Lehighton Area School District is $1.8 million over budget to date for the 2018-19 school year and faces a $3.8 million deficit in 2019-20, according to a presentation during a board of directors’ finance workshop Monday night.

One major issue, Lehighton business administrator Patricia Denicola said, was that medical claims paid from July through March, totaling $3.5 million, were not shown as expenditures on the books.

Denicola took over in March for Brian Feick, who accepted a business administrator position at Schuylkill Valley School District.

“For a large part of the year, the board had a large expense in health benefits that they were not seeing as an expenditure,” Denicola said. “I can’t speak as to what was done prior. I would never do that as business manager.”

Denicola has said she has budgeted for what she actually anticipates the district to receive and spend, hoping to avoid the overruns the district has seen in recent years.

For example, she said, Lehighton budgeted $16.27 million for salaries in 2018-19 and, year-to-date, has spent $13.19 million with June salaries and summer pay for teachers still to be paid out of this fiscal year. Benefits were budgeted at $11.57 million and payments are at $14.90 million to date. Purchased professional services, such as intermediate unit services, were budgeted at $1.48 million and are at $1.71 million to date. Purchased property services was budgeted at $308,000 and is at $1.3 million to date. Supplies were budgeted at $1.3 million and are at $1.8 million to date.

“I think the numbers in the budget for 2019-20 are now more in line with our actual expenditures,” Denicola said. “We are going to work to bring the shortfall down. With health care, we can potentially save on prescriptions. There are different things we can do to try to get that deficit down.”

In response to questions on the number of employees Lehighton has, Denicola said from 2013-14 to 2018-19, the district went from 22 to 18 administrators, 191 to 184 professional staff and 124 to 102 support staff.

Board member Gail Maholick said her advice on starting to address the district’s deficit would be to increase the amount employees contribute for their health care, currently two percent of their salary.

Lehighton has to pass a final budget by June 30. The proposed budget had no tax increase built into it. Denicola said Monday a 1-mill increase would result in a $38.81 increase for the average taxpayer in East Penn Township, $43.21 for the average taxpayer in Franklin Township, $39.80 for the average taxpayer in Lehighton Borough, $47.83 for the average taxpayer in Mahoning Township, $37.12 for the average taxpayer in Parryville Borough and $31.03 for the average taxpayer in Weissport Borough.

“We didn’t get here in a day and we won’t get out in a day,” board President Larry Stern said. “The overruns were there for several years. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the information to see what was going on and turn it around. Now, we have to make some difficult decisions as every business does. We will do this in the least impactful way to our students.”

Director Richard Beltz said while he’s not blaming Feick for the medical claim absence on the expense sheet, it is troubling him.

“I trusted him,” Beltz said. “I don’t know why this happened, but it really bothers me. I ran for the board to try to stop the elementary center because we didn’t have the money to do it. Now that is coming home.”

Several times during the workshop, Bradley accused several board members and prior boards of rubber stamping administration ideas and failing to have proper oversight. He criticized prior boards for building a $13 million fund balance and spending it down instead of returning it to taxpayers.

“Steering the boat now that you went down this path is going to be difficult at best,” Bradley said. “In 2010, this district had the same number of students it does now, but the budget went up 30 percent in that time. Overspending has been a big problem here for years. The district is spending more than it is taking in. We’re in deep trouble because of past shortsightedness.”

Director Rita Spinelli said the board can talk about history all it wants.

“All that matters is what we do next,” she said. “We need to move forward and work on this together.”

Lehighton has its next finance meeting June 10, when it will present the latest version of its projected 2019-20 budget.