Dover Area SD CFO presents preliminary 2025–26 budget showing roughly $240,000 shortfall; board asks for options

Miranda Weaver, the district chief financial officer, told the Dover Area School District Board of Directors on Jan. 21 that preliminary work on the 2025–26 general fund budget shows a projected deficit of about $240,000. Weaver said that starting-point shortfall is substantially smaller than the deficit the district began with this time last year.

Weaver said major expenditure pressures include additional staffing for special education (an elementary autistic-support classroom and a possible intensive learning-support classroom), increases in salary and benefits, higher costs for transportation and utilities (natural gas and electricity), and the district’s planned replacement of a fleet of copy machines. On the revenue side, Weaver said the draft budget shows increases in earned income tax and several state line items — including basic education and special education funding and a Ready-to-Learn grant adequacy supplement — and that 2024–25 included charter school reimbursement for the first time in years.

Why it matters: Board members pressed Weaver for specifics because the gap, while much smaller than last year’s early estimate, still requires choices. The board must decide how much of the district’s fund balance to use, whether to pursue a tax increase or other revenue changes, and what cuts or additions to accept before the Feb. budget presentation.

What Weaver presented - Estimated gap: “about $240,000,” Weaver said, comparing it with a much larger starting deficit the district had a year earlier. - Major new or increased expenditures called out in the draft: an additional elementary autistic-support classroom; projected increases in salary and benefits; higher transportation and fuel costs; increased cyber-charter and alternative-education tuition; and higher natural gas/electricity costs. - Revenue changes Weaver cited: projected increases in earned income tax (EIT), basic education funding, special education funding, a Ready-to-Learn grant increase tied to adequacy supplement, and charter-school reimbursement returning for 2024–25. - One-time or capital items: sale of iPads and MacBooks in 2024–25 reduced revenue from fixed-asset sales this year; the district has a new copier-lease accounting entry that must be recorded under GASB 87 and could appear as an extended-term financing entry.

Board questions and next steps Board members asked for detail on multiple subjects: the composition and size of the “access” (cost-settlement) funds and when the state remits them; the rationale and projected costs for new special-education classrooms; transportation increases and contract language (the current E&B contract runs through 2026–27, with CPI escalation thereafter); and the total cost and payback assumptions for the planned copier fleet lease. Weaver said she would provide more detailed breakout slides at the Feb. budget presentation and requested board input on whether to show options that combine tax increases, cuts and use of fund balance.

Items Weaver identified as possible additional budget pressures to be resolved before adoption: hiring an assistant special-education director; replacing a transportation van; and bringing some students back from the Intermediate Unit (LIU) by opening district learning-support capacity. She also said pensioning/retirements could produce savings.

Direct quotes - “We’re sitting at about a $240,000 deficit,” Weaver said. “Last year at this time we started with about a $4.1 million deficit, so we’re already down.” - “There’s an increase in the cost of transportation, and natural gas and electricity,” Weaver said when summarizing key expenditure drivers.

Context and constraints Weaver repeatedly noted that some line-item movements are reclassifications tied to changing grant needs (Perkins, Title grants, etc.), and that federal grant spending must be net-neutral because revenue must match award expenditures. She clarified the district uses Pennsylvania Department of Education account codes and that the budget presentation was intended to bridge the chart of accounts and the audited financial statements.

Board direction The administration was asked to bring a set of explicit options for the February meeting: a range of tax-millage changes (including the legal maximum/index), possible fund-balance uses and expenditure reductions, and line-item detail for the items board members specifically requested: access funding balance, capital reserve amounts, costs for a potential elementary intensive learning-support classroom, and the copier-lease detailed cost/usage history.

Ending Weaver said administration will return in February with more granular figures and scenarios that lay out the tax, cut and fund-balance permutations the board requested.