SLIPPERY ROCK — Slippery Rock School Board passed its budget Monday night which anticipates a small deficit for next year.

Paul Cessar, the district's business manager, said the deficit looks to be a little over $9,000 compared to the school's expected $32.78 million in spending.

Cessar said the approval of the proposed budget means the district cannot spend more next year.

“Approval sets a limit for the expense,” Cessar said. “They can go lower, but they can't go above that.”

A few added expenses were discussed and approved at Monday's meeting, including some new textbooks and new data warehousing software.

The software, which by agreement would cost the district a little more than $20,000 per year for the next three years, was discussed extensively.

“The biggest thing it does it provides us a very workable and practical data warehousing system,” Superintendent Alfonso Angelucci said. “You're putting some tools in the hands of our administrators and staff to greatly enhance our abilities to dig into the data.”

He said the new software not only helps in compiling data but also presenting the data in understandable ways for analysis.

“It's going to take a lot of manual entry out of it,” Angelucci said. “I don't have a crystal ball, but I think it will have a significant impact for our test scores from elementary to high school.”

Among the decreases in expenditures was in athletics, where the district saw a decrease of about $65,000 in funding. Cessar said the decrease was natural as the district did not cut any programs for next year.

“That is based off of what we've been spending this year,” Cessar said.

Pennsylvania law mandates that schools submit a preliminary budget 30 days before the final budget is approved.

The board will vote on its final budget in June.