Riverview School District officials are still crunching numbers before approving a budget later this month.
Earlier this week, the board held a public budget hearing to discuss its $18.6 million proposed final 2013-14 budget. The current millage rate is 25.3550. However, due to the county-wide property reassessment, the district's millage rate must be reduced to a "revenue neutral" 20.3398.
The buget includes a property tax rate of 21.18 mills—an increase of 0.8402 mills. Though the district only was allowed to raise the tax rate by 0.4272 mills, it received state-granted exceptions for retirement and special education costs.
However, district business manager Frank Thompson said many figured in the budget are not set in stone. Thompson said the district has not received concrete funding amounts from the state and many district residents have appealed their county reassessment figures.
"We started the process with a lot of unknowns, and a lot of those, unfortunately, are still unknown," he said.
Thompson said there still are about 100 outstanding appeals within the district, and those property values most likely will decrease, impacting the revenue calculation in the budget.
Thompson suggested officials look for ways to reduce expenses as well as revenues in anticipation of any decrease stemming from the appeals.
"Doing nothing exposes us to a new risk," he said. "We have a few weeks to look at it and make a determination."
The budget also includes:
- A reduction of about $360,800 in staff costs through attrition
- An anticipated decrease of $23,000 in federal revenue
- A $120,000 increase in special education costs
- A $32,000 increase in vocational education tuition
- A $302,000 increase in state pension costs
- A $26,000 increase in cyber/charter school costs
- A $97,000 increase in healthcare costs
Thompson said that while the new homes and commercial space being built at the Edgewater at Oakmont development won't help the budget this year, it could help bring in more revenue for the district as early as next year.
A budget meeting will be held on June 10 at the central administration office and a final budget is expected to be adopted on June 17 at the high school library. Both meetings start at 7 p.m.
Anyone interested in looking at the budget can do so at the Oakmont Carnegie Library, Verona Borough Office, Oakmont Borough Office, R.C.A.C., Riverview School District Central Office, all school district building offices, and on the borough website.
A PDF of the proposed final budget has been attached to this article.
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