BUTLER TWP — With assistance from the proposed state budget, Butler Area School District is currently on track to approve its draft spending plan for next school year without a tax increase.

District officials took a first look at the preliminary budget for the 2026-27 school year during a committee of the whole meeting Monday, Feb. 9.

Currently, projected revenue and expenditures is set for $120.75 million — a 2.56% increase from the 2025-26 budget of about $117.74 million.

Heather Bonzo, the district’s director of finance and operations, said the budget is currently balanced and a tax increase is not immediately expected.

“It is balanced at this time. However, it’s very preliminary on a lot of guesses,” she said.

Funding sources will look similar to prior years, with local and state funding taking the lion’s share while only 3% will be represented by federal contributions.

Superintendent Brian White reiterated numbers, especially for the state, are only assumptions at this time.

“Gov. Shapiro’s office put together a pretty robust proposal for education funding. We did not assume we would get all of that because of last year’s battles,” he said.

Bonzo said the assessment value for the district was up in November, but a recent settlement with Moraine Pointe Plaza will likely knock out most of the additional revenue in property taxes.

As for expenditures, White said the most volatile overall is utility spending, but health care is also a major cost that can shift based off an emergency or unexpected need.

He also said some work would need to be done to prioritize capital needs across the district in coming months.

“Our buildings are older and there’s significant needs. We’ll really continue to try and make sure we’re going after all the grants we can and all the funding sources. I don’t want to sugarcoat it: What we have in the bank doesn’t cover the bills in our facilities,” he said.

To ensure the budget is passed by the June 30 fiscal year deadline, Bonzo asked to move up the May school board meeting from May 11 to May 4.