Allegheny Valley School District adopts budget with no tax increase

Property owners in the Allegheny Valley School District will not see an increase in their taxes for the next year.

School directors voted unanimously Tuesday to approve its $24.6 million budget, a 3.5% increase from last school year.

Officials previously said the budget allots for new English textbooks and professional development for teachers.

It also includes two math intervention teachers, one at Acmetonia Elementary and the other at Springdale High School, to provide after-school and summer school programming to address learning loss from the covid-19 pandemic.

There are no program cuts.

The millage rate remains at 20.8377 mills. Other local revenue sources are a 0.5% earned income tax, 0.5% real estate transfer tax and one-half of the $10 occupation privilege tax. Local revenues account for 69% of the budget.

State and federal subsidies reflect the balance of the district’s income. The district anticipates increased funding from the state for basic and special education.

The instructional budget totals about $12.9 million and represents about half of the district’s spending. Budget increases are attributed to rising costs of health insurance, staffing, special education, tuition cyber charter or other schools, transportation and debt service.

Specific expenditures in the budget include about $9.3 million for staffing, $3.3 million for special education, $2.9 million for health insurance, $2.3 million for debt service, $1.4 million for tuition and $1.4 million for transportation.

Board President Larry Pollick thanked the administration for their work creating and balancing the budget.

“We’ve been able to balance a budget without a tax hike this year,” Pollick said.