WILLIAMSBURG — The Williamsburg Community School Board unanimously approved the budget for the 2025-26 school year, reflecting no increase on property taxes.

According to the meeting’s agenda, the 2025-26 general budget expects a revenue of $9,325,824 and expenditures of $9,908,680, resulting in a $582,852 deficit. From the previous school board meeting, there was a $6,798 increase in the deficit.

“The increase was a result of new higher salaries,” said Superintendent Lisa Murgas. “We hired people at a higher salary than we thought we would, so we had to reflect those new salaries in the budget.”

Murgas noted that two new positions will be added at Williamsburg: an elementary special education position and an additional secondary math position.

Business manager Kalie Zabrosky reported that, as a result of paying for a portion of the teachers’ salaries, Title 2 funding has decreased over the years.

Another reason for the increase in the deficit is due to the construction project to replace the roofing on district schools.

“We are replacing all of the roofs on both of our schools,” Murgas said. “Because of that project, the budget looks a bit skewed, but the money is there throughout the fund balance to be able to pay for that.”

According to Murgas, the school board plans to use Ready to Learn grant money for the deficit created by the teachers’ salaries and capital reserve funds for the construction project.

Despite the increased deficit, the millage rate will remain at 9.482.

“We like to try to take intermissions in raising the taxes all of the time,” Zabrosky said, “because it is a burden on our community. It is lost revenue, but a lot of the deficit is based on new expenditures that are short-term additions to the budget that will go away within a year or two.”

The last time the board approved of an Act 1 Index increase was for the 2023-24 school year, increasing the previous number by 0.4 mills.

“I don’t have a crystal ball to say when we will increase taxes, but we do everything we possibly can to not increase taxes, as we know people cannot afford to have increases on taxes,” Murgas said.

“We try to spend money judiciously and put it in places where we need it the most,” said school board President Barry England. “We try to do things frugally and as good of a job as we can.”

Mirror Staff Writer Colette Costlow is at 814-946-7414