Boyertown Area School District presents $150.7 million proposed budget, asks board to consider 3% tax increase

The Boyertown Area School District presented a proposed 2025–26 general fund budget totaling $150,695,308 at a special board workshop, asking the school board to consider a 3% increase in real estate taxes and to use part of the district's fund balance to hold current programs while adding staff for student supports.

“This is an information opportunity session,” Superintendent Dr. Scott Davidheiser said as the meeting opened, stressing the presentation was intended for board review and questions rather than immediate votes.

The presentation by the district’s finance and administrative team said the proposed budget would maintain all current positions and programs while adding new staff and initiatives aimed at student supports and state mandates. District Chief Financial Officer Ms. Denicola presented the numbers and told the board the district’s total proposed revenues are $146,614,434 and budgeted expenditures are $150,695,308, with a proposed use of $4,080,874 from fund balance to balance the plan.

Why it matters: district leaders said the spending plan responds to rising special education, English learner and economically disadvantaged enrollment, and to new state requirements such as a financial literacy curriculum at the high school level. The proposal’s staffing additions and retention measures are intended to address those trends while keeping core programs intact.

Key figures and proposals - Enrollment and staffing: District enrollment was reported at 6,293 students (2,704 elementary, 3,460 secondary, 54 pre-K, and 75 in the district virtual academy as of the January 1 snapshot). The district reported 716 employees and said salaries and benefits together account for roughly 67% of the proposed budget. - Revenues and taxes: The proposed revenue mix includes local revenue of $103,542,203, state revenue of $42,231,531 and federal revenue of $840,000. Local revenues account for about 71% of budgeted revenue. The presentation models a 3% real estate tax increase (said to produce a millage of 32.69 mills and a 0.952-mill increase) and provided example impacts: for a New Hanover average assessment of $158,724 the annual increase would be $151.12; for Bechtelsville, with an average assessment of $95,219, the increase would be $90.66. - Fund balance and ratings: The presenters proposed using $4,080,874 of fund balance to support the 2025–26 plan. The district reported an unassigned fund balance of $11,050,601 and an assigned fund balance of $14,000,000 (the presentation said this use would not affect the district’s bond rating in the administrators’ view). - Staffing and initiatives included in the proposed budget: additions and retention items budgeted for 2025–26 include an approximate $1-per-hour increase for support staff, 2.5 additional school counselors, 1 FTE in financial literacy (to begin meeting the state mandate), 2 FTEs toward a future full‑day kindergarten rollout and 8 special education teacher FTEs (all listed as budgeted positions to build capacity). The district said the $1-per-hour support-staff increase would cost roughly $328,000 and the contracted paraprofessional increase through CRES would add about $230,000 in cost including administrative charges. - Special education and caseloads: District staff warned caseload limits set by Chapter 14 create capacity constraints in specialized programs. Ms. Bartman noted autistic-support elementary classrooms are near caps (7 of 8 in two classrooms), a high-school autistic-support room is at capacity (8 students), and learning-support caseloads at elementary buildings were running “a little high” (slides cited roughly 18 students per caseload). She said roughly 67 students will transition from early intervention to school-age programming and will require evaluation and services in coming months. - Charter and virtual schooling costs: The district budgets $6,205,680 for external charter school tuition in 2025–26. Ms. Denicola said the per-pupil payment to external cyber charters for regular education is $15,971.61; the district reported a new special-education cyber rate of $31,716.03 effective January and said brick-and-mortar special-education payment information was not specified in the slides. Mr. Stout, speaking about the district’s Virtual Academy, said the district’s internal virtual model costs about $2,806 per virtual student and argued that, by comparison to outside cyber charters, “we are saving about $13,000 per student to educate students virtually.” - Tax‑collector compensation and a possible rebate: The administration proposed raising elected tax collector compensation (real estate bill handling) to $2.50 per bill, per-capita to $1.50, and increasing the office stipend to $750; the district said this change would be brought to the board agenda Jan. 28 because state timelines require rates to be set in February. Administrators also proposed a local real estate tax rebate program that would match the state’s property tax-rebate eligibility and limits, with a local maximum rebate of $250 per eligible homestead; budget modeling estimated a potential district cost of about $267,125 if broadly applied. - Recruitment and pay: Presentation slides showed Boyertown’s support-staff starting wages below county averages for some categories (custodial, maintenance, food-service managers). Administrators proposed the $1 hourly increase to boost retention and recruitment; the district said this equates to an approximate 9% increase when combined with annual step increases. - Safety and facilities: District security staff described ongoing investments (badging, vestibules, cameras and software) and a need to fund a camera refresh cycle and additional tier‑2/3 PCCD-recommended measures. Administrators said some safety work formerly contracted may be brought in‑house; they also announced a separate facilities and capital reserve meeting will be scheduled (administration cited an upcoming February facilities meeting to discuss capital projects and a $15 million estimate for specific repairs, which they said sits in a separate capital reserve account rather than the general fund balance).

What the board did and next steps No formal votes were taken at the workshop. Administrators framed the session as a working workshop: several items were presented for board consideration, with staff asking the board for feedback and permission to place specific items on future agendas (for example, the tax-collector compensation item for Jan. 28 and an RFP for a demographic study to inform enrollment and facilities planning). District leaders said they will assemble a strategic‑planning process with multiple stakeholder groups and will return to the board with detailed budget recommendations, demographic-study proposals and a facilities discussion at future meetings.

“While this is meant to be a workshop discussion,” Dr. Scott Davidheiser said, “we will bring back answers to the board and continue this conversation as we refine the budget.”