May 23, 2025 By Garrett Neese 3 min read

The Central Greene School Board unanimously approved a proposed balanced budget with no tax increases at Tuesday’s monthly meeting.

The $37,375,504 budget represents a 1.9% increase over the 2024-25 school year, Superintendent Matthew Blair said.

The millage rate for the district remained steady at 29.1175.

As of June 30, 2024, the district’s fund balance was $9,159,124. Next year’s fund balance won’t be final until June 30 after the district’s audit is finalized.

People can view the proposed budget at the district’s business offices at 250 South Cumberland St. The board will consider the final adoption of the budget at its June 23 meeting.

The district had submitted the 30-day legal notice notifying people the preliminary budget is available for review Monday morning, a day and a half prior to Tuesday’s board approval. The notice ran in Wednesday’s edition of the Observer-Reporter.

Valerie Brooks, business director and board secretary for the district, said the intent had been to ensure the district could meet the legal requirements for giving the public proper notice.

The board had already been forced to push its meeting date from June 17, when it would have normally fallen, to accommodate the 30-day requirements.

Had the board delayed or voted down the budget, Brooks said, the district had planned to notify the newspaper to pull the notice. The newspaper’s deadlines for legal ads would have made pulling the notice impossible.

“It wasn’t done with malicious intent, it was just done with a time constraint,” she said.

Melissa Bevan Melewsky, media law counsel for Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said she did not see any legal issues with the district filing the legal notice in advance, since the budget has yet to be finalized.

Still, Brooks said, “next time, we definitely won’t do that.”

Blair said the district’s next major capital project will be moving its business office over to another building at the bottom of the driveway of its current site. The district will renovate the new structure and sell the one it is using now, Blair said after Monday’s meeting.

The new site has a smaller footprint better-suited to the district’s staff size, which has been reduced to seven as enrollment has fallen, Blair said.

“We probably have about half as many people in this office as we did 15 years ago,” he said.

Monday, the board approved Kulak George Architects’ architectural and engineering proposal for the new business office for $43,000.

Blair hopes the move can be completed in about a year.