The Conewago Valley school board discussed a possible tax increase in a finance meeting on Monday evening.
The board held a back-to-back finance meeting to discuss the 2025-26 budget followed by a study session. Afterwards, the board held an executive session to discuss personnel.
Lori Duncan, the board’s secretary and district business manager, walked through the proposed final budget.
Duncan discussed some of the fuzzier factors that come into play when designing the budget. At the moment, the district has 4,018 students, of which 3,717 students attend district schools. The others are students that are currently placed elsewhere but could return to the district.
Additionally, the state budget has not yet been set, so no final figures are available to use when creating the local budget. Without that data available, Duncan added a 1% increase to state funding for line items such as basic education and special education subsidies, transportation, etc.
One of the biggest areas difficult to fully anticipate is that of construction cost.
The Conewago Valley School District is currently working on plans to renovate and add onto its two elementary schools. At the same time, the district is anticipating needing to pay its portion of construction costs for a new purchased or renovated building for the Adams County Technical Institute (ACTI). No solid date is yet available for the ACTI project while the district is working through plans on its own elementary school projects.
Duncan said that due to both the elementary and ACTI building projects she recommends the board approve a tax increase, but she did not ask the board to go to the full Act One Index, the maximum rate by which it could raise taxes.
“The ACTI and the renovation/additions, what I am recommending that we have as part of our budget increase, part of our tax increase, it comes out to 0.4353 of a mill,” Duncan said. “So it’s about 48% of index. What that would mean is a $43.53 increase per $100,000 for a taxpayer. If we went to the full index, it would be a $90.68, but what we’re recommending is the 48%, which like I said was 43.53% of a mill.”
Duncan’s proposed budget also necessitates pulling money from the fund balance unless the difference is made up by the state budget. But with the district required to build and approve its budget before the state’s budget, and the revenues it will provide the district, are available, there is no way to guarantee the state funding will meet the district’s revenue needs.
Hopefully, the district will see an increase of $1.6 million in state funding, though it is impossible to know for sure. In that case, the district would be able to use far less fund balance.
“I’m anticipating that we may not have to use – I’m thinking that the way they have it set up we may receive an additional $1.6 million,” Duncan said. “That would leave about $600,000. This past year we put $800,000 back into fund balance. My thinking is that basically it wouldn’t be affecting fund balance. We’re at a little over $9 million. If that money comes through, we wouldn’t have to pull anything out, and then the little bit we’d have to pull out we actually put in this year. We’ll just be cycling it back out.”
The district has other initiatives, as well. Currently, the district has 663 special education students, which typically have lower classroom sizes than normal classroom size limits. Duncan used the example of autism classes, which may have eight students, and said the district would like to realize cost savings by running its own autism classes rather than continuing to pay for them through the Lincoln Intermediate Unit.
While the up-front cost may appear to be high, the district should see a savings over continuing to pay the LIU, according to Duncan.
“So the take-back, even though it looks like it’s a large amount of staff, we’re paying for this through professional services,” Duncan said. “So it would be bringing back three autistic classes, one at (New Oxford Elementary School), one for the middle school, and one for (Conewago Valley Intermediate School). Each class, like I said, would only have one teacher, two aides and only eight students can be in a class. They are staff-intensive classes and with bringing back all these classes, we would need an additional secretary or administrative assistant for the special education department.”
The budget also accounts for hiring a school psychologist for Conewago Township Elementary so each elementary school can have its own school psychologist rather than sharing one, as well as a social worker, a tech-ed teacher for the middle school, a dean of students for the high school, and a school resource officer or school security officer for CVIS, according to Duncan.
A significant portion of the overall budget is devoted to salaries and benefits for staff.
Cyber/charter schools also leave a dent in the budget.
“Just to give you an example, a charter school, the actual amount we spent in 2023-24 was $3,798,423, so this year I bumped the budget up to $4.2 million,” Duncan said. “We currently have 230 cyber and charter school students.”
Duncan said the cost for regular education students to attend cyber/charter school is $13,125 while the cost for a special education student is $31,442.
