Central Bucks Budget To Boost Tax Rate By 1.5 Percet

DOYLESTOWN — The Central Bucks School Board has approved a final $364.2 million budget for the 2022-23 school year that includes a real estate tax increase of 1.5 percent.

The final budget looks dramatically different than the proposed final budget presented to the board just a month ago, according to the district’s Chief Operating Officer Tara B.G. Houser.

Since that presentation, the district's administration has been able to close a $10 million deficit by reducing expenditures, increasing revenue and dipping into the district’s fund balance.

Those three pieces, said Houser, allowed the administration to eliminate the $10 million deficit.

“We brought down our expenditures by about $5 million. And we landed at a balanced budget at $364 million, which includes about $3.5 million in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds.

“We have worked very diligently to try and find places where we could pull things out,” said Houser. “We looked hard at our staffing levels to make sure that we had properly accounted for retirements,” she said. “We’ve pulled out $1.3 million in savings from retirements and another $376,000 in other payroll and benefit savings that we were able to layer in.”

On the revenue side, House said real estate transfer taxes are doing well. “As properties change hands, the district reaps some revenue from that and it’s a strong market right now. So we increased transfer taxes about $1.5 million,” she said.

“With the increase in interest rates we’ve up-layered some additional interest,” said Houser.

The final budget also includes a budgetary transfer of $1,176,748 from the capital projects fund to the general fund.

Houser noted that while her preference is never to use fund transfers to make up a hole in the budget, she said she felt comfortable recommending the option because the fund is “properly funded. But this is not something we can continue to go back to year after year.”

The remaining $1.1 million deficit was closed with use of a 1.5 percent millage rate increase, well below the 3.4 percent increase allowable under Act 1. The 3.4 percent figure is the maximum tax increase allowable without seeking a public referendum.

“You’ve had a few years of no increases at all. That’s okay, but in the long term you’re going to have to have an increase. So this year I layered in a 1.5 percent increase,” said Houser.

The increased millage rate means that the average homeowner in the district will be shelling out an additional $76 over the 2021-22 tax bill.

“This final budget is fair, conservative, safe and appropriate," Houser said. “It’s reasonable, it’s rationale and it’s good for this year.”

Having recently been appointed as the district's senior financial administrator, Houser said there’s still a lot of work to do as she reviews the district's finances over the next six to eight months, including the capital projects plan and the capital projects fund.

The work will include the development of three, five, and seven-year budget outlooks to guide future financial decisions and planning by the board and administration.

The final budget may be reviewed in its entirety here.