overview of planned expenditures in the 2026-27 budget<\/a>. He noted there were three “main drivers” of district spending, which involved wages, benefits and transportation.<\/p>\nWages represent 42% of EPSD’s total expenditures, while benefits constitute 30%, for a 72% total, Saul noted. When transportation and charter schools are added, that number jumps to more than 80%.<\/p>\n
“School districts are primarily driven by the human resources in the district,” he said.<\/p>\n
EPSD employees are expected to receive 3.81% wage increases in next year’s spending plan. Saul said the budget contains “no staffing expansions or reductions embedded in this proposal.”<\/p>\n
Health insurance costs have increased significantly and beyond typical amounts, the business administrator said. Over the last 12 years, rate increases for the district’s health care consortium averaged about 6.2%. This year’s rate increase is 17.75%.<\/p>\n
The 2026-27 preliminary budget indicates EPSD’s expenditures will exceed revenue by $2.1 million, which represents 1% of total expenditures, according to the presentation. Those figures, however, could change before the budget is adopted by June 30.<\/p>\n
EPSD’s 2025-26 budget implemented a 4% tax increase on property owners, which was the highest allowed by the Act 1 Index without referendum or special exceptions. The district’s 2024-25 spending plan contained a 4.12% tax increase \u2014 at the time, the largest hike in more than 10 years.<\/p>\n
EPSD has raised taxes nine times in the last 10 years.<\/p>\n
Technology stabilization fund<\/p>\n
Directors approved establishing a technology stabilization fund to guarantee money will be available to finance long-term capital investments in districtwide technology infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Money will be allocated to wireless and wired network systems, server and data center infrastructure, core switching and backup systems, network security and firewall systems, and related capital components.<\/p>\n
School counseling K-8 curriculum<\/p>\n
The board received a presentation about the district’s school counseling curriculum for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.<\/p>\n
The curriculum “is intentionally designed to develop the social and interpersonal skills that help students be successful academically and socially,” according to Jennifer Carolla, director of educational alternatives.<\/p>\n
The department was established to provide students with individual support, flexible programming and alternative learning environments.<\/p>\n
The curriculum will assist the district in producing graduates who display specific skills and attributes, Carolla said.<\/p>\n
“These are the competencies we value as a district and we expect graduates to demonstrate,” she said. “Things like communication, collaboration, problem-solving and resiliency. These skills are built intentionally over time, and our K-8 counseling curriculum is one of the ways we begin developing these competencies early.”<\/p>\n
Carolla added the curriculum provides explicit instruction in the social and interpersonal skills the district envisions starting in kindergarten.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMMAUS, Pa. \u2013 The East Penn School District Board of Directors received an update on the district’s future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,1416,52677,1417],"class_list":["post-121929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-east-penn-school-district","tag-east-penn-school-district-board-of-directors","tag-epsd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}