BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA — The Bensalem Township school board is going into battle as budget season begins.
After reports that the school district has a “severe financial situation,” school directors explained what that crisis is and what impact it might have on the next school budget.
School Board Vice President Stephanie Gonzalez Ferrandez broke down the financial budget crunch the school district faces.
“We are not ‘projecting’ an 8.2 percent increase,” Ferrandez told Patch on Wednesday. “I don’t think any of us want to do that. We are actively looking at ways to cut costs now, to avoid going up that high.”
Ferrandez said that eight of the school board’s nine members voted to request an exception to the state’s Act 1, which allows school districts to increase taxes up to 4.2 percent.
“If we need to go over that to cover special education costs, we are required to request an exception —and we must request it this month. That would allow us to go up to 8.2 percent. But we have not decided to go that far. We just voted to seek the flexibility, just in case.”
School Director Rodger Allen, elected in the November general election, sees the school district’s financial situation this way.
“When my family first bought our home over 20 years ago in Bensalem, we had a pear tree in the side yard. We kept cutting it back, but it always grew right back because we never uprooted it,” Allen told Patch. For years, this district has relied on surface-level fixes, often turning to tax increases or short-term solutions, without addressing the root causes of the problem. In my view, those root causes include overspending and rapidly rising costs tied to special education and charter school tuition. If we want long-term financial stability, we cannot keep trimming branches. We need to address the root issues with transparency, accountability, and smarter decision-making.”
Allen said charter schools are a big issue with education funding.
While the number of students attending charter schools has not increased significantly, the number classified as requiring special education services has, Allen told Patch. He said that distinction matters because students classified with special needs cost districts substantially more to educate.
Charter schools operate differently from traditional public schools, and those classifications directly impact how much funding districts are required to send, Allen said.
“In my opinion, our district has also lacked consistent and effective advocacy at the state level when it comes to understanding and addressing how special education funding formulas and charter costs impact districts like ours,” Allen said.
Ferrandez said the school district is not looking at a $15 million deficit.
She offered several scenarios with the school budget:
She said the district’s business director is projecting a roughly $6 million deficit if the school board raises taxes 8.2 percent and cut no spending.
If taxes are raised by 4.2 percent and no spending is cut, the school district would have a deficit of over $11 million.
“The number $15 million got tossed around at a meeting because, in addition to making up the actual deficit, it would probably be a good business decision to also try to put something back into our fund balance savings.”