Jul. 18—SHICKSHINNY — With the state budget still being finalized and thousands of dollars in federal funds frozen, Northwest Area Superintendent Joseph Long said it was still unclear how the school district would be affected financially.
“So, there’s still just many questions that are facing our district financially over the next year that are not issues that we’ve addressed with our budget,” Long told the school during its monthly meeting Thursday in the high school library.
“We’re ready to go,” he added. “It’s just that we don’t know where all these other things are gonna fall over the year.”
Northwest Area previously passed its 2025-2026 school year budget with a 5% tax increase, resulting in a new millage rate of 14.7984.
Mills are used for real estate taxation. A mill is $1 tax on every $1,000 in assessed value of real estate. For instance, a homeowner with a property assessed at $100,000 would have a $73.57 increase in taxes.
However, the budget does not take into account any state funding since the 2025-2026 state budget has not yet been finalized.
The Pennsylvania State House passed a proposed spending plan last week, and it will now move to the Senate for further discussion.
Long said the state previously projected that Northwest Area would receive roughly $30,000 in funding, but since nothing has been finalized, it’s hard to say exactly how much that amount will come to once the budget is approved.
Since the budget was lower than the amount initially proposed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, Long said it’s possible they will end up getting less than that projected amount.
Then, there’s the issue of the federal funding freeze that occurred on June 30, with the U.S. Department of Education withholding millions of dollars owed to public schools.
Long said that includes funding from Title II and Title IV grants, which the school uses to provide training and professional development for teachers and to supplement supplies for the STEM program, music program, art program and various after school programs, as well as tutoring.
Long said about $60,000 is owed to the district from those grants.
Shapiro this week joined a lawsuit made up of 20 other schools that have sued the Trump Administration for freezing those funds.
Long also said that cyber school reform is needed, as legislation is being debated in state congress that would put a cap on cyber charter school tuition.
Northwest Area spends about $1.7 million on cyber school tuition per year. With 54 kids in the district enrolled in cyber school, that comes out to about $31,000 per student.