NP Board Looking at 2.9 Tax Increase, 41 Cuts

You could pay 2.9 percent more in taxes next year.

Your senior students could opt out of gym next year.

North Penn School District could not provide money to the International Spring Festival next year.

Foreign language could be nihil.

Class sizes could increase. And class with less than 20 students could be gone, except in special education and gifted.

That is what the North Penn School Board has on the table right now for the 2012-2013 budget.

North Penn School District is looking to raise taxes 2.9 percent next year and cut 41 items from the budget in order to get to a $203.9 million price tag for 2012-2013.

The current millage rate is 21.9564. The increase would bring the rate to 22.5931 mills.

One mill equals 1/1000 of a dollar or 1/10 of a cent. Multiply the proposed new rate at .0225931 by the assessed value of your home, and the answer is how much you could pay next year.

So, a homeowner with a $135,000 home would pay $3,050 a year in school tax. This would be an $89 increase from this year, according to The Reporter.

This would mean an increase to 123.8 mills in Bucks County.

According to North Penn School District website, the North Penn Board of School Directors approved a budget of $199,340,461 for the 2011-2012 school year at an action meeting on Thursday, June 23, 2011. The budget is a decrease from the previous year and includes no tax increase for residents.

Furthermore, according to Superintendent Curt Dietrich, the new teachers' contract would require a 4.5 percent increase.

“We had to make some unpopular decisions as well as living with 100 staff openings,” Dietrich said in The Reporter article.

The budget does not include a line item for the , according to the article.

Here are the proposed changes, according to the article:

• Save $840,000: Requiring more of the middle and high school teachers to teach six periods each day, rather than five with study hall duty
• Save $70,000: Allowing seniors not to take physical education classes
  
  
• Save $12,000: Eliminating the subsidy for the International Spring Festival
  
  
• Save $93,000: Eliminating payments to coaches and assistant coaches for extended season play

• Save $280,000: Dropping class rosters with less than 20 students, except for special education and gifted classes

• Cut textbooks

• Cut clubs

• Cut most ninth-grade sports

• Make foreign languages available online or eliminate altogether

• Increase class size

Dietrich is looking for input from the community.

Today was the deadline for residents and taxpayers to submit resumes for consideration on the Alternate Revenue subcommittee of the school board.

Read more on tonight's meeting at this link from The Reporter Online.