EXETER, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) — A local school district is trying to find solutions to long-term financial concerns they have within the district. While the school board says they're alright for now, one board member is taking a proactive approach to hopefully keep the district afloat.
The Wyoming Area School District has been dealing with some serious financial stressors the past few years, and those stressors are only growing. Between rising school taxes, a lack of state funding, and an increase in cyber-school admissions in the district, some members of the school board say they're concerned for the future.
135 students within the school district attend cyber charter school, something that costs the district more than $2,000,000 each year.
Board members say the number of students attending online schools has only grown since the pandemic.
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This shortage of tax revenue, combined with an increase in school taxes the last three years, and what School Board Vice President Peter Butera calls "an unfair funding formula" by the state, has him and many others in the community concerned for the district's future.
This led Butera to propose a committee be formed to explore the possibility of a merger between Wyoming Area and a neighboring district.
This proposition, though, was shot down.
"There's not any imminent danger of the school going bankrupt or going out of business, but it's just, we're in the same position with our budget every year where it feels like we're just treading water and we're just, basically, just trying to keep our head above water. It's just we're getting really, really killed by these cyber charter school costs and by the state funding formula," Butera stated.
While Butera's proposition was shot down by the school board, he says he will be doing his own research into the matter to see if the merger would make sense financially.
He says if it does, he will bring the matter back to the board for further discussion.
