FARRELL SCHOOLS Budget plan includes tax increase

Directors turned down a budget that called for a 2-mill raise but would have wiped out the district's savings account.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
FARRELL, Pa. -- The average homeowner in the Farrell Area School District will see school property taxes rise by about $72 next year.
The school board voted 6-2 with one absent Monday to approve a final 2002-03 budget calling for spending at $10,865,128 and a 4-mill property tax increase.
Finances
Those 4 "new" mills are the equivalent of a 12-mill tax increase at the old millage rate.
Mercer County changed its property tax assessment ratio from 33.3 to 100 percent of assessed property value this year, thereby tripling the value of one mill for local taxing bodies.
It also triples the cost of a mill to the taxpayer and, in Farrell, the average residential taxpayer will pay $18 for each new mill. That's an additional $72 for 4 mills.
One mill now generates $50,000 in revenue for Farrell, and the new millage rate stands at 43.5.
The final budget is $200,000 less than the preliminary spending plan introduced in May and about $23,000 higher than the 2001-02 budget.
Superintendent Richard Rubano said a wide variety of cuts were made in spending, ranging from eliminating intramural hours for sports coaches to working out deals with vendors to reduce district telephone costs.
There were some cuts in special education, a reorganization of day care and some new federal grant programs that helped cover two teacher salaries, he said.
There were no staff cuts and no programs eliminated, he said.
Opposition
No one showed up at the meeting to complain about taxes, but school directors Joseph Costa and Edward Zappa voted against the spending plan and the tax increase.
Both men said the 4-mill increase is too large and that other cuts could be made to reduce it. Both said they might have accepted a proposal for a 2-mill tax increase.
That plan was on the table during a budget work session before the regular board meeting.
Michael Wright, board president, took what he called a "straw poll" of the board at the end of the work session, asking who could support a budget with a 2-mill increase that called for taking $95,000 from the district's fund balance (savings account) to balance the spending plan.
Zappa and Costa raised their hands.
When Wright asked who would support a budget with a 4-mill tax increase that wouldn't touch the district's savings, he, Ronald Weston, James Guerino, Jerome Flint, Larry Manilla and Lester Robinson raised their hands.
That's the budget plan that got presented and approved by the same vote.
School Director Sadie Benham was absent.
Rubano said the 2-mill increase plan would have completely wiped out the district's savings.