Members of the Finance and Insurance Committee of the Jim Thorpe Area School District's Board of Education met again on Wednesday evening to continue the work of trimming the $36 million 2010-2011 school budget. The preliminary budget called for a tax increase of 10 percent or 4.1 mils. No one on the board has come out in favor of passing that down to taxpayers.

At its last meeting, the committee was able to shave nearly $240,000 out of the budget. About $50,000 was trimmed out at a meeting last month. At Wednesday evening's meeting, the committee was only able to cut another $20,000 or so by cutting out any new equipment purchases, slashing equipment repair budgets and reducing supply budgets in a number of areas.Many areas were flagged for further consideration or for information gathering and will be considered at the next meeting, including revisiting various insurance contracts and considering the elimination of some jobs.The final budget must be completed by the end of April if the board hopes to get the correct information to the company that prints its tax statements in time to get them out to taxpayers on schedule. By the end of Wednesday's meeting, the committee had worked its way down through more than 45 pages of the 69-page budget but still hoped to trim the bottom line by another $400,000 by the final deadline.The work will continue on the budget at the next committee meeting, scheduled for April 5 at 6:00 pm at the administration building. A copy of the district's 2010-2011 preliminary budget is available for review at the administration's offices.