Lehighton Area School District’s board of directors passed a proposed final 2023-24 budget Tuesday night without a property tax increase.

Should the budget remain the same through final adoption in June, it would be the second straight year Lehighton directors held the line on taxes.

The proposed budget, which features a $2.24 million deficit, passed by a 7-2 vote.

Most of Tuesday’s discussion centered on whether the district should raise taxes by 1.5 mills to help cut into the budget’s deficit, which is the difference between $48.5 million in expenditures and $46.3 million in revenue.

“My personal feeling is with $5 per gallon gas for cars, $5 per gallon heating oil and food prices going up with inflation, the people on a fixed income are hurting,” director Barbara Bowes said. “Out of deference to them, I don’t think we should raise taxes. It doesn’t help for us to push a grandmother out who doesn’t have a kid in the district and have someone buy their house with four kids that we now have to educate at almost $20,000 per child.”

In the same respect, Superintendent Dr. Christina Fish said, the community needs to have a working population that can support those retired people and provide the services they need.

“I don’t recommend we do anything that causes someone to lose their home, but in the same respect you’re investing in your future,” Fish said. “It’s an upfront cost because you need to make sure you build that infrastructure in your population to be able to support your community moving forward. If we want the community to be able to sustain itself, we need an educated population and to do that, you have to make an investment.”

While Fish told directors that real estate agents sell the quality of the local school district, Board President Joy Beers said she is hearing potential property owners are more concerned over the tax rate.

“Our community is changing in other ways not that intimately related to school district,” Beers said. “In talking to real estate agents, people are moving in, but it’s not the schools attracting people to the area. It is the ability to have high-end real estate without the high taxes.”

Voting against the proposed budget and in favor of the 1.5-mill tax increase were directors Brian Shaner and Nathan Foeller.

“We need a serious discussion about tightening the belt, but it is short sighted to kick the can down the road,” Shaner said.

Foeller compared the district’s financial position to a vehicle headed for a ditch.

“We can either start to correct now or wait longer until you have to jerk the wheel a little harder,” he said. “The only thing we can do to try to keep pace is raise taxes. The county is not going to reassess properties every year. A slight tax increase allows us to try to keep pace with expenses.”

A 1.5-mill increase would increase the annual tax bill of a property owner with an average assessed value by about $65.

Property taxes have increased in Lehighton four out of the last 11 years for a total change of 5.45 mills. That is the second lowest increase in Carbon County over that time span with only Jim Thorpe, a much larger district, raising taxes less.

Lehighton originally proposed accounting for six several new or currently unfilled positions in the 2023-24 budget.

Some of those positions are going to be filled by current employees and only a middle school special education teacher and high school industrial technology teacher remain as new positions with new employees in budget.

The two new positions, Business Administrator Edward Rarick said, would add just over a combined $180,000 in salary and benefits.

Fish and Rarick said the district has undertaken various cost savings measures including utilizing a request for proposals process for copier contracts, telecommunications and heating, ventilation and air conditioning contracts.

Staffing levels have been reduced 23% through attrition over the last seven years.

Significant savings, they said, have also been established through a bond refinancing and solar energy project.

Director Jeremy Glaush said the district needs to tighten its belt further as it looks toward future budgets.

“Quite frankly, a $48 million budget is crazy,” Glaush said. “I know a lot of it is mandated costs, but we have to be creative about cutting spending. You have a year to figure out how to keep the budget the same or drive it down because we need to.”

Lehighton will vote on a final budget during its June 26 board meeting.