May 24, 2017 2 min read

CHARLEROI – Taxes will be going up in the Charleroi Area School District, but the exact amount is not yet known because of the recent Washington County reassessment.

School directors unanimously passed the $23.55 million preliminary 2017-18 budget at Tuesday’s meeting, which represents a 2 percent spending increase of $453,813 over last year’s budget of $23,096,187. Millage will be set at the allowable state index increase of 3.7 percent. The millage rate last year was 143 mills, but with the recent reassessment, the millage rate will be recalculated and will be in double digits, yet represent the same tax revenue amount. Business manager Crystal Zahand said that the district will not have the information on the final property tax assessments until June 1.

Among the increased expenditures is a $381,000 jump because of the rising costs of employee retiremzent contributions and $200,000 more for employee medical benefits. Zahand said the budget was balanced without any cuts to services or employees.

The district has implemented a shared service with Bentworth School District for a speech teacher. The districts will share costs of services of the teacher on a 50-50 basis. The district also saved money through teacher attrition. A middle school teacher position created by a retirement will be absorbed by the current high school and middle school staff. A middle school family and consumer science teacher retirement will also be absorbed into the schedule by the current high school family and consumer science department.

“Again, we have successfully implemented cost reduction initiatives over the last three years that have allowed us to continue to keep jobs by utilizing attrition, creating in-house support classrooms, optimizing outside utilization of services, combining transportation for routing efficiency, however fixed costs, like retirement, health care, and special education services continue to increase,” Zahand said.

The full budget proposal can be found at http://www.charleroisd.org/DistrictBudget.aspx The board is scheduled to vote on the 2017-18 final budget at 7 p.m. June 27.

The retiring employees, sixth-grade teacher Phyllis “Rega” Mollis-Polkl and middle school family and consumer science teacher Lorraine Sciacca-Finch, have 89 combined years of teaching. Both teachers were recognized for their service to the district.

School directors also approved the 2017-18 Mon Valley Career and Technology Center budget of $505,000, with a savings of $57,000 due to the increased number of students attending from other districts.