Valley Grove School Board on Monday unanimously approved the district’s 2020-21 budget, which has no tax increase.
The budget shows a deficit of $1,965,017 while the tax rate holds at 11.5508 mills. The projected expenditures are $16,124,903 with revenues at $14,159,886.
Board members also unanimously approved a $8,452,447 projected 2019-20 ending fund balance that includes deficit funds. District business administrator Lori Hannon said it’s important to note the figure is projected and subject to change.
“We are in good shape at this point, we have a strong fund balance,” Superintendent Kevin Briggs told the newspaper earlier this month.
Briggs said the district has done a nice job holding the line for the past two decades by only raising taxes twice in a 20-year span.
However, Briggs said it is “inevitable at some point that it (a tax hike) will come up.”
Valley Grove’s tax rate is lower than other school districts in its peer group, Briggs said. Valley Grove’s peer group has 17 school districts, including Franklin, Oil City and Cranberry.
“We will have to be creative over the next few years with our strategy to mitigate that deficit,” Briggs said.
“That fund balance will not be there forever,” Briggs said. “We’re OK, but that can’t be our plan,” he added.
The budget maintains current programming, current staffing levels and all athletic and extracurricular programs.
“Any of the budget modifications we make, we try to keep those as far away from the students as possible,” Briggs said.
