West Chester School Board Approves Preliminary Budget

The voted to pass the district’s preliminary budget at the monthly board meeting Monday night.

“This is not our final budget, and there is still work ahead of us,” said board member Jeffery Seagraves.

Right now, the dollar amount for the 2011-2012 budget sits at $202 million, which is less than last year’s budget.

Under this budget, however, taxes are expected to increase by $77 for the average West Chester homeowner.

Still, that number isn’t set in stone because the budget is still in the preliminary stage.

The budget that was passed on Monday incorporates a 2.2 percent property tax increase, but according to state law the district can only increase taxes by 1.4 percent.

Because of this tax rate cap, the district still has to cut $1.2 million from the preliminary budget until it can become the final budget.

“I think this is the $64,000 question,” said school board member Terri Clark.  “How much would we have to cut to get a zero percent tax increase?”

“Another $3 million,” said Dr. Suzanne Moore who runs the district’s department of finance and business affairs.

School board member Sean Carpenter said that the district would begin working on cutting the remaining $1.2 million, and that the school board would be scaling back the “Phase III” cuts that had originally been proposed by

Cuts that may be taken off the table include reducing the number of guidance counselors, the number of elementary support staff or the number of teachers in the gifted program.

The district will hold another community input meeting about the budget on May 2, at 7 p.m. at .

The school board tentatively plans to vote on a final budget at the meeting scheduled for June 6.