Boyertown Area SD finance committee advances balanced $159.2M budget with 1.9% tax increase

Interim CFO Mr. Lince told the Boyertown Area School District finance committee the 2025–26 budget being proposed is balanced at $159.2 million and includes a 1.9% property-tax increase.

The proposed budget reflects a conservative alignment of revenues to recent actuals and personnel expenditures to staffing patterns, Mr. Lince said. "The budget is balanced with a tax increase of 1.9%," he said, and the plan incorporates a 3% support-staff salary increase plus a $250,000 market adjustment designed to move support positions toward 50% of the county average.

Why it matters: the district is using a combination of more accurate revenue projections, tighter personnel costing (accounting for vacancies and later start dates) and limited tax growth to preserve programs while maintaining fiscal stability. Mr. Lince said the district also built placeholders into the budget for five full-day kindergarten teacher positions and five paraprofessional positions so staffing will be available when full-day kindergarten is implemented without a sudden, large millage increase.

The Act 1 index (the statutory cap on routine annual tax-rate increases) constrains the district’s options, Mr. Lince explained. He said the district previously used statutory exceptions for special education and pension costs to exceed the index in some years. He warned that accepting state “adequacy” funding carries a trade-off: a district that accepts adequacy funding cannot also take exceptions beyond the Act 1 index. "That is a correct quantifier," he said when board members asked whether adequacy funding prevents taking exceptions beyond the index.

Revenue and expense detail: Mr. Lince walked trustees through key revenue lines, including earned-income tax receipts, real-estate transfer taxes, delinquent real-estate taxes and state reimbursements. He said the budget assumes no additional basic education funding from the state but incorporates a proposed special-education increase the governor had floated. On federal pandemic funding, the district has wound down ESSER allocations and absorbed many former ESSER-funded costs into the base budget.

On expenditures, Mr. Lince said the district is projecting a $58 million salary budget for 2025–26, reflecting that prior-year salary budgets were higher than actual payroll outlays because of vacancies and timing. He noted benefits are currently budgeted with a 10% placeholder pending final rates from the district’s benefits broker.

Board questions and next steps: Trustees asked where new kindergarten positions appear in the budget (object 1110 for instruction) and whether benefits were included; Mr. Lince said both salary and benefits are reflected and that the final published budget document will show the line-item detail. He said the proposed final budget will be presented for approval in May (advertisement/display follows) and the board is scheduled to adopt the final budget on June 23.

What’s next: the finance committee will return to the board with the proposed final budget and documentation; trustees will vote on the final budget on the district’s scheduled adoption date.