The 2024-25 Butler Area School District final budget approved by board members again includes a tax increase.
The Board approved the final budget of nearly $115 million during their Monday night meeting. This represents an increase of about $5 million over the current year budget.
“I’m not happy about raising taxes. But I want to make sure that we’re able to attract people who are looking to buy a house with quality schools,” Vavro said. “So that we can attract new parents and children to our school district, because I think we have a very excellent program to offer them.”
Local real-estate tax rates will increase by 2.66 mils to just over 109 mils. This increase allows the district to collect approximately $1.3 million in new revenue. The average homeowner in the district will pay about $22 more per year under this proposal.
According to Superintendent Dr. Brian White, while most of the additional funding will be used to help pay for capital projects needs, setting aside money now will help prevent the need to pay interest on money borrowed in the future.
“We want to get away from borrowing because when you look at the interest on these, there’s no improvement that can be attributed to interest,” White said. “Now we can probably level our budget out, but we would just be kicking it down the road and not making the tough choice now. We have to pay down our debt to put the district on solid financial footing for the future.”
The board and administrators plan to hold a closed meeting next week to discuss school safety spending.
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