Palmerton Area School District’s board of directors got its first look Wednesday night at preliminary department budgets for 2021-22.

The budgets, as a whole, are down $28,000, or 1%, from last year.

“The department budgets make up a very small portion of our overall budget,” Palmerton Business Manager Ryan Kish said. “They are not set in stone and will change as we move throughout the process.”

The athletic budget is slated to increase just over $35,000, bringing it to $361,868. According to Kish, the increase is largely due to new uniforms for certain sports, the contract with KRE Security and a wrestling mat suspension system. Football home jerseys, baseball home and away jerseys and pants, softball home and away jerseys and pants, volleyball and field hockey uniforms are due up in the rotation to be replaced this year.

The wrestling mat suspension system, athletic director Kyle Porembo said, would allow for more storage room in the gymnasium.

“Currently, we have two full-size, seven-piece wrestling mats and we store those in the only storage room in the gym,” he said. “It takes up about 85% of the storage area. We try to stack these sections so we can give physical education teachers more room for their classroom materials. This would help us really do that right and do it safely.”

The business department budget is estimated to hold steady at $84,838; curriculum budget to decrease $13,386 to $136,900; facilities budget to decrease $9,570 to $869,690; high school budget to increase $2,600 to $185,515; human resources budget to increase $5,030 to $18,230; junior high school budget to increase $908 to $47,373; Palmer/Parkside budget to hold steady at $148,295; special education budget to hold steady at $225,975; superintendent’s budget to increase $525 to $17,150; technology budget to increase $57,070 to $207,096; and Towamensing Elementary budget to increase $7,900 to $123,110.