BUTLER TWP — Butler School District administrators are proposing reductions in teaching staff, but no furloughs to balance the budget for the 2018-19 school year.

The preliminary budget presented to the school board Monday night does not include a tax increase or the use of reserve money.

Superintendent Brian White said that under the preliminary budget the district would not fill 11 teaching vacancies and two clerical vacancies that will be caused by resignations and retirements.

It would call for an increase of one school police position and nine full-time custodian positions.

It calls for $102.02 million in expenses, a decrease from this year's budget, which was approved last year with $104.23 million in expenses and $102.6 million in projected revenue.

Last year's budget included furloughing 26 positions, though most teachers were able to keep positions within the district.

The preliminary budget called for $42.60 million in salaries, nearly the same as this year's figure. The district and the Butler Education Association came to an agreement on a five-year contract in December that included an average annual increase of 2.7 percent for teachers.

Acting director of business services Nick Morelli said the district will be required to contribute 33.43 percent of its salaries and benefits into the state pension system. This is an increase over last year's contribution, which was 32.57 percent.

The state and federal contributions to the district's budget are staying about the same, Morelli said.

The budget did not include any money for professional development of teachers and made a rough estimate on health insurance costs as the district is in the midst of changing its insurance provider, White said.

It is not known how the reduction in staff will affect class sizes, White said.

“The work of these next few months is to figure out what really are the instructional impacts of not filling these positions,” White said.

The custodial staffing this year was not adequate to keep the schools clean, White said about increasing the staff there.

The price tag for employee benefits was projected to decrease slightly from $30.18 million to $29.97 million.

The budget for supplies decreased from $3.52 million to $2.96 million and the budget for equipment decreased from $730,000 to $518,000.

The district is expected to end this school year with a $5.24 million fund balance, which would not be tapped to balance the 2018-19 budget. This would abide by the school board's policy that states that the district must maintain a fund balance of at least 5 percent of its expenses.

After taking money from its fund balance the past several years, the district's bond rating was recently downgraded one notch by Standard & Poor's.

The district has a target of building its fund balance to 8 percent of its expenses to restore its bond rating, Morelli said.

The school board may still choose to raise taxes by up to 3.1 mills while staying within the state index. After a hike last year, Butler's real estate tax is 101 mills.

One mill is estimated to bring in about $419,000 in revenue next year.

The board will vote on a final budget before the end of June.

The district is projected to come in slightly under its anticipated revenue this year, because it had projected $576,000 from sales of assets, Morelli said earlier this month.

In actuality the district got $200,000 from selling Oakland Township Elementary School and the Broad Street Elementary School has yet to be sold.