It may be just as well that almost nobody showed up for the North Pike School District’s budget hearing Monday night.
There was no budget to be seen yet.
The single member of the public who attended the hearing, Pike County District 3 supervisor candidate Robert Accardo, asked if officials had a copy of the proposed budget he could see.
District business manager Tina Griffin said it wasn’t available.
“Our numbers are not finalized yet,” Superintendent Dennis Penton said. “They’ll be ready when we adopt the budget next week.”
Prior to the hearing, the district advertised a proposed budget of $24,062,348 in revenue, an increase of more than $500,000 from this year.
Of that total, local tax revenue requested was $3,835,300, about $270,000 more than this year.
Millage for this year was projected at just more than 50 mills, an increase of about 2.5 mills over the previous year. Taxes will likely rise again this year with the larger request for local revenue.
School districts can request an increase of up to 4 percent over the previous year’s local tax income without holding a referendum. Districts may also request levies on new property, and enough growth can prevent tax rates from rising even if the district makes a larger revenue request.
City and county tax officials set millage for school districts that will bring in the requested amount, up to a state cap of 55 mills.
Debt service is exempt from the cap, and North Pike will have about 10 additional mills of debt service tax as it continues to pay off $11 million in bonds approved in 2017 to finance construction of a new upper elementary school, a new band hall and four-classroom addition at the high school and other projects around the district.
The school board is scheduled to adopt the budget Tuesday at 6 p.m. during the regular July meeting, which was moved from Thursday due to the July 4 holiday.
