WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The Whitehall-Coplay School District Board of Directors asked taxpayers for more money in their proposed final 2026-2027 budget Monday night at the education center. The vote was 8-1.<\/p>\n
The district will seek a 4.7% tax increase to address a roughly $6 million deficit in their $110.7 million spending plan. The proposed 4.7% tax hike is the highest amount Whitehall-Coplay can raise taxes per the Act 1 Index.<\/p>\n
Superintendent Christopher Schiffert said the district has serious financial difficulties and a tax hike alone won’t fix it.<\/p>\n
“We have reached a crossroads where our educational aspirations are being directly challenged by our fiscal reality,” Schiffert said. “The district is facing a significant budgetary shortfall.”<\/p>\n
Schiffert said the reason for the deteriorated fiscal situation is “complex” and “multifaceted.”<\/p>\n
“We are no longer have the luxury of making minor adjustments,” Schiffert said. “We must consider a significant organizational restructuring.”<\/p>\n
The restructuring includes “personnel reductions” impacting “many of our more recently hired staffs.”<\/p>\n
“Over the coming weeks my team will be finalizing a reorganization plan,” Schiffert said. “…We will plan to provide our reorganization plan in May at the May committee meetings.”<\/p>\n
“Unacceptable”<\/p>\n
During public comment, one resident said Whitehall-Coplay’s penchant for robust spending over the last five years was bound to produce this scenario.<\/p>\n
“I’ve asked for spending reductions along with eliminating wasteful spending,” resident Bruce Charles said. “Nothing has changed…A tax increase is unacceptable and may be unnecessary if action was taken and the hard decisions were made earlier.”<\/p>\n
Charles said during the last three fiscal years ranging from 2023-2024 through 2025-2026, Whitehall-Coplay received a 30% funding increase in state funding, citing figures provided by Pennsylvania Rep. Jeanne McNeill.<\/p>\n
Even with the additional Pennsylvania funding the district can’t make it work, he said.<\/p>\n
“The way we are going now is not sustainable,” Charles noted.<\/p>\n
The proposed property tax increase continues a district trend. The 2025-2026 spending plan included a 4.6% tax increase on Whitehall-Coplay property owners. The district’s 2024-2025 budget featured a 4.5%, tax increase, with the 2023-2024 spending plan containing a 2.59% tax hike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WHITEHALL TOWNSHIP, Pa. – The Whitehall-Coplay School District Board of Directors asked taxpayers for more money in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178574,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,121,120,20313,2494,79732,18524,17259,17057,16988,19581],"class_list":{"0":"post-178573","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-allentown","8":"tag-allentown","9":"tag-allentown-headlines","10":"tag-allentown-news","11":"tag-budget-deficit","12":"tag-layoffs","13":"tag-organizational-restructuring","14":"tag-property-tax","15":"tag-public-finance","16":"tag-school-board","17":"tag-tax-increase","18":"tag-whitehall-coplay-school-district"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178573","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=178573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}