Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors approved a proposed 2024-25 budget with a nearly $4 million deficit that would eat up almost half of its $10.28 million fund balance if projections hold true.

The budget calls for $50.89 million in expenses and $46.93 million in revenue. Despite the deficit, directors opted not to increase property taxes, citing past conservative revenue estimates and the hope that this budget would follow suit.

“Last year we came in with $3.17 million more in revenue than what was estimated,” director Barbara Bowes said.

During a budget meeting last week, directors agreed to add several new positions for 2024-25 including three elementary center teachers, middle school music teacher, high school emotional support teacher, high school behavior interventionist, three paraprofessionals, and three cleaners. The district also budgeted for five data coordinators, which are stipend positions.

Interim business manager Susan Famularo said Lehighton’s budget challenges include “stagnant assessed property values, a large residential tax base versus a commercial tax base, the rising costs of goods and services, a higher than average special education population resulting in student placements outside the district, cyber charter costs and the timing of the state budget.”

The district is set to see a $265,189 increase in a formula driven student allocation from the state but awaits word on whether the governor’s proposed $1.82 million adequacy investment will pass. Special education funding is set to increase by $91,111.

New positions in budget

The additions added around $1 million to the budget.

Elementary Center Principal Aaron Sebelin said the three teachers in his building were previously funded through COVID-19 grant money and eliminating them would result in higher class sizes.

Meanwhile, at the middle school, Principal Steve Ebbert said interest in the music program continues to climb, but class offerings have dipped.

“We know sports and athletics are important, but our performing arts often fill the gap for students not involved in sports,” Ebbert said. “During the 2023-24 school year we were not able to offer general music classes to grade 7 or 8 and only one class per marking period to grade 6. We have really cut back on our music offerings and our band numbers continue to grow. We had 73 students participate this year and that number is expected to rise to over 100 students next year.”

Ebbert also said adding at least one paraprofessional in his building could help with disciplinary issues. Of the 784 discipline referrals in the middle school this year, Ebbert said, many of them are students with an Individualized Education Program.

“We had 15 students with an IEP responsible for 291 of those discipline infractions whether it be disrespect toward a staff member, insubordination or something else,” he said. “If we had paraprofessionals in the classrooms we could have them help these students get back on task and try to prevent disruptions. We know that, for example, if students can’t read at the proper grade level, they will start to act out and seek negative attention.”

Sue Howland, high school principal, said special education needs there have grown leaps and bounds, prompting the need to budget for another emotional support teacher and a behavior interventionist.

“We had an emotional support teacher leave in 2020 and that was never truly filled,” Howland said. “Our caseload has now gotten to the point where we need to make that an official position again.”

Numbers of note

Lehighton included several key financial numbers in its budget presentation to the board.

The district spent $162,274.69 on solicitor Fox Rothschild in 2022-23 and $136,976.25 in 2023-24 as of May 16.

Special education costs totaled $8.21 million in 2022-23 and $7.96 million in 2023-24 as of May 16.

Payments to Behavioral Health Associates totaled $1.66 million in 2022-23 and $2.03 million in 2023-24 as of May 16. Lehighton currently has 31 students attending BHA.