Two Centre County school districts have major building projects in the works — and plans to pay for them without significant tax increases or voter referendums.
The Bellefonte Area School District has already broken ground for its new $55 million elementary school.
Ken Bean, the district’s director of fiscal affairs, said they’re paying for most of the project by refinancing existing bonds. And they borrowed $15 million. That, combined with savings and earned interest, should mean little to no tax increase to pay for the project.
“The hope is it'll be just inside any normal annual tax increase and won't even be noticed as anything additional," Bean said.
Under Pennsylvania law, school districts can only raise taxes a certain amount set by a formula each year. If districts want bigger tax increases, they need to get voter approval or state permission. In 2014, the State College Area School District needed one of those votes to pay for the State High building project. Voters approved the referendum, giving the school district the authority to borrow $85 million toward the project and raise taxes to pay for it.
But this time, the district is getting ready to build a new Park Forest Middle School for an estimated $120 million without a referendum.
Finance and Operations Officer Randy Brown said the district has $70 million in capital reserves. The district will also be paying off some bonds in upcoming years, so money that had been going to those payments can now go to the building project.
“This is a project that we've been planning for for several years," Brown said. "While we were probably completing the high school project, and then taking on the elementary projects, we knew that this was one that would be out there, we would need to be working on."
Construction on that project is expected to start in December 2025.
