School Board Starts Budget Talks Tonight

The Bethlehem Area School Board tonight begins looking in earnest at how it will allocate its available finances for the 2012-13 school year in its first budget workshop of the season at at 6 p.m.

District administrators will present a preliminary budget plan that calls for a 4-percent tax increase and board members are then expected to begin a discussion that will likely continue until final adoption in June.

In the meantime, the board has until January 23 – 90 days prior to Primary Election Day – to adopt a preliminary budget plan for submission to the Department of Education under Pennsylvania Act 1. The board is scheduled to meet in its regular monthly session that night.

The administration is currently anticipating an increase of $7 million in expenditures for the next school year from its current $203 million operating budget. Personnel benefits alone are expected to cost an additional $3.6 million more than they do for the current year.

Act 1 sets the bar for a maximum tax increase for the district this year at 2.1 percent. However, it also allows the district to apply for exceptions for special education expenses, transportation and pensions. District administrators believe they can get up to an additional 3.1 percent, which, if approved, could make for a maximum tax increase of 5.2 percent.

In years past, the Bethlehem Area School Board has used the Act 1 mandated lengthy budget process to whittle down expenses and the tax increase proposed in the preliminary budget.

A year ago, for example, the board with a proposed 6.16 percent tax increase. By the time the process had concluded, the board adopted a budget with a . Last year, 1.7 percent had been the Act 1 tax increase index for the district.