In contrast, the cost per student within CVIS is $16,917, according to Duncan.
Duncan said the figures provided are averages of regular and special education students combined.
Elementary school renovation project
The board discussed the ongoing elementary school renovations and additions project.
Currently, the schedule calls for the board to vote next week to open the Conewago Township Elementary School renovations and additions project for bids. A pre-bid meeting would be held on April 24, with bids opening in late May. The board would review the bids in late May or early June, awarding a bid in June, according to superintendent Sharon Perry.
The renovations and additions projects at both elementary schools have been plagued by controversy and disagreements as board and community members have debated the necessary scope, the cost, and the enrollment projections used to plan the project.
The district’s contracted architectural design firm, Crabtree-Rohrbaugh & Associates, will be present during the board’s regular meeting on April 14 to provide an update.
Perry said the firm will address the enrollment projections and compare it to its current enrollment, but it may be time for a fresh enrollment projection to be completed.
Perry said that due to delays in housing development projects in the area, the projections are likely delayed but not necessarily invalid. But as projections become less certain over time, a new set of projections could add greater confidence to anticipated enrollment and the scope of the proposed projects.
“That journey through our feasibility study has been well over five years at this point, so we thought that it would be wise to take an additional closer look just to make sure that we are on track with what we’re projecting and what we’re working through as we continue with a development phase with Crabtree-Rohrbaugh,” Perry said.
During the time for public comment, one individual submitted online comments to request the board seriously consider obtaining an updated enrollment projection.
Board president Jeffrey Kindschuh said refreshing the projections could help both from a technical standpoint given the length of time since the last one and in order to ensure the community is on board.
“We’re at that, you had mentioned, generally, the range of the forecast where it starts to lose some credibility is five years,” Kindschuh said. “So five years, realistically, based upon the data that is looked at is kind of the standard, and they extrapolate it out with some assumptions. We’re getting into that five-year program, which is part of why we’re reassessing is that valid. And from the public comment, as well. There was some concern, and that’s part of the reason we’re looking at and will visit that next week and will have the discussion – are we comfortable?”
Each quarter, the district meets with township supervisors to ensure there is communication about current and future projects and concerns. The last meeting was held in March.
ACTI
Board member Lindsay Krug said it is difficult to tell what direction the ACTI project will go.
“It’s not good,” Krug said. “There’s too many different fractions across the board.”
The board discussed what staying with the project could look like, as well as the possibility of leaving ACTI.
Kindschuh said the question of leaving ACTI had been discussed by the board before but would take a few years to put into action. With some board members expressing dissatisfaction about the voting structure that gives larger districts that pay more the same voting power as smaller districts that contribute less, Kindschuh said the topic could come up if a change is made to the operating agreement.
Kindschuh said the school board can continue watching developments of the ACTI project to see where it leads.
“I think a decision is going to have to be made,” Kindschuh said. “Is the vision sustainable? If not, what is the revised vision?”
During her superintendent’s report, Perry said CVSD won a first place award from the Northeast Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports leadership forum that will be awarded next month.
Dr. Stephanie Corbin, director of special education, will represent the district and accept the award during the NEPBIS leadership forum in Mystic, Connecticut from May 14-16.
“It shows some of the investments we’ve made in the staff to help create that positive environment and the programs,” Kindschuh said. “This ties into the CHARGE program and it’s nice to be recognized as a leader in the northeast United States.”
CHARGE stands for “Committed, Honest, Adaptable, Respectful, Generous, and Engaged” and the program is part of the district’s positive behavior program.
The board will hold a regular board meeting at 7 p.m. Monday, April 14. A representative from Crabtree-Rorhbaugh is scheduled to attend.
The board will vote on the final budget in May.
A study session will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, May 5. A regular board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday, May 12.
Imari Scarbrough is a freelance journalist. She was a staff newspaper reporter for five years before becoming a freelancer in 2017. She has written on crime, environmental issues, severe weather events, local and regional government and more.
You can visit her website at ImariJournal.com.