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Two districts — Penn Manor and Pequea Valley — aren't raising property taxes at all for 2009-10, and tax hikes countywide average just 3.1 percent, the lowest average increases in at least three years.
But those relatively modest hikes come with a cost — in staff and program cuts, depleted fund balances and reductions in spending on everything from vehicles and computers to sports programs and textbooks.
And if state funding for education falls short of what many districts are counting on, schools may have to implement additional cuts that are likely to be more painful.
About half the county's 17 districts budgeted the full amount Gov. Ed Rendell proposed in his original $29 billion spending plan, which called for a 5 percent average increase in basic education subsidies for county schools.
But the Legislature is unwilling to support the tax increases the governor says are needed to balance the budget and fill a projected $3.2 billion shortfall in state revenue.
That makes full funding for education an unlikely scenario when a state budget is finally approved.
Also looming for districts is a projected five-fold increase in the money they must pay into the state employee retirement fund for teachers and administrators beginning in 2012-13.
Despite these fiscal challenges, school officials said they had an obligation to keep tax hikes as low as possible to help taxpayers riding out the rocky economy.
"What we heard (from the public) was it's time to tighten the belts a little bit, it's time to make do with what we have," said Bryant Ferris, president of the Pequea Valley school board.
"We decided to draw a line in the sand."
The district's no-tax-hike budget is the first ever in Ferris' five years on the board.
Pequea Valley was able to balance the budget by reducing contributions to its self-insurance program, eliminating three vacant staff positions and implementing other cuts.
Penn Manor avoided a tax hike by diverting $1.2 million from its fund balance into the general fund, eliminating a vacant teaching position and freezing building budgets at 2008-09 levels.
Other districts have made similar moves to cut costs and minimize tax increases.
Octorara eliminated two elementary teaching positions and coordinators for its bullying-prevention and volunteer programs.
The district also scrapped its indoor track program and instituted a $35 student fee for participating in sports or other extracurricular activities.
Ephrata will begin charging students for behind-the-wheel driving instruction in the fall, and several districts are delaying the purchase of new computers, maintenance vehicles and supplies.
Eastern Lancaster County School District is not replacing six retiring employees, and Lampeter-Strasburg is eliminating nontenured teaching positions and not replacing teachers on sabbatical to cut expenses by about $265,000.
In Warwick, officials plan to use about $3.5 million from the district's fund balance to recoup revenue losses caused by the economic downturn, business manager David Zerbe said.
The district is anticipating a $175,000 decline in investment income, a $200,000 drop in real estate transfer tax revenue and declines in property tax payments in 2009-10.
"If all those numbers are added up, that's half a million dollars," Zerbe said. "We have to come back and ask ourselves, 'How do we make that up; what do we trim?' "
To cut expenses, the district has frozen spending for textbooks, computers and other supplies at 2008-09 levels.
Warwick's budget includes no increase in state funding for 2009-10, despite the nearly $800,000 in additional money promised in Rendell's budget.
Five other districts have hedged their bets and included less funding than what Rendell proposed.
But the others have budgeted for the full amount.
If that money doesn't materialize, they may have to resort to drastic cost-cutting measures.
School District of Lancaster, for instance, could find itself about $6 million short of what it expects from the state, which provides nearly half of district revenue.
The impact would be "devastating," superintendent Pedro Rivera has said.
SDL would be forced to consider cutting back on its pre-kindergarten and middle school sports programs, eliminating school resource officers at its secondary schools and cutting up to 32 teachers and several administrators, guidance counselors and professional development coaches.
Despite the threat that such cuts may be needed, the board last week approved a budget that raises taxes by 3.52 percent — the lowest amount in six years — rejecting a proposed 4.45 percent hike.
"The financial side of myself and the business side clearly indicated we should have gone for a larger increase," board president Patrick Snyder said.
"But the reality of today, unfortunately, is that board members, including myself, could not go to the maximum level at this time, with people out of jobs and facing higher state taxes.
"It goes back to the economic times we're in," he said. "There is a limit to what we can tax."
E-mail: bwallace@lnpnews.com
