Agenda Watch: What the School Board Is Voting On July 20 — $2.38 Million More Spent Than Collected This Year

Ahead of the July 20 voting meeting, The Mifflin Report breaks down the numbers: a $2.38M deficit year, an insolvent food-service fund, construction scope creep, and the questions taxpayers deserve answers to.

Agenda Watch — On Monday, July 20, 2026, the nine-member Governor Mifflin School District Board of School Directors will hold its voting meeting at 7:00 PM. On the table: more than $14 million in monthly cash flow plus multi-million-dollar capital authorizations — all typically ratified in a handful of votes. Here is what the Board is being asked to approve, and the questions taxpayers deserve answers to. What the Board Is Voting On The Treasurer's Report for the period ending June 30, 2026 Construction-fund disbursements (Construction 2021 and 2025) totaling roughly $1.846 million General-fund bills of $8,337,119.05 and payroll of $4,386,572.61 — including a single $2,910,975.04 PSERS pension contribution Budget transfers closing out the 2025–2026 fiscal year The Saxton & Stump 2026–2027 legal services agreement Athletic coaching salaries for Fall 2026 Purchase of a used 2009 GMC Sierra from a district employee for $7,000 Ten construction change orders totaling roughly $35,114.87 on the MS/HS renovation The Headline Number: Spending $2.38 Million More Than Revenue Metric Amount FYTD Revenue $86,873,690.71 FYTD Expenditures $89,252,112.55 Ending Cash Balance $2,575,738 Ending Investment Balance $12,661,078.75 Expenditures are running $2.378 million ahead of revenue , with $49.75 million in real-estate tax collections bankrolling the gap. The district is deficit-spending out of reserves. A combined ending balance of roughly $15.24 million absorbed the overrun — a pattern that cannot be repeated indefinitely. Construction: Nearly Half the Cash to One Vendor June construction disbursements totaled $1,846,133.27 . Gordon H. Baver Inc. alone absorbed $887,062.37 — about 48% of all construction cash movement in a single month . With Burkey Corporation also billing $45,000/month as the owner's project manager, vendor concentration risk is high. The same agenda ratifies ten change orders averaging about $3,500 each — the classic fingerprint of scope creep on a fixed-price contract. Several appear to be design-coordination failures that the architect or engineer of record should arguably absorb, not the district. The Food-Service Fund: Quietly Insolvent Metric Amount FYTD Revenue $3,058,084.49 FYTD Expenditures $3,206,551.29 Unrestricted Net Position –$1,314,368.68 Equipment Spending (actual) $525,934.60 Equipment Spending (budget) $50,000.00 The food-service program is operating at a structural loss, carries a negative net position of –$1.31 million , and blew through its equipment budget by almost ten times the line item (+951.9%). This is the single most material anomaly in the entire packet — and the Treasurer's Report does not flag it. Legal Fees, Vendors, and Recurring Contracts Legal-fee escalation: The new Saxton & Stump terms raise associate rates by $15/hr and paralegal rates by $45/hr. Routine work is being routed to higher-cost staff with no budget-impact statement. First Student Inc. (transportation): two invoices totaling $796,228.71. Vantage Financial LLC: a single $421,407 payment in one month — large enough to warrant competitive sourcing. Raptor Emergency Management: $3,246.25 setup plus $13,475/year recurring , with no comparison against competing school-safety platforms shown in the agenda. Charter Tuition: The Largest Policy Drain Roughly $93,539 per month leaves the district in charter and cyber-school tuition, while summer-school tuition brings in less than $10,000 per month. This is the largest controllable spending outflow in the packet, and it compounds year over year. Four Questions the Board Should Ask Before Voting Yes When does the $2.4 million structural deficit close? Demand a multi-year projection. What corrective action does the administration propose for the insolvent food-service fund before the 2026–2027 budget is adopted? Where is the monthly change-order log with cumulative cost impact, and the vendor-diversification review of the construction pool? What is the plan to address charter-tuition leakage — the district's largest controllable outflow? The Board's job is not to rubber-stamp the Treasurer's Report. Its job is to convert these numbers into oversight questions — before the 2026–2027 budget is adopted, not after. Your money. Your school district. Demand transparency. Sources Public Meeting Agenda: July 20, 2026 at 7:00 PM — Voting Meeting (Governor Mifflin School District)