$740K Budget Gap Faces Salisbury School Board

The Salisbury Board of School Directors will meet on May 1 to discuss ways to close a $740,000 gap in the 2013-14 school budget.

School directors passed a preliminary $31.7 million budget for the 2013-14 school year in February.

Salisbury Township School District Business Administrator Robert Bruchak said Wednesday night that he's confident the directors will whittle the gap down.

"I'm hearing positive things on the budget," he said. "We'll improve on that number. Some of it could come out of the fund balance. We have options and we'll look at all of those options."

Bruchak told the board Wednesday night that some budgetary items he's looking at for savings are fuel bid results, bargaining unit contract details, an RFP for office machine leases and, of course, the state budget.

"We'll probably be finished with our budget before the state budget is done," he told school directors.

The board must close the entire $740,000 gap in order to produce a budget with no tax increase, Bruchak said.

"We're still looking at retirements, some of which are still coming in. A 2.99 percent [tax] increase is the most we can take," he said. "I can't speak for the board, but it will probably come in somewhere between zero and 2.99 percent."

Last year, directors implemented a 4 percent tax increase in the 2012-13 budget.