No tax hike included in A.G.’s budget plan
The Albert Gallatin Area School Board approved a $46 million budget Wednesday without increasing real estate taxes. The board adopted the general fund budget for the 2007-08 school year in the amount of $46,231,735, setting the property tax rate at 11.119 mills, the same as last year.
District property owners will pay $111 for every $10,000 in assessed property value under the current millage rate.
The budget total is higher than last year’s $45,144,606 million spending plan, according to district controller Denise Sheetz.
Sheetz said school district revenues increased 3 percent, while expenditures increased 2.41 percent. The transfer of $1.8 million to the capital projects fund to pay for the design and construction of a new A.L. Wilson Elementary School caused expenditures to increase, Sheetz explained.
The amount the district will spend on salaries decreased 34 percent due to 27 teacher retirements and district health insurance decreased $1.1 million or 17 percent due to a switch to a PPO plan, Sheetz said.
Cyber school expenses nearly doubled from last year for the district, said Sheetz. The district will spend $752,000 to send 60 regular and 20 special education students to cyber school, while last year the district spent $375,000, Sheetz said. The state reimburses the district for less than 25 percent of cyber school costs, she added.
Sheetz said $149,000 has been budgeted for professional development or teacher training if the state directed a school in the district to go into school improvement phase for not meeting targets set by the No Child Left Behind law, one target including student performance on the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment) test.
The basic education subsidy provided to the school district from the state will go up by $558,409 under Gov. Ed Rendell’s proposed education budget, said Sheetz. The district will receive $21 million, up from $20 million, if the state budget is approved.
Federal funds the district will receive are: Title I funds of $1.6 million, Title II A funds of $367,305 million and Title V funds of $7,635, which Sheetz said was cut in half from last year.
After exiting a two-hour executive session, the board hired the following as elementary teachers: Jennifer Barber, Michelle Shuessler, Jennifer Thrash, Terri Moser, Chrystal Eicher, Danielle Guthrie and Bernadette Packroni.
The board also hired Jennifer Jesso as an Albert Gallatin South Middle School mathematics teacher and Brandon Berkshire as a high school mathematics teacher.
Included as additions to the agenda, the board hired Keith McCormick as a truancy officer at $20,000 per year plus benefits, Chris Bolin as a computer technician at $28,000 per year plus benefits and Melanie Boyd as a high school special education teacher.
The school board also renewed two salary agreements: a five-year contract with Sheetz, whose salary will be $77,000 in the coming budget year and will increase by $2,000 increments for each year of the contract, which ends June 30 of 2012; and a five-year deal with technology coordinator Steve Smolenski, who will receive an initial $54,898 salary per year and then a $3,500 jump in pay for the contract year following and a $1,600 pay increase for the final years of the contract, according to Superintendent Walter Vicinelly.