Abington Heights School District projecting budgetary deficit for 2015-16 school year

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Abington Heights teams advance to Odyssey of the Mind World Finals

CLARKS SUMMIT &#8212; The Abington Heights School District is currently projecting a budgetary deficit of $2,766,204 for the 2015-16 school year, Abington Heights Business Manager James Mirabelli announced during the May 6 monthly work session meeting.&#8220;It is quite significant,&#8221; Mirabelli said. &#8220;Usually, at this time, I&#8217;ll say we&#8217;ll try to break even. I can&#8217;t even say that we will come close to breaking even on this deficit. I don&#8217;t have the confidence that we&#8217;re even going to come close to eliminating half of it.&#8221;According to Mirabelli, if the district raises taxes within the Act 1 index of 1.9 percent it would generate additional revenue of approximately $471,000 and cost each homeowner an increase of $44.59 on average.The board is expected to vote on a preliminary budget during the May 20 regular business meeting and the final budget must be approved before June 30.Abington Heights Superintendent of Schools Dr. Michael Mahon believes the district must find new ways to provide educational opportunities to students.&#8220;Abington Heights faces fundamental fiscal challenges,&#8221; Mahon said. &#8220;These challenges require difficult change within our organization and we must continue to innovate in the services that we deliver to our students.&#8220;We have a lot of external forces, beyond our control, that are having very large local impacts on how we conduct our business,&#8221; Mahon added. &#8220;The Abington Heights (School) Board has, for years, made difficult decisions about the allocation of resources. The decisions keep getting harder year after year. The board has always understood the importance of maintaining the district as a sustainable organization.&#8221;According to Mahon, rising pension and benefit costs have been detrimental to the district&#8217;s operating procedures.&#8220;This year, our revenues are smaller than our expenses,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We have hit the point where something has to change because we are no longer a sustainable organization. It&#8217;s necessary to accelerate our reduction in recurring costs including potentially difficult alterations in services to students. It&#8217;s also necessary to increase our recurring revenue.&#8220;We&#8217;re setting a very high bar to fill positions,&#8221; Mahon added. &#8220;Not because we want to, just because we can&#8217;t pretend we have money we don&#8217;t. Even if the board decides to raise taxes, we need to have an incremental increase in recurring revenue.&#8221;Abington Heights Middle School science and technology teachers Steve Lott and Marisa Barilka updated the board of new initiatives for the school&#8217;s technology program.&#8220;The vision is to teach students how to critically think, and explore and understand science, technology, engineering and mathematics while creating interests and excitement in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields that will inspire further pursuit throughout their education,&#8221; Lott said. &#8220;Students will become well-rounded, creative thinkers with the tools to succeed by gaining 21st century skills through the use of the newest technology.&#8221;Barilka spoke about new additions to the curriculum including a fifth grade Lego Robotics class, a sixth grade Digital Literacy and Citizenship course, Video Game Programming and Reverse Engineering courses for seventh graders, and Product Design and Innovation and App Programming classes for eighth graders.&#8220;We want this to be the beginning of growth,&#8221; Barilka said. &#8220;We have a lot of creative ideas.&#8221;