While some school districts have approved 2025-26 funding for Butler County Area Vocational-Technical School without any issues, Knoch may prove to be a thorn in the organization’s side.

Knoch School District’s board voted 5-2 against approving Butler County vo-tech’s funding for the 2025-26 academic year on Wednesday, Feb. 12. The vote occurred following a presentation on the budget from vo-tech executive director Regina Hiler.

Reasons for voting against the proposed budget circled around “fiscal responsibility,” and disapproval of a larger than desired increase from 2024-25.

Vo-tech, which serves seven school districts in Butler County, is proposing a 2025-26 total operating budget of $7,253,631. This would be a 7.59% increase from the previous school year.

For the individual schools, the proposal has Knoch providing $699,119, an increase of about $60,000 from last year.

The other school districts are Butler, Karns City, Mars, Moniteau, Seneca Valley and Slippery Rock. Changes in spending per school from year to year range from Slippery Rock having to pay around $3,000 less, to Butler having to pay $164,000 more.

What school districts spend depends largely on the average number of students a district has sent to vo-tech over the previous three years. It also depends on “assessed property value, and instructional time and membership reports,” as well as “PA secondary career and technical education subsidy allocation,” according to Hiler.

There are currently a total of 1,090 students enrolled at vo-tech.

At Knoch’s meeting, several board members took issue with the overall spending increases, particularly Justin Kovach and board president Donna Eakin. Kovach said during the board meeting the proposed budget increased by more than what the district would normally anticipate, and he had to struggle to vote for it.

“What I see here — and I’m not involved with their board, I’m not up there every day, and I love what the vo-tech does, I love what our students can do there — but what I see here is borderline, if not, fiscally irresponsible,” Kovach said.

According to budget documents, “total vocational education programs” sees a proposed increase of around $392,000, with a large portion of that going to employee benefits.

In a summary of the numbers in the budget documents, 39.77% of the 2025-26 budget would go toward salaries, down from 42.12%. Meanwhile, employee benefits would make up 36.79% of the budget, up from 34.38%.

“I’ll be voting no on this because I strongly believe we need to be more careful with students’ money,” Eakin said.

Eakin went as far as to suggest that vo-tech needs new leadership.

Board member Patti Larrimer emphasized that, while she voted against the original contract due to the salaries increasing to what they are now and the amount going toward teachers’ health care benefits, she would vote to approve the budget because she didn’t want to see programs cut at a place where Knoch students have success.

“Our students do very well there. So it’s really hard. Yes, they did some fiscally irresponsible things, as Justin said. They didn’t think about the long-term effects with that contract, but I don’t know what our options are. Because I’d hate to see the vo-tech go away,” she said.

Hiler wrote in an email that if a budget were voted down by the schools, “adjustments would need to be made to the proposed budget and would be provided to the districts again.”

In the past two weeks, Butler, Karns City and Mars Area school districts have unanimously approved vo-tech funding for 2025-26. Other school districts won’t vote on the budget until later in February or March.

In past years, the budget has seen little to no opposition, with the boards of all school districts approving.

For vo-tech’s budget, five of the seven districts need to approve it, along with a majority of the individual school board members. The individual board members will mail in their filled out ballots approving or disapproving of the budget.

Hiler said at the board presentation there are four years left on the current teachers’ contract. Eakin, along with the other no votes, has taken issue with details of the current contract, such as rising health care payments.

Hiler also expressed confidence that the 2025-26 budget will, in fact, be approved by the school boards of Butler County. She praised the culture at the vo-tech, saying career and technical education programs allow students to gain high-level skills that help them pursue high-wage careers, and students can apply learned skills to the real world. Due to these reasons, with “the excellence that Butler County AVTS provides for our students,” she expects the budget to get passed.

“A more direct response is: Yes, I expect, am hopeful and am thankful (in advance) for the proposed budget to be approved with almost unanimous support from our districts,” Hiler said in an email statement.