore Elementary open, the five tax options provided were as follows: a tax increase of 0.5% would generate $361,815 in revenue, increase millage by 0.28, will require additional fund balance usage of $3,043,221 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $17.55; a tax increase of 0.75% would generate $543,628 in revenue, increase millage by 0.42, will require additional fund balance usage of $2,861,409 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $26.37; a tax increase of 1% would generate $725,895 in revenue, increase millage by 0.56, will require additional fund balance usage of $2,679,142 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $35.21; a tax increase of 1.25% would generate $908,617 in revenue, increase millage by 0.70, will require additional fund balance usage of $2,496,420 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $44.07; and a tax increase of 1.5% would generate $1,091,796 in revenue, increase millage by 0.84, will require additional fund balance usage of $2,313,240 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $52.95.
If the school board votes for Moore Elementary to remain open, the three tax options include: a tax increase of 4% would generate $2,895,625 in revenue, increase millage by 2.23, will require additional fund balance usage of $509,411 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $140.44; a tax increase of 5% would generate $3,618,109 in revenue, increase millage by 2.79, will provide a fund balance surplus of $213,072 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $175.48; and a tax increase of 6.60% (Act 1 Index maximum that Pa. school boards can raise taxes) would generate $4,773,023 in revenue, increase millage by 3.67, will provide a fund balance surplus of $1,367,987 and will increase the average annual tax bill by $231.50.
As it stands, the $270,000 to fund the library is already included in the 2024-2025 proposed budget, so unless the board votes to amend that amount during the next meeting, the library will receive those funds from the district for the upcoming school year.
President Doug Vaughn held a straw poll for board members to provide direction for Neiman to prepare the final proposed budget. Soldridge, Joshua Harris and Brian McCulloch polled no tax increase, Vaughn and Kim Bretzik favored a 0.5% tax increase, Ross Makary favored a 0.75% increase and Michael Baird and John Becker favored a 1% tax increase.
With the majority of poll votes being for no tax increase, Neiman will prepare the proposed final budget with a 0% tax increase.
The next Northampton School Board meeting will be held on Monday, May 13 at 6:30 p.m. in the NAHS auditorium, located at 1619 Laubach Ave.
