Crawford Central to consider budget
Apr. 18—VERNON TOWNSHIP — Crawford Central School Board will take a closer look at the 2021-2022 district budget when it meets Monday at 5:30 p.m. Other topics on the agenda include a major construction project, adding more technology help and a memorial proposed by community member.
In introducing the budget last month, Business Manager Guy O'Neil painted a picture in which the short-term outlook will likely benefit from pandemic-related federal assistance while the long-term outlook continues to suffer from a combination of factors. Topping the list of challenges is what O'Neil called the ongoing "structural deficit" the district has faced in recent years: while revenue tends to grow about 2 percent each year, expenses tend to grow about 4 percent.
Federal assistance is likely to at least come close to eliminating the expected deficit this year, but the gap between revenue and expenses will continue to grow, leaving even more of a hole in a year or two when federal funds are no longer available.
Other factors to consider in planning the budget, O'Neil told the board, include declining enrollment and a dwindling fund balance.
The fund balance is projected to be about $17 million at the end of the current school year. When the district last increased taxes by 1 mill in 2018, O'Neil presented a plan that projected tax hikes of 0.5 mills for the following three years in anticipation of increasing expenses. But board members have opted not to implement that plan, instead voting against tax increases in 2019 and 2020 while making up budget shortfalls by dipping into the district's fund balance.
Current budgetary trends suggest that the balance will be completely depleted by the end of the 2023-2024 school year, O'Neil told the board last month.
Board member Kevin Merritt anticipated the possible need to consider a tax increase this year and the challenge of doing so if federal assistance creates a more positive short-term budget picture.
"How do you educate the person out there that we're sitting on this" federal assistance, Merritt asked, "and we're going to raise taxes?"
Superintendent Tom Washington said the annual process of finding temporary fixes to balance the budget becomes more challenging each year.
"We've been literally doing this for six years in order to make that balance out," Washington said, "but it becomes a tough thing."
In addition to the budget, the board will hear an update on the replacement of the roof at the Meadville Area Senior High and Meadville Area Middle School complex and discuss the possible addition of a technology specialist through Questeq, the district's educational technology management firm.
Among other agenda topics, board members will discuss a proposal by Rev. Gary Manning that a memorial to Martin Luther King Jr. be placed near Second District Elementary. Manning has communicated with Meadville City Council on the same topic over recent months. Having settled on a possible location owned by the school district, he is now bringing the idea to the board.
Mike Crowley can be reached at 724-6370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune.com.
