Franklin Regional proposed budget would raise taxes to state-imposed limit for 4th year

Franklin Regional School District officials next month will consider a 2021-22 budget that raises property taxes to the state-designated limit for the fourth year in a row.

The school board unanimously approved a proposed $63.9 million budget with a projected $437,000 deficit. The budget would raise local property taxes to the maximum allowed by the state’s Act I funding formula — for Franklin Regional, it is 3.01 mills. A mill is estimated to generate $353,000.

A vote on the final budget is expected at the board’s June 21 meeting.

The current tax rate is 100.6 mills. The district has raised taxes 15 of the past 16 years, in large part to keep pace with the rising percentage of contributions to the Public School Employees’ Retirement System, or PSERS, which this year rises to 34.94%.

The district also took on additional debt with the Sloan “elementary campus” project. Finance Director Jon Perry said the district’s debt service will go up by $315,000 in the 2021-22 year, to just under $4 million, but that also represents the peak of its annual debt service requirements on the Sloan project.

“Next year, we’ll see that decline to $3.2 million, and that will be our ‘run rate’ for the next number of years,” Perry said.

The district is anticipating receiving $1.3 million from the latest federal stimulus package. “Twenty percent of that will be required to be used addressing ‘learning loss,’” Perry said. “It’ll go into a special budgetary reserve because we’re not sure exactly how we’ll address those learning loss components right now.”

The remainder of the federal money, Perry said, is “rather broad in the allowance for its uses,” but noted that it is one-time funding.

“To the extent that it’s used for recurring expenses, we need to have recurring revenues to support those each year,” he said.

Revenue for next year is estimated at just over $62 million. Perry said the funding gap will be made up with $395,000 from the district’s PSERS fund balance, and a little over $1 million from a fund dedicated to helping phase in debt service related to the Sloan project.

As of June , Perry said the district’s fund balance will be $8.5 million, and both the capital expenditure and technology funds will remain solvent for the next five years.

Any adjustments will be discussed at the district’s May 27 finance committee meeting, and the final budget will be presented to the board June 7, before coming to a vote on June 21.