EF again delays final vote on ’26-’27 budget
Friday’s meeting was recessed until Monday evening at the middle school auditorium.
On Friday, in a continuation of Wednesday’s Elizabeth Forward school board meeting, directors again voted to recess and postpone a vote on the 2026-27 budget, which includes a tax increase.
The board unanimously voted to continue the meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday in the EF Middle School auditorium. Directors tried to approve the budget Friday, but a motion was voted down.
Daniel Novacek, Jamie Evans, Kenneth Honick, Travis Stoffer, and Thomas Sharkey Jr. all voted against the budget, which includes a 1.3893-mill property tax increase. Megan Ferraro and Rick Cummings Jr. voted in favor of the tax increase, while Scott Henry and Keith Balint were absent from the meeting.
The current millage is 28.3544, so the increase would make it 29.7437 mills or $29.74 per $1,000.00 of assessed value.
The deadline for school districts to adopt their final general fund budget is June 30. District Solicitor Megan Turnbull has previously stated that if the board does not meet that deadline, the state Department of Education may intervene and the district could face additional issues.
The budget proposal sets expenditures at $53,986,732 and estimates total revenues at $54,024,157. According to Director of Finance and Operations Al Ragan, the tax increase would bring around $1,103,000 of additional revenue.
Friday’s meeting only lasted 20 minutes and included a small recess for the board to discuss delaying the vote until next week.
At the beginning of the meeting, Evans read a statement from Cindy Dukic, a resident of the district and a member of the Elizabeth Forward Regional Republican Committee.
“Last meeting, I asked you to reject a budget that relied on another property tax increase,” Dukic wrote. “I appreciate the board listened to residents and voted no. Tonight I ask you to stand by that decision. If this revised budget still includes a tax increase, I respectfully urge you to vote no. I understand the district must adopt a budget by June 30, however, meeting that deadline should not mean approving a tax increase before every reasonable opportunity to reduce costs have been exhausted, particularly in administration.
“As a small district with declining enrollment, now around 2,300 students, does Elizabeth Forward still need the current level of administrative staff? Are there areas of duplication that could be streamlined? If those options have already been fully explored, the public deserves full transparency on what was evaluated, the project savings and why they were not pursued.”
Because Friday’s meeting was a continuation of Wednesday’s, public comment from residents was not allowed during the meeting.
At the beginning of the meeting, Superintendent Keith Konyk stated that district administrators met Thursday with representatives from the Elizabeth Forward Education Association to discuss a new contract.
Several members of the EFEA spoke at Wednesday’s meeting regarding ongoing negotiations.
“We had a five-hour session of working together, working with our own teams, and we just really appreciate their approach and how they’ve been super positive, and thinking about the district,” Konyk said.
EFEA president Erin Huwalt told the Mon Valley Independent that they’ll meet again with district officials on Tuesday and she hopes that will be their last bargaining session.
