What’ll $42 buy you these days?

That’s about eight “Meal Deals” at McDonald’s.

Or the cost of a child’s combo pass at an amusement/water park near Erie. Maybe just the cost of the gas to get there, but not back.

How about two meatloaf specials at a local diner – with appetizer or dessert, but not both?

In the Lehighton Area School District, taxpayers will pocket that windfall after school board members flip-flopped on the 2025-2026 budget Monday.

But the move may bring residents there a basket full of headaches down the road.

Early in the Monday session, board members – by a 5-3 margin – shot down a proposed $50.1 million spending plan which held fast the district’s 52.76-mill tax rate.

That balanced budget listed primary revenue sources as $25.5 million in local taxes, $23.8 million in state funding and $843,000 in federal funding.

Included in those numbers are $18.6 million in real estate taxes and $11.5 million of state basic education funding.

At a meeting on June 9, board member Duane Dellecker argued against that proposal, saying that its $14.35 million fund balance leaned him toward a 1- or 2-mill tax decrease. He said the district was collecting “too much” in taxes, indicating he would vote against the plan.

Board President Joy Beers supported Dellecker regarding the tax decrease, explaining that both were “in the minority” and adding that the “board majority wishes to hold the taxes level.”

And between that meeting and Monday’s session, the majority apparently changed its mind.

Beers joined Dellecker and directors Sean Gleaves, Jeremy Glaush and April Walker in voting for the tax reduction, which lowered millage to 51.86.

Dellecker, defending his decision, explained that the existing fund balance was generating $1 million a year in interest on taxpayers’ money. At the same time, he conceded the tax reduction would affect that interest moving forward.

Another board member, Jeremy Glaush, supported the tax cut. He lauded Business Manager Matt Lentz as being forward thinking, adding that the current board was forward thinking. He said the board was looking at pursuing competitive grants and “those kinds of things that can bring us more savings.”

Opposing members made their voices clear.

Kerry Sittler feared too many variables in the future. She suggested staying with the original budget that Lentz prepared.

Heather Neff suggested focusing on creating a better experience for students and investing in positions and opportunities removed in the past.

Barbara Bowes suggested the tax reduction could affect the district’s credit rating. She noted that federal COVID funding has terminated and believed that waiting a year on doing anything with the tax rate would give board members a better idea of where the district stands financially.

She also pointed out that at least two contracts would be up for negotiations in the coming years.

On a wider scope, Lehighton faces the same issues as school districts across the state.

There are no guarantees they can rely on federal funding numbers. The Trump administration has proposed about $4.5 billion in cuts to K-12 programs and total cuts of $12 billion to the U.S. Department of Education, an agency that may not be around much longer.

Federal block grants would help fund education, but since they’re administered by the state, charter schools might siphon more of that away.

Worse yet for local districts, the feds are pondering $500 million to increase the number of charter schools across the country. That’s an increase of $60 million from current levels.

Closer to home, the battle over school funding is alive and well in Harrisburg. Statewide, lawmakers are at odds over how much charter schools should get per attending student. Every dollar of that amount goes against public school funding.

Reductions or fluctuations in the amount a district receives from the state impacts local real estate taxes. Districts need to make up the money somewhere, especially since they can raise taxes based on rising incomes and property values.

That may not alarm districts like Lehighton with a large fund balance, but it’s certainly something to hedge against down the road when those accounts can be drained in a heartbeat.

The uncertainty and disagreement over the status of school funding isn’t something that’s going to disappear anytime soon.

All that considered, while lowering Lehighton school taxes at a paltry rate of about 11 cents a day for taxpayers next year may have been well-intended, it may not have been the board’s best decision.

That’s especially true since the same night it voted for the tax reduction, it approved three-year pay increases for administrators and managers.

Will the budgets and fund balances in the coming years handle those costs?

I guess that’s the $42 question.

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com

Ed Socha is a retired newspaper editor with more than 40 years’ experience in community journalism.