During the Northampton School Board’s April 14 meeting, directors heard the proposed 2025-26 Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School, Northampton Community College and updated district budget presentations.
During the 2025-26 BAVTS proposed budget presentation, BAVTS Executive Director Adam S. Lazarchak showed directors a $511,006 net change in increased revenue and a $957,139 or 6.56% projected expenditure increase, which brings their total expenditures for the upcoming school year to $15,555,038.
The gap in revenue and expenditures increases required district contribution by 3.96% or $446,133.
In total, NASD will contribute 28.5% of the BAVTS 2025-26 budget based on enrollment history over the last three years, which averages 335 students enrolled in BAVTS annually over the last three school years. In contrast, Bethlehem Area School District averages 707 students and Saucon Valley School District averages 110 students. All three districts combined average 1,152 students enrolled at BAVTS per year. As such, BASD covers 61.7% of the BAVTS budget and SVSD covers 9.8%.
Per the 28.5% contribution, NASD is responsible for $3,339,635 of the 2025-26 BAVTS budget, which is a $198,806 or 6.33% increase.
During the 2025-26 NCC proposed budget presentation, NCC President David Ruth stated that the college’s total consolidated operating budget, proposed at $81,004,017, represents an increase of $2,295,443 or 2.92%. The capital budget proposes total expenditures of $8,549,012, a $130,318 decrease from the 2024-25 revised budget.
Additionally, the 2025-26 total operating budget in the educational and supportive (credit instruction) area where school districts participate is proposed at $68,939,277, which represents an increase of $2,106,551 or 3.15%.
Some of the budget initiatives that Ruth highlighted for the upcoming school year include aligning course offerings to ensure students can build schedules that best fit their career goals and availability; updating their learning management system to improve the quality and accessibility of course delivery in all formats; removing friction points from application, financial aid and enrollment processes; strengthening the quality of campus amenities; synchronizing the delivery of student support services; re-envisioning the Community Education Division; investing in the workforce of NCC; and increasing marketing and communication efforts to attract/enroll more students.
Last year, NASD approved NCC’s requested $60,521 increase for the 2024-25 school year budget, which brought the total district contribution to $955,417, whereas this year, NCC is requesting a $110,034 increase, bringing the district’s total contribution for the 2025-26 school year to $1,065,451.
Next, NASD Business Administrator Craig Neiman provided an updated presentation on the district’s 2025-26 proposed budget.
During the Jan. 13 initial budget presentation, the district’s estimated deficit for the 2025-26 school year was $6,259,264.
Since then, the business administration reduced that number by $3,140,560 and accounted for an additional increase of $585,451 for capital improvement projects, which brought the total estimated deficit during the March 10 proposed budget update to $3,704,155.
Neiman’s April 14 proposed budget update also accounted for a $270,000 reduction for the elimination of library funding as recommended by the Finance Committee and an increase in CIU20 healthcare costs, which brings the deficit down to $3,487,155.
With the updated deficit reduction, Neiman offered four potential tax options that directors will choose from (see table):
“Additional fund balance use [is] the number to keep an eye on because if we don’t balance the budget, we have to pay for that difference out of our fund balance. … Drawing from our savings account to balance the budget is challenging and not a recommended practice because if you don’t solve the budget deficit this year, that will just continue to roll into future years,” said Neiman.
The deficit summary with a 4% tax increase would bring the 2025-26 proposed budget deficit down to just $285,867, which could be covered by the district’s fund balance.
Neiman noted that subsequent board direction is needed since additional budget cuts will be difficult to find without drastically impacting programming and the administration does not recommend fund balance use of more than $1 million to balance the budget.
Directors Ross Makary, John Becker and Nathan Lichtenwalner all expressed their opposition to cutting library funding.
“Right now, there’s 11,674 people that have library cards that use the library. For Northampton, it’s 3,902 people, or Lehigh Township it’s 1,952 people, for Moore Township it’s 1,766 people. That’s a lot of people that use the library. I think it provides very important preschool programs for our children. My grandchildren took advantage of it. Teaches them reading, to enjoy reading. It provides a service for adults. I think it’s the least we can do to provide services for our community, so I cannot support cutting that funding,” shared Becker.
Director Joshua Harris responded, “So, you are then OK with cutting from the school district?… We are school directors, not library directors.”
“We’re also going to be reducing our own library items by $50,000,” added Northampton School Board President Kristin Soldridge, noting that the district has several other significant upcoming costs associated with facilities such as the high school roof and turf field replacement as well.
“When it comes to the library, the library is a public library that is funded and should be funded by the local townships and municipalities of the residents that use it. Our school district has its own libraries within each of the schools. They also have an online library that we pay a fee for,” Soldridge stated.
Calling the $270,000 in funding “excessive,” Soldridge stated, “At the end of the day, there’s not much money to cut anymore. … There has to be a line where the board draws to say, you know what, we need to worry about us and the district and not worry about everybody else.”
Makary suggested reducing the amount of funding rather than cutting the funding altogether, deeming it “irresponsible.”
The library funding budget cut will be placed on the May 12 agenda for the board to formally vote on and directors will need to approve the final budget during the June 16 meeting.
Additionally, Neiman’s proposed budget presentation accounted for the $270,000 cut, so if the board chooses to alter that figure, the deficit will increase by that amount.
Directors then took a straw poll to vote on the tax increase percentage they favor, which directs Neiman on how to prepare the updated budget that will be presented next month.
Director Brian McCulloch voted for a 0% tax increase and Lichtenwalner voted for a 2% tax increase, whereas directors Michael Baird, Doug Vaughn, Becker, Harris, Makary and Soldridge all voted for a 4% tax increase.
In other news, directors unanimously approved all agenda items listed under finances, which included: adopting the 2025-26 CIU20 General Operating Budget in the amount of $4,431,923 with NASD’s portion being $47,557 needed to fund the budget; a contract for the services of FutureThink to conduct an Elementary School Boundary Analysis in the amount of $8,750; adopting the 2025-2026 BAVTS budget in the amount of $15,555,038 with NASD’s portion being $3,339,635 needed to fund the budget; and adopting the 2025-2026 Northampton Community College Budget in the amount of $77,488,289 with the NASD’s portion being $1,065,451 needed to fund the budget.
Last, the board unanimously approved and accepted the letter of resignation submitted by Kim Bretzik resigning from the Northampton Area School District Board of School Directors effective March 7, 2025.
Directors thanked Bretzik for the time and dedication she provided to the district and school board over the 3.5 years she served as director.
“She’s going to be missed up here. She did a lot of homework. She was very knowledgeable in what she did. It’s a great loss,” Harris expressed.
A special school board meeting will be held on Wednesday, April 30 at 5:30 p.m. in the Northampton Area Middle School cafeteria, located at 1617 Laubach Ave. to interview applicants for the Region 3 board vacancy, which includes Bath and Chapman boroughs and Moore Township.
The next Northampton School Board meeting will be held on Monday, May 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the high school auditorium, located at 1619 Laubach Ave.
