North Hills School Board members plan to vote Monday on new budget

The average taxpayer may see their property tax bills increase by $9 a month, if the proposed 2011-12 budget is approved tonight.

North Hills Board of Directors are slated to vote on the $66.7 million final budget at 7 p.m. in the district’s administrative center at 135 Sixth Ave.

School directors urged community members to attend the meeting and have their voices heard.

“We do not have an official budget. … (This) budget is still open for discussion,” said Edward Wielgus, school directors president.

The proposed budget includes a 1-mill property tax levy hiking the district’s tax rate to 20.91. The increase will raise tax bills roughly $109 yearly on the average $109,000 median home in North Hills.

It would be the second increase in as many years for Ross Township and West View Borough property owners after a decrease of .25 mills in 2009-10.

“We have reached a reasonable compromise between cutting costs and raising revenue,” said David Hall, the district’s finance and operations director.

“We cut teachers. We cut secretarial and administrative positions. We cut an assistant principal and a principal. We have done the cutting side of the budget. The rest we need to make up with additional revenue.” 

The proposed increase will raise approximately $2 million in annual revenue negating $1,148,429 in proposed cuts to the district’s state subsidies and grants in Gov. Tom Corbett’s 2011-12 projected budget and the loss of $561,954 in federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act monies.           

Those cuts coupled with an existing $3.6 million budgetary deficit in fall 2010 and a planned increase in debt service payments related to Ross Elementary’s renovation forced district officials to evaluate any avenue for savings, they said.

“It all came to a head in one year and sometimes things just happen that way,” Hall said.

The spending plan provides funding for the expansion of the district’s Online Academy to junior high and elementary levels and the first steps toward new elementary math and junior high reading curriculums.

To balance the budget, 25 of 29 teaching positions, vacated by those taking an early retirement incentive, will not be filled and operating expenses will be cut $815,019, according to a district press release.            

Despite the finality of the meeting title, some school directors feel even more items can be dropped from the budget before final approval.

School director Robert Barto, finance committee chair, charged his fellow finance committee members Jeff Meyer and Lou Nudi, who have voted against the proposed budget, with finding excessive unneeded spending prior to a final approval.

“Come up with $2.5 million in waste, so we don’t have to raise taxes,” said Barto at the May 23 legislative meeting.