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Whitehall‑Coplay finance committee previews $103M budget, $4M borrowing; public speaker questions free lunch policy
Summary
Finance staff presented a proposed $103M expenditure budget for 2025–26 (projected revenues $96M), recommended borrowing about $4.0M to finish capital projects and asked the committee to use a 5.3% tax‑increase placeholder; a public commenter objected to universal free lunches and asked for greater budget transparency.
Whitehall‑Coplay School District’s finance committee on Monday reviewed a proposed 2025–26 budget that projects roughly $103 million in expenditures against about $96 million in revenues and discussed a plan to borrow approximately $4.0 million to complete ongoing capital projects.
Business manager (introduced at the meeting) and Garrett Moore of PFM told the committee the proposed borrowing would primarily fund electrical work and window replacements at Steckle and the middle school and several smaller projects. “For this series of 2025 issuance, we’re looking to borrow $4,000,000…just to put a pencil in all the existing projects that you have going on,” Moore said. The financing team recommended a wrap‑around debt service structure to keep aggregate debt service level or declining; a parameters resolution that would set a maximum issuance and interest threshold is scheduled for consideration at the April 28 board meeting. The presentation listed a maximum parameters schedule with a notional cap of $5,500,000 and a maximum interest rate of 6% (presenters said they do not expect to issue at near that maximum if market conditions are unfavorable).
On the operating budget, district staff explained revenue assumptions (budgeted at 100% of the governor’s proposed funding levels including Ready‑to‑Learn increases and Social Security/PISR reimbursements) and projected drivers of a roughly $7.5 million expenditure increase: teacher salary steps (~$1.6M), health insurance (~$842K), retirement and pension cost increases (~$826K), charter school tuition pressure, special education cost growth, bus purchases (~$750K), and technology refresh (~$196K). The district projects using assigned fund balance (audited fund balance cited as $10,000,009 at 6/30/2024) and recommended placing a placeholder tax increase of 5.3% in the proposed final budget so the board can advertise and lay the budget open for 30 days prior to final adoption.
During public comment, resident Anthony Kopack criticized the district’s universal free‑lunch enrollment (Community Eligibility Provision), said he could not find attached final budget numbers on board docs and urged the board to vote 'no' more often on spending items. District staff responded that the federal community eligibility calculation requires accepting the program in full and that the district’s food‑service vendor contract (METS) had been renegotiated to reduce the guaranteed profit from $200,000 to $150,000 in response to inflation.
Committee members agreed to present a 5.3% placeholder rate when the proposed budget is advertised; formal adoption and any parameters resolution would be considered at upcoming board meetings.
