Tredyffrin-Easttown board adopts 2024–25 budget, approves 5.9% tax rate to fund capital and debt service

The Tredyffrin‑Easttown School Board on June 10 adopted the district’s 2024–25 final budget and authorized a 5.9% property tax rate to help fund capital projects and recent debt service. The resolution passed on a roll-call vote, 8–1.

Superintendent Doctor Guzik, presenting the budget, said TESD “provides services for approximately 6,943 students” and highlighted academic and extracurricular accomplishments the administration said the budget supports. The spending plan includes targeted staffing additions, including special education teachers, speech pathologists, an English language development teacher and a school psychologist, and transfers to the capital fund to support a planned elementary school expected to open in 2027.

Business manager Mr. McDonald described the financial trade-offs behind the 5.9% rate: “So considering that tax rate, it’s gonna bring in, about $8,000,000 of additional revenue,” he said, and the administration estimated a remaining budget deficit of about $1.6 million that would be covered from fund balance along with a $3 million contingency allocation. McDonald summarized the presentation slides showing total budgeted revenue in the neighborhood of $181 million and an authorized spending line item in the packet of $185,700,000.

Board members pressed on the balance between funding capital projects and preserving reserves. Doctor Roberta Hodinski said the district must be cautious about drawing down fund balance because of credit implications: “if we try to cut to… fund greater amounts out of fund balance, that we may lose or may be on in danger of losing our AAA rating, which is, of course, what allows us to borrow at favorable rates,” she said.

The board referenced funds from a recent bond sale to reimburse prior capital spending and to finance ongoing projects; the finance report noted about $40 million in bond proceeds were raised earlier in June. The budget as approved uses some combination of additional tax revenue, planned debt service and limited fund-balance allocations to cover operating costs and capital transfers.

The board chair opened public comment on the budget; no residents spoke. Mr. McDonald then conducted the roll-call vote. The motion to adopt the budget passed 8–1; Doctor Singh recorded the sole negative vote. The board’s next required step is to submit the certified final budget and related tax-rate paperwork to the state by the statutory deadline.

The vote concludes the district’s formal budget process for 2024–25; administration and board members said they will monitor fund balance and debt-service impacts in coming months.