Centennial School District board fails to adopt 2025–26 final budget after hours of debate

Centennial School District’s board of school directors failed to adopt a final budget for the 2025–26 fiscal year during a special meeting on Thursday, June 26, after multiple motions and roll-call votes ended without the five affirmative votes required to approve the levy and PDE Form 2028 submission.

The board opened the meeting and approved routine agenda items earlier in the session, and it removed the capital, debt-service and food-service budgets from the table by unanimous vote. But debate over the district general-fund budget and the accompanying real-estate tax increase dominated the meeting and produced no final budget adoption before adjournment.

Why it matters: Without an approved final budget and tax levy adopted on Form PDE-2028 before the statutory deadline, the district’s legal authority to commit new expenditures may be limited; board legal counsel warned that failure to adopt a budget by the deadline can trigger statutory remedies, court action and other fiscal risks that could affect payroll, debt service and the district’s operations.

Most important facts

- The motion to adopt the district’s final general-fund budget for fiscal year 2025–26 as presented on Form PDE-2028, with a 4% tax increase and general-fund expenses of $156,447,125 and revenue of $151,904,429, failed on a 4–4 roll-call tie. That motion was listed on the agenda as item 5.1.

- A subsequent motion to approve the same budget with the tax increase set at 3.75% was introduced and seconded but failed on a 3–5 roll call (Yes: Dr. McGuire, Mr. Ginhardt, Mr. Hartline; No: Mr. Martin, Mr. Sadowski, Mrs. Crosson, Mrs. Lynch, Mrs. Brancato).

- A motion to…