Hatboro-Horsham School Board Approves 2025-2026 Final Operating Budget:
The Hatboro-Horsham School Board approved the 2025-2026 School Year Final Budget at its June 16, 2025 Legislative Action meeting, a spending plan that will continue to help the district provide high-quality education programs at a reasonable cost to the community.
Like most years since the inception of Act 1, balancing the budget within the Act 1 index has been very challenging. District officials had to determine how to craft the budget to maintain programming that was started with federal pandemic relief funds that have now expired. These challenges exacerbate existing annual concerns with budget development, including contractual salary increases, rising costs to educate students with special needs, and state-mandated increases in retirement contributions and charter school tuition. With support from the School Board coupled with a commitment to prioritize needs, effectively reallocate existing resources, and a consistent effort from the Administration and staff to implement strategies that improve efficiency and reduce costs, the Final Budget enhances our educational programs, increases wages for our outstanding administrators, professionals, and support staff, improves services to our students, parents and the community, and provides resources necessary to maintain and improve our facilities.
Since the inception of Act 1 in 2007, the Board of School Directors has balanced the budget within the limits of the base Act 1 Index without seeking exceptions. Over the past 18 years, the average annual tax increase has been limited to 2.39%, which is below the average base index of 2.87%. This year, under the terms of Act 1, all school districts were required to keep their real estate tax increases at or below the state index of 5.3%. Through continued conservative fiscal management, Hatboro-Horsham was able to keep its proposed real estate tax increase at 3.52%. This tax increase represents the furthest below the Act 1 limit in the District’s history.
The Final 2024-2025 spending plan totals $132,011,340, an increase of $5,275,476 (4.2%) from last year’s budget. To balance the Final Budget, the School Board agreed to raise the millage rate from 32.65 to 33.80. The School Board directed the Administration to utilize $6.38 million of reserve funds to balance the budget. The new millage rate will mean that a home assessed at the median assessed value in the District will see an increase of $110.83 on their real estate tax bill.
The School Board also approved the continuation of the District’s property tax rebate program, reducing the tax bill for qualifying citizens between $190 and $500. When coupled with the state property tax rebate program and the homestead/farmstead credit, residents could see a total reduction to their tax bill between $1,018 and $1,948.
Prior Years Budget Documents: