Octorara Budget Presentation

Octorara Superintendent Dr. Tom Newcome

On February 10th Octorara Superintendent and Business Manager presented the district's financial challenges and their attempts to balance their budget despite the steep reduction in federal, state and local funding.

While balancing Octorara's budget has never been easy, this year's perfect storm of events have combined to make this year effort more challenging than any in history.

A new conservative Republican Governor in Harrisburg intent on balancing the state's budget by reducing education spending, no more stimulus monies from Washington, $1.5 million in tax revenue lost due to local land owners placing their land in Act 1 conservancy, lower than average property tax collection and expenses like healthcare insurance and charter school cost growing faster than revenues collected have left the district with a projected $2.2M deficit going into the 2011-12 school year.

Notes from the presentation and the discussion that followed as compiled by Ellen Brown and the PowerPoint presentation can be found on the Octorara Report blog.