Central Bucks School District may face a $22 million deficit in the 2026-2027 school year even if taxes are raised by 5.7%.
The news came at last month's school board meeting. With a projected budget of $463 million, the deficit comes to about five percent of the district’s total spending.
If district officials decide to hike taxes by the full 5.7%, it will be the third year in a row of tax increases over 5%, costing owners of an average property an additional $325.
The next school year will be the sixth consecutive year that the district has raised taxes. For six school years before 2015-16 through 2020-21, taxes remained flat.
Members of the current school board have said the district needs additional money to catch up on repairs and maintenance that went unaddressed during years that spending remained flat.
The district’s Finance and Operations Committee will discuss the proposed budget for the year 2026-2027 at its next meeting on April 9. The full school board will vote on a budget in the next couple of months.
At the board meeting two weeks ago, the budget and the possible tax hike dominated the meeting. Expenses for the 2026-27 year are about $31 million above the current budget; key drivers include moving to full-day kindergarten and school realignment (moving sixth graders to middle school and ninth graders to high school).
Other significant budget items are personnel costs, transportation, and insurance. And the contract for the district’s support staff is up for renewal in June.
The administration has applied for $10 million in grants to pay for construction and capital projects and if they are approved, it would affect next year’s deficit. The district is not planning to make any new bus purchases now, which should save over $2 million.
And it halted plans to renovate or replace eight of the district’s fifteen elementary schools, since officials thought uncertainty in the financial markets would make borrowing money more expensive.
The district will be able to go with a 5.7% increase despite a cap on tax increases for school districts: Pennsylvania law limits tax increases for the 2026-27 year to 3.5% under the Act One Index; but the law also grants some school districts an exemption for special education.
Since Central Bucks has a large budget for special education, the state is allowing the district to raise taxes by 5.7%. Central Bucks used a similar exemption last year to raise taxes above the maximum established by the Act One Index for the current school year.
