Tough decisions face Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors as it nears crunch time for finalizing a 2020-21 operating budget.

Though the district is expecting more revenue and fewer expenditures than it was in late May when the board passed a proposed final budget, the deficit still stands at $1.94 million.

“There has been a lot of action of Harrisburg and the partial state budget passed last week has provided for K-12 funding, so those numbers have come into focus,” Lehighton Business Administrator Patricia Denicola said.

The district is expecting a $9.28 million basic education subsidy, around $300,000 more than it had been planning for less than a month ago. Lehighton is also set to save more than $800,000 in salary and benefits through attrition.

“There have been some retirements within our professional and support staff, where we are able to get by without filling those spots,” Denicola said.

With the new numbers in hand, Lehighton was able to trim an almost $3 million deficit to just under $2 million. The district is still looking at ways to trim the deficit and on Monday, Denicola gave committee members and the public a look at what cutting all nonmandated noninstructional costs (a savings of around $760,000) and nonmandated transportation (a savings of around $1 million) would mean.

She also told the committee raising taxes by 1-mill would generate $305,000.

“I hate even bringing any of these things up because I know they aren’t popular,” Denicola said. “I’m not saying these are the answers, but with the lack of proper state funding to cover mandated costs, districts are left with difficult decisions ahead of them.”

District resident Barbara Bowes said she can’t believe the district is in a position where it has to look at cutting extracurricular activities. She attributed some of the issue to excess spending in the past.

“We can’t pin it all on the state,” she said. “We have to learn from the past or we are doomed to repeat it. I’m also hoping we can solve this without a tax increase.”

Denicola didn’t disagree with Bowes’ take on past spending.

“We can’t change history,” Denicola said.

“Our hands are tied with employment contracts and other costs we are tied to. The only thing to do is make more appropriate decisions going forward. We can’t get out of things we formally negotiated. We have to get through it and negotiate better for our future.”

Beyond state subsidy amounts, Superintendent Jonathan Cleaver pointed to other ways the state could help public school districts, such as charter school funding reform.

“We’re not saying get rid of charter schools, but if we can do our own cyber program for $4,000 or $4,500 a student, why are we paying outside charter schools $8,000 or $16,000 a student?” Cleaver said.

Board President Larry Stern asked for a deeper breakdown into the cost of nonmandated noninstructional activities, which would entail everything outside the classroom such as athletics, clubs and other extracurricular activities.

Lehighton will have another virtual finance committee meeting Monday night at 6 p.m. with registration information available on the district website closer to the date.

“We’re going to be looking every day at additional items to cut costs to get us to a balanced budget,” Denicola said.