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EA School Board OK’s Budget, 1-Mill Tax Increase
DiLucente named superintendent by 8-0 vote
By T.J. Martin
The Tube City Almanac
June 24, 2024
Posted in: North Versailles Twp. News
East Allegheny School Board has adopted a final 2024-25 school year budget which includes the first real estate tax increase in the district in more than a decade.
The increase, however, is slightly smaller than that in the preliminary budget approved last month and unlike that budget, the final budget doesn’t add to the district’s overall budget deficit of more than $5 million.
The final budget has $46.24 million in both revenues and expenditures, according to Director of Fiscal Services Toni Valicenti. The budget was approved 8-0 with board member Macey Kinard absent.
The budget contains a 1.05 mill real estate tax increase. Valicenti said a home with an assessed value of $100,000 will see an increase of approximately $105 to real estate taxes of currently approximately $2,697. The millage increase contained in the preliminary budget would have raised real estate taxes on a home with an assessed value of $100,000 by approximately $117.
Real estate taxes in the district were last raised in 2010-2011 by 1 mill.
The preliminary budget projected total revenues of just less than $46 million and expenditures of slightly more than $47 million. Valicenti said the final budget contains slight adjustments to some figures in the preliminary budget to arrive at the balanced budget figure.
Expenditures in the 2023-24 budget are $44.15 million. In a letter to the board prior to their approval of the preliminary 2024-25 budget, Valicenti wrote that she “strongly” recommended the millage increase.
“The increase is desperately needed to offset teacher, administrative and support personnel salary increases, healthcare, mandatory payroll taxes, retirement, utility and transportation costs. In addition, other fixed costs and the general cost of living increases,” she wrote.
Valicenti also noted that COVID-related funding is coming to an end.
“In closing, a mill increase is vital to the high deficit the district carries. I understand a mill increase may be difficult for some taxpayers, but the district needs to do what is fiscally in the best interest as well,” she wrote.
In other action, the board voted 8-0 to appoint Joseph DiLucente as Superintendent. DiLucente has served as Acting Superintendent since July 1, 2023.
T.J. Martin is a freelance writer from Trafford whose work has also appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Irwin Standard Observer.
Originally published June 24, 2024.
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