TESD:Racing to Close a $2m Budget Gap by June

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.  How do you close a projected budget gap of $2.2million? One line item at a time.

That's what the Tredyffrin-Easttown School District and School Board are racing to do between now and June 11, when the board is schedule to take a final vote on the 2012-2013 budget.  For students anxious for summer vacation, June 11 may seem a long way away. For a district facing rising costs and tough decisions about taxes, June 11 is just around the corner.

The Problem

One of the biggest issue facing the board remains pensions. The T/E School Board,like every other school district in Pennsylvania, is on the hook for millions of dollars in guaranteed or "fixed" benefit payments to retired teachers. Over the past decades the state legislature and previous governors approved a state pension system that guarantees to pay out fixed benefits, regardless of what the economy is doing. So when stocks and other investment returns are down, local school districts and the state are required to make up the difference.

The two options for closing the projected budget gap are raising revenue (taxes) and cutting expenses.

So far the T/E School Board has, according to a district press release "accepted budget strategies of $713,500 and a support staff union salary concession of $304,000 for next school year still leaving a significant $2.2 million deficit."

One part of making up that $2.2 million is taxes. The board can vote for a tax hike of up to 3.3 percent for the 2012-2013 school year.

So what happens next?

A press release posted on the TESD website describes what's next in the process of approving a budget.

The Finance Committee will resume discussions of the remaining budget strategies along with other options to close the projected shortfall at the April 9, 2012 Finance Committee Meeting at 7:00 pm at the Tredyffrin/Easttown Administration Offices at 940 West Valley Road, Suite 1700 in Wayne and then again at a second public Budget Workshop on April 16, 2012 at 7:30 pm at Conestoga High School.  The T/E Board and administration will continue to work to close the projected budget gap at numerous public meetings before voting on a proposed final budget at its regular meeting on May 7, 2012 and then vote on the final budget on June 11th.

You can watch last week's budget workshop session that goes into great depth about the 2012-2013 budget on TETV. The Budget Workshop is currently airing on T/E TV, Comcast Channel 14 and Verizon Channel 20 at 5:00 pm daily.

Click here for a link to the district's most recent press release statement on the budget on the school district's website.