SLIPPERY ROCK TWP — Slippery Rock School Board members voted Monday night to approve a $31.8 million preliminary budget for the 2016-17 school year, and they intend to seek state approval to exceed the property tax millage rate cap.

Approving the preliminary budget is the first step in a process that school districts are required to do if they want permission to exceed the state law which puts a cap on how high districts can raise millage rates.

Superintendent Alfonso Angelucci said seeking the exemption doesn’t mean the district will use it.

He said he couldn’t point to any specific reasons the district would need to increase the millage rate past the base index of 2.4 percent set by the state Department of Education. Slippery Rock’s cap is 3.1 mills, according to PDE.

“Just in case it’s needed, we want to have that option,” Angelucci said.

A final budget needs to be approved by the end of June.

The preliminary budget uses a millage increase of 5.9 mills to raise about $790,000 million for the district. That budget would be an increase of $1.4 million over the district’s current budget. The current property tax rate is 92.77 mills.

In each of the past two years, the district received permission from state officials to raise millage rates beyond the index. The last time the district used the exemption was in the 2014-15 school year, when its budget was 1.1 mills above the state limit.

The board Monday night also remitted a previously-withheld payment to the state retirement system of $693,500, after business manager Paul Cessar told board members that the district had received $6.1 million in state subsidy money released as part of a partial state budget deal earlier this month.

Angelucci said the district had been facing the prospect of having to borrow money to fund operations into mid- to late February, but the influx of state dollars means that won’t be necessary. Angelucci said it’s too soon to say how far the state money might carry the district.

Cessar said the district has an annual state pension obligation of more than $8 million.

In other action, the board accepted the resignation of board member the Rev. Michael Scheer. He has accepted a new job and will move outside the district.

The district has 30 days to fill the board vacancy or then a judge could choose to appoint a person to the board. The board also voted to advertise for candidates to replace Scheer, whose term runs through 2017.