Jun 16, 2015 2 min read

The Chartiers-Houston School Board adopted its 2015-16 budget Monday, which includes a 2.5-mill tax increase.

The board voted 6-0 to approve the $17,733,985 budget, which raises the millage rate to 122.0125. Three board members did not attend the regularly scheduled meeting.

A homeowner of a home with an assessed value of $100,000 will pay about $63 more in taxes per year, business manager Don Bennett said. Bennett said the tax increase will help fund pension, health care and special education costs, but will not completely cover them. The budgeted pension cost is $1.74 million while the budgeted health care cost is $1.9 million, Bennett said. Special education costs can fluctuate and Bennett believes they will be somewhere around $600,000.

“We did file an exemption with the state,” Bennett said. “We could have raised the millage to 5.7 mills, but we opted not to raise taxes that high.”

Instead, Bennett said the district supplemented the deficit with $400,030 from the fund balance.

“We went through the budget again this year,” Bennett said. “We did not eliminate any positions, but we did streamline things. We are working with a very lean budget.”

Last year, six Chartiers-Houston teachers lost their jobs in an effort to help bridge a $1.7 million gap in the budget. The district also eliminated its annual $50,000 contribution to Chartiers-Houston Community Library.

Bennett said pension costs are eating up a large chunk of the district’s budget.

The district’s state-mandated contributions to the Pennsylvania School Employees Retirement System increased in 2014-15 to $1.49 million. It was $397,000 in 2009-10.