JACKSON TWP — School officials in the Seneca Valley School District are preparing for what they say will be a “difficult” budget season.

The school board discussed its preliminary budget Monday evening, which will be voted on in February.

The final budget will be voted on in June.

The proposed preliminary budget is projected to have nearly $131.1 million in total expenditures and about $122.7 million in total revenues. However, this does not include state funding, which will be announced by Gov. Tom Wolf in February.

“It’s difficult to estimate the state piece of funding to move forward,” said Lynn Burtner, business manager for the school district.

Burtner said for revenues, she made the assumption that the school district will move into next school year on the same Act One basis, which regulates school district property taxes in Pennsylvania.

“My approach to the budget ... is that the state will continue to fund education,” she said. “We would have the same array of taxes and the same limitations as we’ve always had.”

About $2 million of the deficit was planned to be set aside for the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System, textbooks and other learning resources. Another $2.25 million is planned for capital improvement projects.

Burtner said state funding consists of between 30 percent and 35 percent of the school district’s budget. She also said she based this year’s budget on 2016 estimates.

These figures also are based on if the school district’s millage rate does not change.

The current property tax rate is 123 mills. A mill equals $1 in revenue for each $1,000 of a property’s assessed value.

“Hopefully we’ll have a much better feel for the state portion,” Burtner said.

School board President James Nickel said while school districts such as Seneca Valley can control expenditures through spending decreases, they cannot control the amount of revenues they receive.

He cited the state’s budget impasse that lasted about nine months between 2015 and 2016.

“There is always a little bit of uncertainty around this,” he said. “That kind of uncertainty as the president of this board committed to the quality education of 7,300 students has always been a bit frightening and unsettling.”

“But we’ve navigated our way through it,” he said.