HEMPFIELD AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT REPORTS BUDGET DEFICIT

The Hempfield Area School District is reporting a budget deficit of more than five-million-dollars.  Superintendent Mark Holtzman says “growing retirement payments and transportation increases,” as well as the rising number of students leaving for charter schools have been factors.  Expenditures for next year are more than seven-million-dollars higher than the current year, according to the business manager’s report.  Holtzman and other officials are hesitant about tapping into the district’s near 18-million-dollar “fund balance,” saying the current “fund balance is healthy, but it can get eaten away over time.”