No Tax Hike Seen for Next Pottstown Schools Budget

 As school budget season gets underway, the Pottstown School Board was informed Thursday night that despite a deficit, a tax hike is unlikely for the 2021-2022 school year. 

Board member Thomas Hylton, who heads the board's finance committee, and Business Manager Maureen Jampo explained to the board that because of reduced costs due to virtual learning, the board added more than $3 million to its reserves over the course of this year.

As a result, using reserves to cover the $1.7 million gap between anticipated revenues and expenditures seems like a no brainer, and no one on the board objected. the millage will likely remain at 41.96 mills.

Hylton said if the budget is adopted in June with no tax hike, it will mean the Pottstown School Board has only raised taxes twice in the last seven years.

Nevertheless, Pottstown's local tax effort will remain among the top 10 in the Commonwealth.

Speaking of the Commonwealth, Jampo said the draft budget is built under the assumption that none of Gov. Tom Wolf's expansive budget proposals for increasing, and more fairly distributing, state aid to education will come to pass.

You can read all about that by clicking here.

The short version is Wolf would route all state basic education funding through the fair funding formula adopted in 2015, which would man an additional $13 million to Pottstown's budget, in addition to reforms to charter school funding, which would provide nearly $1 million savings to Pottstown.

But Republican politicians, who hold a majority in both houses of the General Assembly, "have already called Wolf's budget 'dead on arrival,'" Jampo said. 

So, as an exercise in caution, the budget is built on the assumption that state funding "will be flat or reduced," she said.

Board members John Armato, Laura Johnson and Raymond Rose are not ready to make that assumption yet.

Armato reminded the board that he is a "strong believer in the power of positive thinking; that if you have a positive view and think about things positively that positive things will happen." He prefers to exercise hope.

Johnson, who is in regular contact with state legislators, said she has heard from them that "nothing is going to happen with school funding unless people show us they care."  

All too often, she says, state legislators tell her  they "don't hear from public school parents."

"I do think we're making progress, but I also think it will take more voices," Johnson said on the issue of fair school funding. 

Johnson, who was just named chairperson of the Montgomery County Legislative Committee, and Rose have jointly helped create and advocacy group called Pennsylvanians For Fair Funding. Previously, Johnson had created a Facebook page for Advocates for Pottstown Schools.

"It's time for legislators to hear from public school parents that this system needs to be fixed," said Rose.

In other budget news, Jampo reported although assessed property value dropped again in 2020, the budget impact is minimal, a little over $21,000. "Still we'd like to see it going in the other direction," she said. 

Click here to see the Tweets from the school board meeting.