Palmerton Area School District is calling for financial reforms at the Carbon Career & Technical Institute after voting 7-1 last month to reject the school’s proposed 2025-26 budget. In a memo to CCTI, Palmerton officials outlined three specific areas for reform focusing on fund balance reduction, policy overhauls and improved budget planning processes.

The first proposal requests an “Immediate Drawdown of Fund Balance” from CCTI.

“We request that you initiate an immediate drawdown of the fund balance, either through a check or a discount in payments for the 2025-26 school year, until the total fund balance reaches a maximum of 3 months operating expenditures,” the memo states. “This action is necessary to ensure more balanced financial management.”

A second proposal calls for “Policy Overhauls” including the “Implementation of Act 93 raises based on a yearly average of the sending schools act 93 personnel.”

The request also seeks policies limiting fund balances to “not exceed 3 months of the maximum yearly operating expenditures” and restrictions on “the capital reserve balance to ensure sustainability and effective financial planning.”

The district’s third recommendation requests “Yearly Budget Meetings” with personnel from all sending schools “including but not limited to the superintendent and business manager, prior to the Joint Operating Committee’s review of the budget.”

The meetings would take place “before the budget is presented publicly or submitted to the sending schools for approval,” the memo states.

In an email last week, Superintendent Angela Friebolin emphasized that the requests should not be seen as criticism of CCTI’s educational offerings.

“I would like to stress that we firmly believe in access to career and technical education for our students and we are committed to facilitating and maintaining a strong and collaborative relationship with CCTI,” she wrote. “This gesture is not an indictment of their programming in any way, but rather an effort to ensure financial transparency and stability moving forward.”

The concerns over CCTI’s financial practices were highlighted during Palmerton’s board meeting in March. Director Earl Paules specifically objected to the size of CCTI’s financial reserves.

“They got over a $5 million fund balance that they’ve been sitting on for about 13 years,” he said. “That’s our taxpayers’ money, by the way. We need to get some control.”

The size of administrative salary increases also drew criticism from Paules in a previous meeting.

“Act 93 staff there got 6 and 7% raises,” he noted. “That is more than anyone in Carbon County. Normally, it’s about 3%.”

CCTI’s proposed budget of $9,584,132 for the 2025-26 fiscal year requires approval from four of the five participating Carbon County school districts to move forward. According to CCTI Business Administrator Jeff Deutsch, Jim Thorpe Area, Weatherly Area and Lehighton Area have approved the budget, while Palmerton and Panther Valley voted against it.

“We need four of the five districts to approve the budget for it to become official,” Deutsch explained in an email.

Deutsch said Palmerton’s budget contribution for the upcoming year had actually decreased by about $77,000 due to lower enrollment from the district.

“It marks the third consecutive year for a decrease,” Deutsch said.

Brandon Mazepa was the lone Palmerton director to vote in favor of passing the budget in March.

Deutsch said in an email Friday that he was not aware of any updates to the CCTI budget since Panther Valley and Palmerton voted it down.