Options for eliminating a $1.94 million deficit will be presented to Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors on June 22, one week before the governing body is slated to vote on a 2020-21 budget.

Lehighton’s finance committee met Monday night, where it reviewed historical data that contributed to its current position of a depleted fund balance and facing major cuts.

“Nobody wants to talk about tax increases or program cuts,” Business Administrator Patricia Denicola told the committee, “but we need to be able to pass a balanced budget and have the revenues to support the expenditures.”

From 2014-15 to 2018-19, Lehighton overspent its budget by $68,975, $5.35 million, $2.19 million, $1.90 million and $3.2 million respectively.

“Consistent overspending is how we are where we are at today,” Denicola said. “I don’t know how those budgets were tied in to realistic expenditures. Beginning in 2019-20, we budgeted more closely to our actual expenditures.”

Resident Barb Bowes agreed, saying the message from the community in past years has been that you can’t spend more than you take in.

“Yet, here we are,” Bowes said. “Unfortunately, it is sad the kids who will be the ones to suffer.”

The district currently has 2,362 students. Its 310 employees is down from 344 in 2013-14.

Before last year’s 1-mill property tax increase, the district had not raised taxes since 2014-15.

“Everything the district goes up from year to year and our income in tax revenue has not kept pace,” Director Nathan Foeller said. “It illustrates how important it is for that number to move up slowly as expenses in district continue to move as well.”

A property with an assessed value of $40,000 brings in $1,955.20 in property taxes to the district. That same property would bring in $1,820 to Jim Thorpe, $1,953 to Weatherly, $2,311 to Palmerton and $2,587 to Panther Valley.

“We don’t have the large commercial businesses that Jim Thorpe does, for example,” Denicola said. “Our taxes are coming mostly from residential homeowners.”

Former Director Gloria Bowman said the district’s auditing firm, in 2014-15, cautioned the board to make sure that Lehighton’s fund balance was within the state guideline of 8% of the total budget.

“That is one of the reasons the fund balance had been used,” Bowman said. “Hindsight is always better and maybe a smaller tax increase would have helped during that time.”

The amount of delinquent taxes in Lehighton is trending down, from $1.4 million in 2014 to $929,949 in 2019.

As it stands, Lehighton is projecting $42.51 million in expenditures against $40.56 million in revenue. The district is already set to save more than $800,000 in salary and benefits through attrition.

Last week, Denicola gave committee members and the public a look at what cutting all nonmandated noninstructional costs (a savings of about $760,000) and nonmandated transportation (a savings of about $1 million) would mean.

“We can provide a few different scenarios and give the board time to evaluate them and decide where they see the balanced budget coming from,” Denicola said.

Bowman said she hopes any potential personnel cuts would not drastically impact class sizes.

“We’re all committed to getting through this and making things better,” board member Rita Spinelli said following Denicola’s presentation Monday.

The finance committee will meet again Monday at 6 p.m. prior to the 7 p.m. regular board meeting. The board will also have a special meeting June 29 to vote on the final budget.

“Our goal is to get us on solid footing so we are never making these tough decisions again,” Denicola said.