Spend Our Money to Renovate Schools But Not Consider Redistricting and Maybe Reducing Buildings?

Council Rock embarked on an ambitious rebuilding plan about three years ago, talking about renovating all its buildings which wouldn’t be cheap. This was after they had commissioned a study that was expected to have called for building another school. But instead, the demographics showed a downward trend in enrollment. So there was no need [...]

Final Budget Raises Taxes 2.72 Mills or 2.52% — But Fund Balance Figure Is 5.18% of Expenditures (Board Policy Calls for 4%)

After a long meeting filled with discussion about how to use the Melsky money, whether to use some of that money to further reduce the budget and the tax hike, the Board passed the budget as it was presented by the Administration: projected expenditures of 199,278,168 including a $1,000,000 budgetary reserve; projected revenues of $194,071,499; [...]

Salaries and Benefits Make Up 72% of the Budget

Reading the recent Courier Times article about the budget at Council Rock, people may have gotten the impression there’s a lot of items that can be trimmed before looking at salaries and benefits.  The article stated that salaries and benefits comprise 55% of the budget.  That percentage is way understated. Next year’s proposed budget shows [...]

Budget Hike Still at 3.4 Mills — Could Immediately Be Down to 2.4 Mills with a Fund Balance Closer to the District’s Policy Target

The budget presented at the most recent School Board meeting (and what’s currently on the CRSD website) showed less of an increase than earlier versions due to lower expenditures, but still showed a millage increase of 3.40 mills.  On a home with an assessment of $35,600 (the median from 2006), that would equate to a [...]

When Will This District Start Following Its Own Policy on Fund Balances? That Is, Stop Taxing Us More Than Needed?

For a number of years I have gone before the Board to argue that more money was being kept for the general unreserved fund balance than was needed. My point was that every dollar they took into a fund balance beyond necessary was extra taxation — money that deserves to remain in taxpayers’ pockets. I [...]

Good News (Well, Less-Bad News) for Council Rock Taxpayers

Previously as reported here and in newspapers, Council Rock School District was approaching its 2010-11 budget as if they could raise taxes by over 7%, about 7.2% to be more precise.  They were coming up with this figure by calculating in a couple of referendum exceptions on top of the Act 1 index of 2.9%.  [...]

Richboro Middle School Redistricting — Two Options Up for a Vote Tomorrow — Will We End Up with a Geographically Segregated Board?

As I’ve noted before, the School Board has been mulling over ideas to get all Richboro Middle School graduates sent to one high school, as opposed to the current situation where part of the graduating class goes to South and the other part to North.  For the past few years, they have offered students a [...]

Initial Look at 2010-11 Budget = 6.9% Increase in Property Taxes (Up 7.45 Mills to 115.41)

Thanks to Act 1 (not that there’s a ton for which to be thankful there), School Districts have to present preliminary budgets much earlier in the year than they had several years ago. This is a double-edged sword, since it requires Districts to make more projections when they don’t have a ton of data from [...]

Property Tax Assessment Appeals Results for Council Rock – Revenue Loss $1,267,831; Millage Needed to Offset Loss 1.08 Mill; District Appealing Few Cases, Focusing on Properties Where Loss was $3000-$4000 or More

At the Finance Committee meeting on December 16th, figures were presented showing the results of the large number of property tax appeals filed within the District this year. A chart showing the results is presented below. The tax revenue loss to the District at that point was $1,267,831 annually (with 16 cases still to be [...]

Council Rock School District Considers Looking for a Tax Referendum Exception by Raising Retirement Contributions More than Required — Can This Maneuver Allow a Greater Tax Increase without Voter Input?

At the Finance Committee meeting of December 16th, District officials discussed two potential referendum exceptions to the Act 1 index which could be requested if the School Board wished to proceed. The first was an exception for loss of certain revenue (about which I posted before), and in this post I would like to focus [...]