Preliminary Budget, Possible Charter School Enrollment Increase, Discussed at KC School Board Meeting

BALD EAGLE TOWNSHIP – Keystone Central School Board held their February Work Session Thursday night. An executive session was held from 5:30 to 6:40 p.m. for legal and personnel issues.

The meeting began with a budget discussion for the upcoming 2025-26 school year.

“We ended up with a fund balance of $20,980,436 (where we started the school year), and part of that from 2023-24 was a surplus of $1.3 million to commit to Fund 32 Capital Fund Projects if the board approves,” Business Manager Joni MacIntyre said. “The fund balance is $957,146.”

“We are also on track this year to have a 15% healthcare benefit increase not including PSERS,” MacIntyre said.

Various calculations under consideration include expenses of operating budget requests, position control through attrition or repurposing of staff, healthcare rate increases, an increase in bond principal and interest, cyber charter and KCSD Virtual Academy enrollments, capital projects, and use of the fund balance or budget reserve.

MacIntyre then went on to discuss the district cyber charter school.

“We had an increase of $1.5 million in cyber tuition between 2022-2023, and 2023-2024, it was the tuition rate increase and also enrollment. In 2022-23, we had 62 regular students and they jumped to 107 in 2023-24, in special education it was 15 and then jumped to 26 in 2023-24, and this was a trend in all the cyber schools,” she said. “The governor proposed to cap the charter school tuition at $8,000 which is huge, more important than any increased revenue we can get at the moment, we will save more money if he actually approves that to go through. If the governor would have capped Commonwealth Charter last year, we would have saved $1.1 million, if capped this year and we are only half way through, we already would have saved $1 million, so that tells you we would save about $2 million if they would cap the charter. That would be a huge improvement for all the school districts statewide.”

Other revenue calculations under consideration are the loss of ESSER funding, a decrease in Title funding, potential tax increase, investment opportunities and lower interest rates, and the maintenance of state funding which could be an increase of $715,000.

The timeline for developing a balanced budget for the 2025-26 school year is below:

March 13 – preview general fund budget development

April 10 – review proposed general fund budget and post for public inspection

May 8 – adopt proposed final budget

June 12 – adopt final budget for 2025-2026

In other news, Superintendent Redmon congratulated Kurt Lynch and his team at CTC for being awarded grants for a total of $92,000 for equipment and the agricultural education program. He is also looking into an agreement with State University of New York (SUNY) for a early childhood and preschool program. Redmon also heard from a parishioner at Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lock Haven, thanking him and the students for the partnership they have with the Robb Elementary School winter concerts and a recent food drive that skyrocketed their food bank donations. Dr. Redmon also mentioned that it is a busy time in and out of the classroom with the theatre troupe meeting and getting ready for their show, musicians traveling around, upcoming spring concerts, and athletics.

Keystone Central School Board is currently in negotiations with Sugar Valley Rural Charter School on renewing the charter. Sugar Valley Rural Charter School is also interested in increasing student enrollment from 475 to 495.

“I don’t see a problem with it at all,” board member Chris Scaff said. “If we have students here not doing well and can go over there and do well, then we are doing our part. It is a lot of money to spend, but it is about the student, not the dollar. If we have students over there and want to come back here, that is great too.”

“It would probably increase the cost to about $400,000 at about $20,000/student,” board member Jeff Johnston said. “We are already spending $7, $8 million for the charter school. The last time we set the cap for a reason and I don’t think we should open that issue again. I cannot support increasing those numbers.”

Scaff, ever so vigilant for the students, supports the expense for the sake of student achievement.

Board Member Bill Baldino then spoke up,

“Woody Hayes once said the only statistic that matters is the final score, they have a 97% graduation rate, I think we should leave them alone and let them do things they want to. They are our kids, they just chose to be somewhere else,” Bill said. “If they want the 20 more, they should get the 20 more.”

Lynch added, “I think we are very fortunate to have a charter school here. They offer things that we will probably never offer, the community loves them, they do some things better probably because they are smaller, and I know people who sent their kids there that did really well. I want to see the partnership grow. There is no reason why we cannot start the discussions to share our resources. I can’t point any fingers at them. I am proud that they are in our district and they’ve done a heck of a job.”

The vote for increasing charter school enrollment takes place at the voting meeting next Thursday, February 13.

School board member Tom Cannon was absent from Thursday’s work session.