Abington Heights School Board approved preliminary budget with no tax increase

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CLARKS SUMMIT &#8212; The Abington Heights School Board voted 6-3 to approve a preliminary budget of $47,623,973 for the 2015-16 school year with no tax increase during its regular monthly meeting on May 23.The vote was made despite the district facing a budgetary deficit of $2,814,524. The district&#8217;s millage rate remains at 117.35. A mill is a $1 tax on every $1,000 of assessed property value.Raising taxes to the Act 1 index of 1.9 percent, the maximum the state allows without referendum, would net the district approximately $471,000 and cost each taxpayer an additional $44.59, on average.According to Abington Heights Business Manager James Mirabelli, without the help of additional revenue there are only two ways to balance the budget: reducing expenditures or utilizing the district&#8217;s fund balance.Mirabelli listed the ratification of a teachers&#8217; and support staff contract and escalating pension costs as the primary reasons for the projected deficit.&#8220;No matter what we do, we&#8217;re going into the red,&#8221; Abington Heights Superintendent Michael Mahon said. &#8220;We do not have $2 million worth of personnel cuts to make. We do have a substantial number of them, some easier cuts than others. We could keep cutting, but we run into service issues. We&#8217;re currently working on that plan.&#8220;There will come a point, and it&#8217;s not next year, where administration will have to do radical things,&#8221; Mahon added. &#8220;The only thing we can&#8217;t do is become an unsustainable organization.&#8221;One way district officials have attempted to cut costs is by subcontracting positions, rather than hiring employees. Salaries and benefits are projected to account for 76 percent of the district&#8217;s 2015-16 budget.&#8220;We recently subcontracted the leadership of our cafeteria from an employee to a vendor, Metz Culinary Management, Inc.,&#8221; Mahon said. &#8220;We have outsourced our athletic training from an employee to Kelly Services, Inc. We have replaced members of our custodial staff as they retire with subcontractors. We have clerical staff in the district that have been outsourced and following tonight&#8217;s motion with Kelly Services, we&#8217;re going to be subcontracting all of our day-to-day substitutes for the 2015-16 school year.&#8220;This (process) is definitely going to have to continue, given our circumstances,&#8221; he added.The Abington Heights School District has made significant personnel reductions, but rising pension costs have outweighed the impact on the budget.&#8220;In recent years, we&#8217;ve cut 10 percent of our (full-time support staff),&#8221; Mahon said. &#8220;Most of it has been done in the past three or four years.&#8221;Board members Jeanne Cadman, Michael Fleming, Michele Tierney, Louise Brzuchalski, Michele Pusateri, and Gregory Madensky voted in favor of no tax increase.Tierney pointed to the district&#8217;s $20.6 million in budgetary reserves as a reason to vote against an increase.&#8220;I can&#8217;t justify raising taxes when we have this type of funds,&#8221; she said.Board President Cathy Ann Hardaway, along with board members Warren Acker and Francis Santoriello, voted against a preliminary budget with no tax increase.&#8220;Services are my concern,&#8221; Hardaway said. &#8220;I have seen such drastic cuts and I have a serious concern of how what we do here affects services at the building level.&#8221;Santoriello echoed Hardaway&#8217;s sentiments that action must be taken to ensure that the level of services offered to students doesn&#8217;t deteriorate.&#8220;The school is starting to see cracks in the infrastructure with our cuts,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Our job is providing an education to the kids.&#8221;