Great Valley finance committee advances budget options, debates adding ELD teacher and contingency size

Sherry Chambers, finance staff, told the Great Valley School District finance committee that the district remains on track with Pennsylvania Department of Education timelines for adopting a final 2025–26 budget and presented three millage scenarios and associated spending choices.

Chambers said the committee’s working options included a 3.75% millage proposal, a revised 3.48% proposal produced after board feedback, and a lower 3.25% alternative. The 3.75% scenario included five prioritized new staff positions, an increased contingency line, and no other expenditure adjustments; the 3.48% scenario keeps the same five positions but reduces some expenditures (technology purchases, laptop replacements and certain facilities estimates) to shrink the levy to 3.48% and produce an estimated $58,000 surplus compared with the earlier projection. "We are on track to meet them," Chambers said referring to PDE timelines.

The committee focused on one position not included in the 3.48 plan: an additional English-language-development (ELD/ESL) teacher for the high school. Administrators said the high school has roughly 50 students with an ELD designation and that students are concentrated at lower proficiency levels; they argued that additional ELD staffing supports both language acquisition and access to content across secondary courses. The ELD position was shown on the budget slides as "grayed out" and presented as the next priority if funding becomes available.

Committee members pressed on how to add the ELD position without increasing burden on taxpayers. Chambers said adding that fixed position to the 3.48 scenario would raise the millage to about 3.59% (an incremental increase she estimated at roughly one-hundredth of a mill equals about $10,000), or the board could reduce the contingency. The larger contingency line was presented as follows: the district historically carried a roughly $200,000 contingency; the proposed budgets add $388,227 on top of that, producing a $588,227 contingency to cover the possible loss of federal Title funding (Chambers said, "The 388,000 is the loss of the title funds only, and that is only salary and benefits to cover the staff that we currently have in place now.").

Committee members debated the tradeoffs. Some members said the contingency is needed because federal and state funds (Title grants, USDA school nutrition reimbursements, and other reimbursements including IDEA) are uncertain; others emphasized the burden of increasing property taxes on households that may already be economically vulnerable. A board member noted the district has rarely drawn on contingency in recent years, and asked whether the board could reduce the discretionary portion of the contingency while preserving the $388,227 needed to replace lost Title funds.

Chambers explained legal and procedural limits on contingency use: under school code/PDE guidance, contingency cannot be spent until after Oct. 1 and any use would require a budget transfer and board approval. She also reviewed the district’s capital drawdown that produced a current-year $10 million recognition in next year’s budget: the district postponed part of a planned bond issuance for the 5–6 Center project and used $10 million from the capital fund balance instead, which appears in the budget projections as a current-year deficit.

On five-year projections, Chambers presented scenarios based on the 3.75% and 3.48% assumptions and an illustrative flat 3% in later years; she described both paths as "manageable still" but warned that revenue and expense drivers (assessments, federal grant levels, and staffing costs) could change. She also displayed an affordability slide that estimated a typical median homeowner’s tax increase at about $229 under a 3.5% levy and noted a roughly $35 difference between a 3.5% and a 4.0% levy.

The committee asked staff to return to the board work session with updated slides showing (1) the cost per taxpayer under the revised options, (2) a scenario that adds the ELD position while trimming contingency to preserve the $388,227 set‑aside for replacement of Title funds, and (3) incremental millage estimates (Chambers estimated adding the position to the 3.48 plan would move the rate toward about 3.59%). No formal vote was taken at the meeting; board members agreed to have staff model the contingency cut and a 3.59% option for the next work session.

Background: the budget discussions reflect state Act 1 guidance on millage indexing and reflect uncertainty around federal grant funding (Title, IDEA, USDA) and local assessment projections. The committee’s next steps are to monitor federal and state budget signals and present refined numbers at the board work session and the May 19 board meeting before a scheduled final adoption meeting on June 2.