CURWENSVILLE — Taxes are increasing in the Curwensville Area School District.
Directors adopted a nearly $21 million spending plan for 2024-25 school year at the board’s recent meeting.
Business Manager Erick Johnston recommended a tax increase of 3.5 mills, noting there was nearly a $1 million deficit between the amounts expected for next year’s income and expenses, with a total amount of revenue expected at $19,769,723
He also noted student enrollment continues to decline and reported a decrease of 10 percent in student population over a 10-year period. The district has been making up the deficit each year by dipping into its fund balance — a practice he said could prove to have dire consequences down the road.
Johnston said, “Five consecutive years of deficits, the results from 2023-24 are not finalized, have decreased the general fund balance by $2.8 million. There has only been one tax increase in the past six years, and two increases in the past nine years.”
Following several failed attempts — one to retain the current millage rate with no change and several to increase it by varying amounts — there was a successful vote to add three mills to property tax.
A motion proposed by Director Amy Finn with a second from Director Nick Kolesar, which he said he was doing for the purpose of the board’s discussion, was for no tax increase.
Finn stated her reasons for proposing no tax increase as the district does not know the amount of the state stipends it would receive next year as legislators have yet to adopt a budget for 2024-25. She also said there are a number of unknowns, such as the outcome of the contract with district’s teacher’s union that is currently in negotiations, and the possibility of the district cutting expenses by eliminating expensive outside student placements by instituting in-house support services.
The vote for no tax increase failed by a vote of 7-1 with directors John Evanko, Doreen Hoover, Kolesar, Laura Pentz, Lois Richards, Anthony Starr and Carrie Tonelli opposed. Director LeighAnn Hutton was absent.
Richards proposed a two-mill increase which was supported by Evanko. That motion was also unsuccessful with Finn, Hoover, Kolesar, Pentz and Starr voting no.
Hoover proposed the board adopt the 3.5-mill increase recommended by the administration.
She said, “(The district) has been several years without a tax increase, but costs continue to go up. Even this small increase will help us.” The motion was supported by Kolesar who said, “I agree with Doreen. The district has gone so many years with no tax increase. I don’t think it is wise to continue with that, even though an increase will pain some in the community.
“I would like to see the district be more efficient in its spending,” Kolesar continued. “I know we talk about that every year, but now that we are seeing the budgets in detail we can talk about some of these costs far in advance.”
The vote failed by a vote of 4-4, with Evanko, Finn, Richards and Starr voting no.
Kolesar made a motion for a three-mill tax increase with support from Hoover. The motion passed by a vote of 6-2 with Finn and Evanko voting no.
Kolesar said he thought the amount was meeting in the middle between the increase recommended by the district’s administration and the failed vote not to increase taxes.
Hoover said, “Until the board finds ways to get expenses down, I would rather see us have a little bit of an increase to help us now so that we don’t have a bigger problem in the future.”
Johnston told the board with a three mill increase, an average home in the district would have approximately $70 added to their school tax bill.
Richards said later, “It’s never satisfying when taxes are raised, but the board has only raised taxes once in the six years since I’ve been on the board.
“Unfortunately, it was time, although it still wasn’t easy. Board members are all taxpayers and have family members who also pay taxes, so this was an extremely difficult decision made with much thought and debate,” Richards continued.”We’ve had many finance meetings since January, so I think ultimately the board realized an increase would have to come. There are a lot of fixed costs in the budget that we don’t have control over. Costs keep going up and in the past when we didn’t raise taxes, we’ve covered the deficit by utilizing the district’s fund balance, but that practice can’t continue forever.”
