School Board Passes Budget, No Tax Increase

After seven months of meetings and tweaking, the Abington School Board passed the district’s 2013-14 final budget Tuesday night unanimously.

Superintendent Amy Sichel said the final budget was relatively unchanged from that of the proposed final budget, which was passed earlier this month.  

The $136.63 million budget is up 2.4 percent — or $3.2 million — over last year’s installment, though the millage rate will stay at 27.80 mills.

A home assessed at $150,000 in the township or Rockledge Borough, will still be paying $4,170 annually in taxes; a house assessed at $200,000 will pay $5,560.

The budget includes the use of $11.4 million in fund balance; the district used $10.17 million in fund balance last year, and it will have $27.54 million in remaining fund balance at the end of the next fiscal year should the district spend the whole budget.

Of the $136.6 million, $76.02 million is salaries (which is up a modest 1.05 percent budget-to-budget); $13.02 million is negotiated benefits (up 0.26 percent); $19.9 million is mandated benefits (up 20.5 percent); and $27.7 million is non-salary/non-benefit related items (which is down about 4 percent, budget-to-budget).

Sixty-nine percent — or $94.1 million — of the $136.6 million comes from real estate taxes in the township and the borough. The state chips in 18 percent, or $24.1 million, which includes $3.2 million in gambling revenue distribution; and the federal government chips in a little over 1 percent of the budget.

The district had the ability to raise taxes by 1.7 percent according to the Act 1 index.

"There are no program deletions, maybe some program enhancements — that’s actually remarkable," Abington School Board member Barry Stupine said. “This $3.2 million increase in expense … the state pension cost us [an additional] $3.4 million, so without that, it's really a $200,000 decrease in expense.”