The North Hills School District Board of Education unanimously approved the final budget for the 2023-24 school year at its committee meeting with action held Thursday, June 1 in the LGI Room at the North Hills Middle School.
The budget has revenues and expenditures of $96,224,003 and includes no real estate tax increase. This is different from the proposed final budget approved in late April which included a tax increase of .18 mills. Instead, the millage rate for 2023-24 will remain unchanged at 19.70.
The budget includes the addition of a high school learning support teacher needed due to increased enrollment in the special education population and additional first and fifth grade teachers at McIntyre Elementary due to additional sections needed for the rising first and fifth grade classes.
The final budget also includes an interim assistant principal for West View Elementary School while the school is under construction. As Board of Education President Allison Mathis explained in her prepared remarks, the position is not permanent but it will allow the board and the administration to evaluate the need for elementary assistant principals.
Mrs. Mathis added, “As we’ve discussed, personnel position additions are made cautiously as they have long term implications. There were several personnel additions the administration looked at this year, however there was not sufficient justification for adding these positions.”
Among positions considered were additional counselors and elementary assistant principals. The board asked the administration to create a rubric or standard matrix to evaluate the need for additional positions in the future.
The 2023-24 budget fully funds all requests made through the district’s Curriculum Council for the third straight year.
It uses $1.1 million or approximately 38 percent of the district’s American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) Fund. The remaining available COVID-19 relief funding, approximately 23 percent, is projected to be used in the 2024-25 budget.
“Our goal every year is to make sure we are asking for the lowest possible increase that will enable us to educate and serve our students and maintain our properties at the level our community expects. It’s not always possible, but this year, we are pleased to [have] a budget with no tax increase. This is particularly important to our community in a time when we have all faced rising costs and expenses,” Mrs. Mathis concluded.
Also on Thursday night, the board approved the Homestead/Farmstead Exclusion resolution as detailed here.