'Pain,' 'change' to be expected as Pine-Richland School District tackles $4.9 million deficit

The Pine-Richland School Board will be diving into building the district’s 2026-27 budget after finishing a series of four meetings dedicated to examining the district’s finances as it confronts a $4.9 million deficit.

A combination of spending cuts and revenue increases, including an administratively recommended property tax increase, are expected to be necessary to close the gap, Superintendent Brian Miller said.

There is no “magic wand” or “silver bullet” to solve the district’s structural financial challenges, he said.

“There’s going to be pain. There’s going to be change,” Miller told the board Monday, Nov. 10. “We’re going to have to work through that.”

One pain that is not anticipated is furloughs, with attrition — not replacing employees who resign or retire — considered for each and every position instead. A total of 10.5 positions were cut for the current school year through attrition, but not as many are expected for 2026-27.

The challenge is in preserving excellence while making reductions, Miller said.

“This is not easy. It is not easy for our staff and buildings,” he said. “It’s easy to understand we have to look at attrition, but it’s very difficult to understand when that attrition might directly affect a particular building or department. We’re working through that on a case-by-case basis.”

Administrators have recommended that the board approve increasing the district’s tax rate by at least 3.5%, its state-imposed inflation limit, and pursue state approval to exceed it because of special education costs.

Doing so will require the district to follow an accelerated budget schedule that requires having a proposed version of a preliminary budget available for public inspection by Jan. 29 and a preliminary budget adopted by Feb. 18.

Pine-Richland has not seen a property tax increase since 2017-18.

Board member Marc Casciani, the board’s treasurer, said he supported the 2.1% increase Miller requested for the current school year that the majority of the board rejected, and that he will support one increase again — but just one.

“What the right number is remains to be seen,” he said. “I will support that one year. I don’t want to get into a habit of having to increase millage a second year after that. I’d like to be as disciplined with whatever that number is to have it be our best work for the number and then work with that in subsequent years for at least another handful of years.”

Miller said the possibility of continued property tax increases “is a reality that exists.”

“We’re going to need to understand that and continue to try to balance the competing tensions that we have here. That is where the deck of cards is until something changes in that deck,” he said, adding some changes are going to be “transformational” to how the district operates.

“It is pain and discomfort. It is a difference. The paradigm is shifting. It is not going to be simple,” he said. “We can’t do these things and keep status quo. It doesn’t work that way. We will have differences in the way we operate; we will have differences in the way we have to work together with outside groups. We are going to have people not feeling good.

“It’s going to stretch us and test us in ways that we have not experienced.”

In September, the board began a series of four finance sessions, each dedicated to a different aspect of the district’s operations. They included personnel and program delivery; special and gifted education; capital projects, utilities and debt; and, lastly on Nov. 10, transportation and tuition.

Answers to questions that were received from the public have been posted to the district’s website.

The four finance meetings have given the district an early start to its budget work, Casciani said. The budget, along with the district’s audit, will be discussed at a finance meeting beginning at 6 p.m. Dec. 8.