School District to Send Preliminary $68M Budget for State Approval

NEWTOWN SQUARE–The is looking to move forward in the process of approving its 2011-2012 $68 million budget.

At a budget workshop session Feb. 8, school officials agreed to send their for the state's approval this week.

According to Joe Driscoll, school business administrator, the submission of the preliminary budget is not final and "does not commit the board to any level of spending or taxation."

"It's really just the opening dialogue of the budget process," said Driscoll. "And we start the process with the state."

Driscoll said once the district sends the preliminary budget to the state this week, the district will then have to file for approval for exceptions on the budget. The district is currently –debt from the high school construction project and retirement contribution exceptions.

Edward Partridge, a school board member, addressed a concern that was made from the public about applying for the exceptions and the proposed 7.79 percent school tax increase.

"I think the philosophy of this board is not to look for exceptions and pass them on to the taxpayers," said Partridge. "The fact is, out of the 15 school districts in Delaware County, the tax rate in Marple Newtown is the lowest by far actually."

"Traditionally, if you look at the taxes of the district over the past five years, you'll see that we don't try to use exceptions," continued Partridge. "In the current situation, we've had to fund a renovation project at the high school that was way overdue, and we're going to obviously need to take that as an exception."

According to Driscoll, the 7.79 percent is a "difficult number to obtain" and foresees a tax increase closer to around 5.5 to 5.6 percent.

"I don't see a tax increase much higher than the 5.5 to 5.6 percent area that we've been talking about," said Driscoll.

From this point on, the board will have to look at cuts and revenue spending in the budget to close the preliminary budget deficit, said Driscoll.

A few reductions and cost-savings the district previously discussed at a , included bringing special education students "in-house," in which the district could see a possible savings of around $363,000 to $513,000 to the district.

The board will look to go through the final two stages of the budget in early March.