The Conewago Valley school board passed a resolution on Monday committing to staying at or below the Act One Index, but a motion to cap the budget at a 0% tax increase was withdrawn. The withdrawal followed a lengthy discussion about the “people and programs” – or even the Adams County Technical Institute or Colonial Career & Technology Center – that may need to be slashed to achieve a year of no tax increases.
The resolution setting the Act One Index as a local tax ceiling is a standard annual board document. Typically, school boards commit to staying at or below the Act One Index, the maximum amount they are allowed to raise property taxes per the state without seeking permission to go higher. The resolution sets a cap for tax increases but does not mean an increase is necessarily planned. Budget discussions for 2027-28 have yet to truly start.
Jeffrey Kindschuh, president of the school board, assured members they can still consider the scenarios it normally considers annually, including funding the budget at 100% capacity (the Act One Index of a 4.9% increase), 75%, 50% and with no tax increase as the budget planning talks progress.
Multiple board members pressed for a 0% tax increase, a goal some members have been vocal about pursuing in past years while simultaneously facing building improvement needs, increased staffing plans and other goals. Before passing the resolution, board member Meredith Miller made a motion to change the 4.9% cap to 0%.
Board member William Getz, who is in favor of including no tax increases, told the board to prepare for “deep cuts,” saying it could create a “smoother transition” if items were removed over time rather than all at once.
Fellow board member Lindsay Krug agreed with the overall goal, saying she is “all for zero and negative and abolishing property taxes altogether.”
But Krug’s eagerness to remove property taxes was tempered by concerns about basic funding needs.
“There’s a lot of things that come down that are state-mandated without funding and we can’t control that, which then leads me to believe sometimes we are, indeed, just here to be a scapegoat for those people, however; then what happens when you’re on the other side of that and committed to ‘No?’” Krug said. “So the past boards kind of, it’s my understanding, did the same thing. They didn’t want to up the taxes, so they didn’t take care of the properties.”
Krug said she feels previous boards passed on maintenance and upgrades in order to commit to no tax increases and cautioned the board about falling into what she saw as the same trap.
“If we just come out of the gate and say 0% and that’s it, what’s the repercussions of that?” Krug asked. “What’s that going to do to future citizens when all of a sudden they have to go above index because, you know, nine people were like, ‘I’m going to look really good for next election.’”
Board member Melanie Sauter said in her opinion, the past three to five years of efforts have nudged the district ever closer to a 0% increase, saying that ACTI and other funding needs have slowed the progress.
Superintendent Sharon Perry said the board will likely have to sacrifice “people or programs” in order to achieve a 0% increase.
“So what that might look like is, we’re not offering the CCTC (Colonial Career & Technology Center) anymore,” Perry said. “That’ll save us some money, you know; that can get us to zero. If the board feels comfortable with that, you need to direct us to do that if the zero is what you want.”
Already, a five-year staffing plan has been extended to 10 years, Perry said.
Before committing to no tax increases, Perry said the board will need to take a hard look at what – or who – they are removing from the budget once early budget discussions commence in February. Then, district staff will have estimates for heathcare costs, professional contracts and other expenses for the 2027-28 school year.
“If the staffing plan is no longer an interest or ACTI is no longer an interest or – you know, I mean, there are things that this district runs on such a tight budget that there’s not much to cut unless it’s people or programs,” Perry said.
When Getz expressed concern taxes would always increase or, at the least, never decrease, Sauter said the public can look at the priorities the board has targeted to see that funding increases have targeted urgent needs rather than long-term financial support.
“We’re not going to have year-over-year where we’re bringing in those big, for lack of a better term, projects and can level a little bit while we finally have things that aren’t disintegrating,” Sauter said. “We have toilets that flush. We have roofs that aren’t caving in… And I’m not saying that we’re never going to have to do another construction project, but in the near future, we’re getting everything to where it is finally manageable.”
Krug cautioned that elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the state government has had to step in when districts had too large of a deficit and worried about the future of CVSD should the board fail to create a balanced budget.
Getz felt that should tax increases cease, “nothing is stopping anybody from coming in with a check” out of a sense of community.
The final general fund budget for this school year listed $100,800,213 of revenue and other financing sources, with $10,363,660 of that in unreserved fund balance. An estimated $5,000 in “contributions and donations from private sources” is a line item in the $56,469,555 of local revenues. The bulk of local revenues is generated from real estate taxes.
Local monies accounted for $56,469,555, state funding made up $32,826,042, and federal amounts totaled $1,140,956 of the general fund estimated revenues and financing sources.
Prior budget presentations for the 2026-27 and earlier school years are available to the public. Budget discussions for 2027-28 will begin in earnest in about February 2027.
Miller withdrew the motion to cap the budget at a 0% increase early but voiced that she wanted to go on the record noting the importance of pursuing that goal.
Elementary school construction
Superintendent Sharon Perry provided updates on the construction of Conewago Township Elementary and New Oxford Elementary schools as well as notes on misconceptions.
Perry said that work on CTE is progressing quickly without students and faculty in the building, but said there have been comments made that there are no workers in the area.
“A lot of them are inside the building and behind the building, so they’re not viewable from Elm Avenue, but I assure you we do have workers on site daily,” Perry said.
Sauter also stepped in to correct a misunderstanding she had heard that the board spent an extra $265,000 on playground equipment.
“I also wanted to reiterate that the total amount was part of the construction budget that we had already agreed to,” Sauter said. “It’s coming in under that budget that we agreed to and it’s not extra money that we’re digging to find in order to add a playground.”
At CTE, Perry said an investigation is underway to find the source of water coming through the kindergarten wing windows, an issue she said has led to visible interior mold.
Work at NOE is also going quickly, with underground utility installation, digging and pouring footers and more underway.
Perry read a public comment submitted by Jamie Fitzpatrick.
In his comment, Fitzpatrick said Perry had recently noted the CTE project is not delayed, yet Fitzpatrick cited examples of construction delays Perry herself has apprised the board of, recalling a leaking fuel line and other issues that slowed construction.
After reading the comment aloud, Perry said that while there have been delays during the process, the project as a whole is ahead of schedule.
“Despite all of these delays, Mr. Fitzpatrick was not wrong about those delays at all… What I was disputing is the fact that we are currently delayed, which we are not,” Perry said. “We are currently ahead of schedule at this point. So that’s what I was trying to make Mr. Fitzpatrick aware of is, when he’s sharing that information with the community that we’re behind, we’re no longer behind. Anything that we were behind in has since been resolved and in fact we’ve gained time.”
At this point, Perry said the CTE project is approximately 70% complete.
Perry said the public is welcome to view budget items on the district website, adding that the project is unlikely at this point to go over-budget.
One other public commenter felt that Eric Flickinger, vice president of the board, appears “annoyed” during “those lengthy discussions.”
Flickinger said that sometimes, discussions have “a proper place and time” and meetings sometimes feel off track.
“I think it’s important to have all discussions… I also think that at times we get off the subject of what the original discussion was on,” Flickinger said. “So I apologize to you if you feel that you’re reading my body language the way you’re reading it, but that’s my personal opinion. We could be more efficient at our meetings and get sometimes more accomplished in the time that we are here.”
An executive session to discuss personnel matters was held prior to and after the open meeting.
The board will hold its reorganization meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 7.
Imari Scarbrough is a freelance journalist.
