CTC proposes 3.72% spending increase, Lebanon says district might withdraw

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Lebanon County Career & Technology Center administration proposes a $329,927 spending increase for the 2026-27 school year to $9.21 million in an outline presented Tuesday, March 18, to the county’s six school districts.

The CTC’s joint operating committee will vote on a final budget on April 21.

In the proposed budget, Lebanon County’s six districts would contribute $6.7 million in tuition fees out of the $9.21 million overall budget, business administrator Tina Geyer said in a presentation to the JOC. The spending increase is 3.72% over the 2025-26 school year budget, below the county’s average tax-increase index of 4.55%, she said.

The districts’ contributions would increase by $198,000 under the proposal, Geyer said. That leaves the remaining increase of approximately $231,000 to be covered by the state. Gov. Shapiro’s 2026-27 budget proposal includes a $4.1 million increase in schools-to-work education funding to $7 million, according to the state website.

Staff and employee salaries and benefits account for about 80% of the CTC’s proposal, “basically out of our control,” Geyer said. Another problem is costs are “way up” for insurance policies, utilities, building repair, and maintenance, she added.

Meanwhile, the JOC delayed a vote to April to approve an update to the CTC’s articles of agreement. The articles formally set the contractual relationship between the CTC and the school districts and were last updated in 1996, according to administrative director Charles Benton.

A key sticking point is the method the CTC employs to determine the portions of the school’s budget paid annually by each district and how that would determine each district’s contribution to a new CTC building or renovation of the existing complex. The JOC has reviewing four concept plans by Beers + Hoffman Architecture of Lancaster, with cost estimates ranging from $84.64 million to $123.26 million.

Construction on the current building began in 1966 and opened for students in 1968.

The Lebanon school board opposes use of a 50/50 funding split, which would determine each district’s contribution by taking a combination of average daily membership of students enrolled from each district (ADM) and State Tax Equalization Board (STEB) numbers for a district’s property tax values. The three options available to the JOC are STEB, ADM – which is currently used – and a 50/50 combination of the two.

Reading a statement by the city school board, Suzan Gillman, who substituted at the meeting for the district’s representative, board president Robert Okonak, said a “significant gap” between Lebanon’s percentage for ADM and market valuation makes a 50/50 funding split unfeasible.

“As a board, we support utilizing a market value model, or STEB, for financing capital expenditures,” Gillman said. “We respectfully ask that our neighboring boards consider this request as our district could be placed in the difficult position of having to consider withdrawal from the CTC if we were unable to afford a project of this magnitude.”

But the Eastern Lebanon County district feels confident about 50/50 funding for the school building, said ELCO representative Jean Pierre Santos.

“Right now, we’re the only district that doesn’t have adequacy funding,” he said. “We’re only receiving $50,000 out of the state. That’s not to say anything negative to any of the other districts. We’re grateful that the state is helping you guys out but everybody has to look for the benefits of their districts.”

The levels of state and federal support received across the county’s school districts should be a key factor in evaluating financing options for the building construction or renovation, said JOC president Ruth Ann Schlegel, Cornwall-Lebanon board representative.

“We also want to be also mindful of our taxpayers,” Schlegel said. “Cornwall-Lebanon’s preference would be for the articles to be written using the ADM option, but we are in agreement if we can get the votes to go with the STEB-ADM (50/50) model.”

It takes just one of the six districts to vote against the articles to sink the agreement. JOC members discussed the potential to lower the cost of the building’s renovation or replacement by soliciting new estimates from other architectural firms.

But even if the JOC could get Beers + Hoffman’s help to reduce the plan’s scope and lower the cost of the $100.58 million option to $85 million, the delay in finalizing plans will result in the price increasing back up to $100 million in a year, Santos said.

Northern Lebanon School District superintendent Gary Messinger, who serves as the CTC superintendent of record, suggested taking a “blank slate” from architects to find lower-cost construction alternatives, such as using block walls instead of a steel structure.

“I think the solution’s out there to make this happen,” Messinger said.

In other news:

• Health careers technology student Madison Mootz, senior at Annville-Cleona High School, and culinary arts student Jordan Weierbach, senior at Cedar Crest High School, are March Rotary students-of-the-month.
• Certified executive chef Sam Brod, class of 2004 CTC culinary alumnus, served as supervisory guest chef for the Milano Cortina Olympic Games 2026.