Delaware Valley School District finance staff presented the proposed final 2025–26 budget at the board work session Thursday, showing projected revenues and expenditures that, in the current draft, would be balanced with a proposed real-estate tax increase of 2.74 percent.

The proposal includes an estimated shortfall in the draft and a set of adjustments the administration said reflected board feedback from earlier meetings. "We tried our best to take notes of the comments from the board … and make changes and adjustments to what you had already heard," a staff presenter said during the presentation.

The budget presentation highlighted revenue and expenditure drivers: projected enrollment trends (the presentation used a 1.5% growth factor for projections), reductions in some capital and professional-development requests, a proposed reduction of one middle-school physical-education teaching position through attrition, and a planned move of roughly $200,000 from the general fund into capital for certain technology equipment. Staff also flagged cyber‑school enrollment increases and noted the district’s deliberate approach to hedging annualization of recent enrollment trends.

Board members focused on the budget’s remaining uncertainties and the political choices the district must make. "My comment is I think the 2.74 is too low," Board Member Jack Fisher said, asking the board to consider increasing the starting request to avoid having to raise taxes later. Fisher and others discussed adding roughly $550,000 (about 1 percentage point) to the proposed increase to create a 3.74% starting point; staff computed that moving to 3.74% would raise the net tax increase on a median homestead from about $14 to roughly $33.88 after state property‑tax relief, based on the numbers in the presentation.

Other members urged caution. "I'd like to stick to our original plan and wait for a response," Board President Christine Agron said, referring to other pending state and federal funding questions that the budget assumes but does not yet finalize. Several trustees asked staff for follow-up information on specific line items — including the calculation behind a $375,000 reduction in interest income, recent telecom contract costs, the drivers behind variances in "other purchased services," and the district's assumptions about cyber‑school reimbursements — before the board takes a final vote.

The presentation also described instructional changes tied to the budget: the district is proposing a new elective, "digital media and design," with startup equipment costs shown in the capital plan; a restructuring of an existing writing course into a creative‑writing offering (no added cost); and several textbook adoptions that will be made available for public review at local libraries and at the Dingmans campus before final approval.

Finance staff outlined the statutory timeline: the proposed final budget must be placed on public display for 30 days and the district's schedule calls for a proposed final adoption vote on May 15 and final adoption on June 17. "By school code and by law, you have to put a budget on display to the public, and it has to be out there for 30 days," staff told the board.

Board members gave staff direction to provide the further detail requested and to prepare the proposed final budget for public display. Several trustees said they wanted additional outreach to explore cost reductions (utilities, insurance, purchased services) and asked staff to update specific assumptions before next week’s meeting.

The board did not adopt a final budget at the work session; staff said the proposed final adoption would appear on the May 15 agenda and that the administration will post the draft budget for a 30‑day public display period per the school code.

The presentation included several numeric items and risk flags that staff and trustees said will remain under review, including pending state and federal budget decisions (including proposed cyber‑school funding changes) and utility cost projections. Trustees directed staff to return with a short list of targeted follow‑ups before the May 15 meeting.