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Jenkintown board hears budget briefing on heavy local reliance, rising pension and special-education costs
Summary
At its May 12 work session the Jenkintown School Board received a budget briefing that said roughly 78% of the district's roughly $20 million budget comes from local sources, highlighted rising PSERS employer costs and large, variable special-education expenses, and discussed assessment appeals and grant-seeking as mitigation strategies.
At the May 12 work session the Jenkintown School Board heard an extended budget briefing that framed the district's fiscal pressure as the product of a shrinking tax base, rising pension contributions and high special-education costs.
The budget presenter told the board that local revenue funds the bulk of the district's operations, saying, "78% of our $20,000,000 budget comes from the borough of Jenkintown." The presenter said federal funding is small relative to the budget and that IDEA and Title funding cover only a fraction of special-education costs.
The presenter described how employer contributions to PSERS, the state pension system, increased substantially over the last decade and noted the effect on annual budgets. "Between 2010 and 2021 it went from 4% to 34%," the presenter said, citing the district's experience, and said that growth drove repeated tax increases in recent years.
The briefing detailed enrollment pressures after a nearby elementary closure and explained the district's limited ability to absorb large individual special-education costs: some individual IEPs can cost six figures in a year. The presenter said the district has pursued space-efficiency measures but is reaching capacity in existing buildings.
Board members and administrators discussed assessment appeals in Montgomery County that can reduce the borough's taxable base and sometimes result in retroactive refunds, which further compress the district's revenue. Several members said the district is now pursuing grants and other external funding sources more actively.
The board also reviewed near-term finance items on the agenda: transfer-tax receipts, student-activity reports, cafeteria invoicing and a treasurer's report that lists investments and capital-project savings. The amount read for "payment of bills" in the public remarks was garbled in the transcript and was not used as an authoritative figure in the briefing.
Next steps listed by the board included continuing to monitor budget projections, pursuing grant funding, and further public discussion of policy items connected to cost (for example, electronic-device policy, for which the board will form a committee to vet survey results). No final budget vote was taken at the work session; budget-related approvals remain scheduled for future public meetings.
