School District Saves for Future

Over the last three years, Hatboro-Horsham’s annual budget grew by less than 1 percent each year, a rate about one-third less than the 2.9 percent annual inflation rate. 

District administrators attribute dozens of cost-cutting measures - including staffing reductions, debt service refinancing, energy savings and more than 75 renegotiated service agreements - as the catalysts for helping to shave what amounts to millions of dollars from school budgets beginning in 2009-2010 and continuing through 2011-2012.

Bob Reichert, the district’s director of business affairs, presented an overview of the cost-saving strategies during Monday night’s board meeting. Reichert said the effort began in the 2008-2009 school year as a way to “deal with the significant downturn in the economy.”

In most of the cost-cutting initiatives, the district will realize savings every year, based on a nine-page packet that Reichert highlighted. The largest of the annual cuts results from the closure of the Limekiln Learning Center building, which will net a $137,774 savings in the 2012-2013 budget and beyond. A district-wide energy policy, energy purchasing strategies, an energy audit and a natural gas purchasing agreement will save a combined $425,000 per year.

The challenge, Reichert said, is to make cuts without adversely affecting programs.

“In order to protect what they need and what’s important to the district we’re really going to need to think critically,” he told the board.

On the revenue enhancement side, increasing the tax collection rate will net $650,000 more annually.

Reichert, who is still working to balance the 2012-2013 budget, told Patch that the announced earlier this year has since been reduced. 

“It’s lower than that,” he said after Monday’s meeting. “I’ve yet to rerun all the numbers.”

Reichert said he would present a budget update during the board’s next meeting on April 16.