Penn Hills School District holds line on taxes in proposed final budget for 2024-25

Residents in the Penn Hills School District won’t be seeing a change in their real estate taxes this school year.

The school directors approved a proposed 2024-25 budget with no tax hike and no cuts to programs or staffing.

John Zahorchak, the district’s business manager said the budget is balanced with revenues and expenditures of just over $99.8 million.

Millage is set to stay at 30.5965, with property owners with a median assessed property value of $69,800 paying $2,135.64.

Board members are expected to vote on the final budget during their June 25 voting meeting.

“The final budget is likely to change,” Zahorchak said during a May finance meeting. “We’re going to need to add an administrative position for the middle school that I hadn’t budgeted for. The Forbes Road CTC tuition costs — enrollment has gone up a bit more than we originally budgeted for so that’s also going to be reflected in there.”

Zahorchak said the district is down $100,000 in real estate tax from last year to this year and down $170,000 from where he budgeted it to be. However, the district has $233,000 in outstanding collections. Officials have received $12,000 of those funds so far and have three months to finish collecting them.

“We should be pretty close to hitting our budget target, if not slightly exceed it,” Zahorchak said.

He assured the board that, despite the extra expenses, there will be revenue to keep everything balanced.

“On the revenue side, we have a proposal from a bank that’s willing to give us a lock on our rate and increase our interest rate for next school year. Actually, it can start as soon as we can get board approval on it,” Zahorchak said. “That will be the offsetting revenue that will help us balance the budget going into next year.”

The district currently uses Dollar Bank, which offers the institution a 5.3% interest rate, and PNC Bank. First National Bank has offered the district an interest rate of 5.5% with no fees. The rate will be locked in for six months, and Zahorchak said he is hoping to negotiate an extension to nine months.

In addition to interest rates, the district was offered an opportunity for more revenue through the Allegheny Intermediate Unit. The district is working out a deal to rent out two of their classrooms to the AIU for a Pre-K Counts program.

Zahorchak said the district would make between $30,000 and $40,000 from the rent, and the AIU would be willing to help with the classrooms’ HVAC upgrades.

“This is pretty awesome,” Zahorchak said. “It’s rent. There’s very little cost for us to do this.”