ADAMS TWP — Mars Area School District’s board passed a $65 million budget, along with a 1- mill property tax increase, following a failed attempt to table the budget Tuesday, June 10.

This is the third straight year Mars has increased its millage rate.

The school district will have a total budget of $65,399,802 for the 2025-26 academic year, an increase of over $2.5 million from last year. The 1-mill real estate tax increase will set the overall millage rate for the upcoming school year at 110 mills, effective July 1.

A mill is equal to a $1 tax increase for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value. One mill will bring in around an additional $314,000 in revenue for the district.

Board President John Kennedy made a motion to table the finalized budget proposal. It failed 6-2, with Kevin Hagen, Jennifer DiCuccio, Matthew Duff, Daniel Long, Lee Ann Riner and Justin Miller voting against it.

Kennedy and Aaron Rose voted in favor of tabling the budget, while Anthony DePretis was absent Tuesday evening.

The same 6-2 margin voted to approve the budget and one mill increase for the 2025-26 year. The board members voting in favor of the budget were the same as those voting against tabling it.

Kennedy made the motion to table the budget due to concerns over raising the district’s millage rate for a third year in a row. Last year, the rate rose by 3.474 mills.

“I just feel like we should go back and push a little harder to figure out how we can do this without a tax increase. We’ve had nine mills since 2019, we’ve had new students in student growth, there’s a big difference,” Kennedy said. “I don’t know what the end goal is for the board, but Seneca Valley’s at 143.8 right now. I don’t know if that’s Mars.”

Though expressing there was little desire to raise taxes, other board members defended the one-mill increase. They said it is needed to support expenses amid continued district growth, plus upcoming capital projects, such as the elementary school expansion and renovation project.

“Certainly no one likes raising taxes for the third year in row. But with the growth we have had, it’s a small increase that in my opinion. It makes sense. Especially since we’re gonna want to put some aside for capital projects that will be coming. We’ve got a list of stuff that we need to do around the district,” Hagan said.

Under the now finalized budget, the district expects a $1.4 million deficit between expenditures and revenue. It will pull that amount from it’s existing fund balance to cover the gap.

Additional existing taxes will remain unchanged in 2025-26 with a .5% real estate transfer tax, a .5% earned income tax and a $10 occupational privilege tax.

A majority of the proposed budget’s expenditures are going toward salary and benefits payments for faculty. Slightly over $45.6 million, or 69.7%, would go to those two categories, with $27.2 million going to salaries. Health insurance makes up nearly another $6.4 million of spending. That increase is due to insurance premium rates increasing by 24.82%, something districts across Butler County have been dealing with.

Debt service payments make up another 10.2% of expenditures, while various purchased services make up another 10.7%. Debbie Brandstetter, the district’s business manager, previously said a portion of the debt service payments would go toward a second bond issue for the elementary school renovation project, which is now expected to start sometime around October.

Rose said during the meeting he believes the board can and should try to balance the budget over the next couple of years with the existing fund balance, and down the road raise taxes when the fund balance is in a worse position. He said with Mars’ unassigned balance near the 8% limit for raising taxes in Pennsylvania, the board shoudn’t try to keep raising them.

The district will have an assigned fund balance of $3,500,000 and an unassigned fund balance of $5,145,610.

“When you look at our unassigned fund balance, our balance is at something like 7.86%. In Pennsylvania if your fund balance is over eight, you can’t raise taxes. So we’re right there, and we’ve actually moved money out of the unreserved, possibly so we can achieve under 8%, I’m not sure,” Rose said.

Long expressed that the district would get preferential consideration for any future borrowing due to fund balance levels, which would help keep interest rates lower. He said there would be extra costs regardless, and the fund balance is there for when it is needed for “unforeseens.”

With needs for capital projects, cost increases due to inflation, health care costs and premiums going up, and a demographic study says school is growing,” Long argued the district shouldn’t postpone the slight mill increase.

“That time is coming, and sure we can spend our savings account to kick that down the road one more year, but it’s coming, so why don’t we tax to the level of what our expenditures are,” Long said.

DiCuccio was critical of the idea the board could simply raise taxes in the future. She said board members like Rose would not raise taxes, and a failure to do so ahead of time would lead to situations where the district has to make cuts.

“What’s going to happen is new board members come on in two years, and then what happens is you’re cutting staff and you’re not rehiring staff in order to meet the budget. That’s the bottom line,” DiCuccio said during the meeting. “For you to say you’ll raise taxes in five years, you’ll never raise taxes Aaron. You, personally, will never vote to raise taxes, ever. You would do everything in your power, if it means not replacing people, not replacing staff or having staff, in order to meet the budget.”

This story was updated at 5:45 p.m., June 11, to reflect the Mars board voted 6-2 to approve the 2025-26 budget. Kevin Hagen, Jennifer DiCuccio, Matthew Duff, Daniel Long, Lee Ann Riner and Justin Miller voted to approve, while John Kennedy and Aaron Rose voted against it.