LOWER MERION \u2013 The Lower Merion School District Board of School Directors approved a 3.5% tax increase for the upcoming 2026-2027 school year.<\/p>\n
The 3.5% tax increase is in line with the state\u2019s Act 1, which limits Lower Merion to a 3.5% increase. In January, the school board approved a resolution promising not to raise taxes above 3.5%, a threshold that would require a public referendum.<\/p>\n
Victor Orlando, chief financial officer for Lower Merion, outlined the budget during the board\u2019s business meeting earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Orlando said Lower Merion, like many school districts, is facing challenges due to rising expenditures and declining revenue, but it continues to plan for its near- and long-term goals.<\/p>\n
The budget, which was approved by the school board at its June meeting, increased the millage rate from 35.2674 to 36.5017.<\/p>\n
One mill equates to $1 for every $1,000 of a property\u2019s assessed value.<\/p>\n
A property with a median household assessment of $250,684 will have an increase of $309 from $8,841 to $9,150. The median household assessment was provided by the Montgomery County Board of Assessments.<\/p>\n
According to Orlando, 84% of the school district\u2019s revenue comes from local sources, primarily property taxes. About 15% comes from the state, and less than 1% comes from the federal government.<\/p>\n
In the upcoming 2026-2027 school year budget, the district anticipates collecting $277.4 million in real estate taxes. That figure is up from the $264.2 million in the 2025-2026 school year budget.<\/p>\n
Other major sources of revenue for the district in the upcoming budget include $4.1 million in interest income and $4.9 million in real estate transfer taxes.<\/p>\n
In total, the district anticipates collecting $294.1 million in revenue, an increase from $281.2 million in the current year\u2019s budget.<\/p>\n
The state funding for the upcoming school year budget is anticipated to be slightly over $53 million, an increase from the current year\u2019s budget of just under $53 million.<\/p>\n
Since the state budget has not yet been approved, Orlando said the state figures the district is using are based on the governor\u2019s February proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t know when the (state) budget will be approved. By law it\u2019s supposed to be June 30, but as what happened this year, it wasn\u2019t approved until November,\u201d Orlando said.<\/p>\n
The school district has budgeted $1.9 million in federal revenue.<\/p>\n
On the expenditure side, 77% of the district\u2019s spending goes to salaries and benefits, while the remaining 23% goes to other expenses.<\/p>\n
The district\u2019s budgeted just under $350 million in spending for the upcoming school year. $160.1 million of that spending goes towards salaries, and $106.7 million is for benefits. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re a very labor-driven industry, and as in the past, it\u2019s always been in that 70 to 80 percent range, so it\u2019ll be 77 percent for the upcoming year,\u201d Orlando said about the salaries and benefit expenditures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWER MERION \u2013 The Lower Merion School District Board of School Directors approved a 3.5% tax increase for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[182,183,185,184,186,200,139,28,199],"class_list":["post-229501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-montgomery-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-top-stories-mlt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229501","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=229501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}