SAINT CLAIR - The cafeteria at Saint Clair Area Elementary/Middle School was once again filled Wednesday night for the school board's work session, when it made some announcements about the coming months concerning its 2014-15 budget.
Many options are on the table for the school board to balance its 2014-15 budget that has a $1.5 million deficit.
Board member Jeanette Zembas gave a presentation to the public and one of the first possible decisions the board is considering is voting on a tax increase in June.
Zembas said that if the school board needs to, it will vote to either raise the tax rate to the current index or higher than 0.914-mills.
"Those are the knobs that we as a school district can turn to try to bring in extra revenue," she said. "If we wanted to increase taxes beyond what the state wanted to, we could take it to a vote. If it would be passed, we would raise it to that amount. For this year, we opted not to do that."
Zembas also showed what the tax millage was for every school district in the county as of January, which Saint Clair Area is the second lowest at 30.4750 mills, only slightly higher than the Tri-Valley School District millage rate at 29 mills.
She said that the highest in the county is Shenandoah Valley School District at 53 mills.
"We also investigated different ways to collect back taxes since that's a way to increase revenue," Zembas said.
Portnoff Law Associates, Norristown, will be helping the school district to collect unpaid back taxes.
Also during the presentation, Jason S. Bendle, acting superintendent/principal, said that the school board will be voting next Wednesday on renting three classrooms to Child Development Inc.
This would allow parents to have the choice of a paid before and after school program for kindergartners, and possibly even a K4 or prekindergarten program.
Bendle said that since the state does not allow schools to offer paid kindergarten services, this would be an option for parents, plus Child Development is planning to align its curriculum with Saint Clair Area.
This option comes after the school board approved cutting kindergarten from a full-day to a half-day program last month for the next school year.
Saint Clair Area hopes to not have to cut any of its programs at the school district, but Zembas said that is a last resort.
The school board looked at which programs were nonmandatory and where it could reduce, and those areas could include art, family consumer science, gym for kindergarten through fifth grade and tech, if needed.
Among the other things covered during the presentation, Zembas also addressed some long-term possibilities.
While one option being considered was keeping Saint Clair Area students at the school district for ninth grade, instead of sending them to Pottsville Area High School, that option has been eliminated.
Other long term possibilities may include merging with the Pottsville Area School District for all grades or, although "very unlikely," bringing the entire high school back to Saint Clair Area.