Board hears presentation on 2025–26 school budget; approves budget items amid state-aid and cost pressures

Staff member Craig Lorenzen presented the proposed 2025–26 Manchester Township School District budget and the board voted to approve the budget items after a discussion of state aid, major cost drivers and mitigation steps.

Lorenzen said the district received a state-aid increase of about $359,000 for 2023–24 but that the revised state funding formula would have yielded roughly $1.8 million more without a cap. He told the board, “Realistically, today, the 2% cap, it doesn't work when you're trying to develop a budget with the costs of everything else going up significantly more than the cap.”

The presentation laid out why the district remains heavily dependent on local property tax revenue: the tax levy is the district's primary revenue source and local taxpayers fund roughly 71–77% of the budget, Lorenzen said. He described staff salaries and health benefits as…