Westchester committees hear budget forecast and approve Starkweather renovation bids, design award
Summary
Officials presented a November budget forecast showing a roughly $12.5 million 2026–27 gap, reported a $525,000 transfer-tax boost from a Church Farm property sale, and approved Starkweather Elementary renovation contracts plus a field-house design award.
The Westchester Area School District’s property finance committee reviewed a November budget forecast and approved several capital decisions on Nov. 17.
Business officer John Scully presented updated projections for the 2025–26 and 2026–27 budgets. He said staff reduced salaries, health-care costs and social-security expenditures, producing about $1 million in net savings for 2025–26 while increasing contracted-services costs to reflect a shift from in-house hires to outside providers. “We do not have a balanced budget. We still have a gap. We are about $12,500,000 in the gap,” Scully told the committee.
Scully identified one-time and recurring revenue changes: a $525,000 increase in transfer taxes tied to acreage sold from Church Farm School and ultimately transferred to Toll Brothers for a 55-and-over development, and a roughly $1,000,000 increase in projected investment income. He cautioned that state basic-ed funding increases were modest ($265,000) and special-education funding rose only slightly ($57,000) while special-ed costs are increasing at a higher rate.
On capital projects, facilities staff reported successful bids for the Starkweather Elementary renovation. The committee approved multiple contractor awards for the project as presented: general contractor NCI Construction ($11,000,800), mechanical Tri County Mechanical ($5,933,000), plumbing Micro Mechanical ($1,527,000), electrical Burrow Construction ($3,785,000), sprinkler Accelerated Fire Protection ($495,476), and roofing Procon Roofing ($2,099,634). The presenter said the construction cost sum came in about $3 million under the original construction estimate and noted a total project budget of $33,680,997.
The committee also approved a design-award recommendation for the 2026–27 capital-reserve project for the field-house mechanical upgrade, selecting Steiner Hoffman Associates as the MEP designer for a design fee read in the transcript as $19,920.
Committee members asked follow-up questions about modeling assumptions, effective dates for state spreadsheets, and whether contractors were previously known to the district; facilities staff said the bidders were vendors with prior positive experience. The property finance committee adjourned and scheduled its next meeting for Dec. 15.
