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The adopted 2013-14 budget would increase the tax rate by an estimated 2.54 percent. A hearing on the adopted budget will take place May 7, with residents voting on the budget May 21.
School Board Vice President Shane McGaffey said officials had three goals this year: keeping the budget below the tax cap, avoiding cuts to the academic program and becoming more fiscally sustainable.
“We've done all three, and it's really amazing,” he said before the board adopted the budget last week.
The proposed budget is a 2.25 percent increase from last year's budget. Officials say the tax levy increase is 0.16 percent under the tax cap.
Staff reductions include four teacher assistants, 10 teacher aides and one teacher, Assistant Superintendent for Business David Quattrocchi said.
Some of the major cost-drivers were pensions and health care costs, which totaled an additional $1.3 million, officials said.
“We don't have control over those costs,” McGaffey said. “We have to pay them. That's what we're getting before we even get out of the gate and that's where we're ending up.”
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