EXETER — The vice president of the Board of Education announced at a committee meeting Tuesday that he wanted to explore merging Wyoming Area with a neighboring school district.
While he cautioned there were no concrete merger plans in place, Peter Butera, the vice president, said he felt the drastic step should be put under consideration. Butera said he would motion to establish a committee to investigate the prospects of a merger at next week’s school board meeting.
“I just wanted to let the board know in advance that next week I plan on making a motion…to form a committee to explore the possibility of merging with an adjacent school district,” Butera said at the meeting, which was held at a Wyoming Area Secondary Center auditorium. “I just wanted to make the board aware of that in advance.”
Butera said after the meeting that he had previously heard people discuss the prospects of a merger and thought it was time for the school board to formally deliberate over the district’s future. Concerns about the economic state of the district had led him to his conclusion that a merger needed to be explored.
“It’s mainly financial,” Butera said.
Wyoming Area’s finances have recently seemed precarious and have been exacting a heavier and heavier toll on taxpayers. The district’s proposed 2025-26 school year budget would hike property taxes 5.5% for Wyoming Area homeowners in Luzerne County to a rate of $21.0533 per $1,000 of assessed value; and 5% for Wyoming Area homeowners in Wyoming County to $110.7973 per $1,000.
These proposed increases would follow 6.5% and 9.4% tax hikes in Luzerne and Wyoming counties last year, respectively; and 5.5% and 5.2% hikes the year before that – or 18.5% and 21.5% hikes in Luzerne and Wyoming counties, respectively, over three years. And all the while, the district is still running a deficit this year of $368,259 to be covered by the district’s fund balance.
The tax hikes last year led to widespread discontent in Wyoming Area, with more than 100 residents coming to speak at the final budget hearing and the board adopting the budget with a narrow 5-4 vote. Butera was among the majority voting in favor of the budget.
Butera noted that the Wyoming Area tax base had diminished in recent years. He said the depreciation was in large part due to a flood that had inundated West Pittston, leading to mass condemnations and the literal erosion of ratable properties.
Tropical Storm Lee overwhelmed the Susquehanna River in 2011, causing it to crest at about 42 feet, 8 inches, flooding much of West Pittston and requiring a Pennsylvania Army National Guard response. The Federal Emergency Management Agency purchased and demolished about two dozen homes in West Pittston and no new construction is allowed on those flood plain properties.
According to assessments found in its posted budgets, the Wyoming Area ratable base has depreciated $50.2 million, or 4.9%, since the 2010-11 school year, before the flood.
“That really affected our district, because those were a bunch of properties that we got taxes on that we no longer get taxes on,” Butera said. “It creates an issue. When your property values are going down, your tax rate is going up…”
Butera added that rapidly rising cyber-school costs had become increasingly cumbersome for the district. He said annual payments the district made to cyber charters, which are privately operated but publicly funded virtual schools, had risen substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic, with it now approaching $3 million or around 6% of the district budget.
“It’s a lot, in my opinion,” Butera said.
Wyoming Area is not alone in Northeastern Pennsylvania in questioning its future as a school district. Northwest Superintendent Joseph Long has previously warned that his school district was in such severe financial straits, that the commonwealth may require it to merge with another school system or put it under direct state control.
And many schools across the commonwealth have raised the alarm about the unsustainable costs of cyber charters, with districts throughout both Northeastern Pennsylvania and the entire state airing their grievances about them during this budget season. A 2025 survey from the Pennsylvania School Board Association found 73% of school districts across the commonwealth consider charter-school tuition to be among its top “budget pressures,” making it the most widely agreed upon budget pressure in the survey. (The General Assembly passed a law amending the cyber-charter funding formula last year, but Gov. Josh Shapiro is still calling for further reform.)
Butera said he was aware that other districts found themselves facing similar struggles as Wyoming Area.
“I would say it’s not unique to us. If I were somewhere else (that were in a similar position) I would probably recommend it as well, I don’t think this is the only district that I would say needs this,” Butera said. “I think we’re fighting the same challenges as a lot of districts in the state.”
Butera said he did not know whether his idea for a committee had support among the rest of the school board. He said that he hoped to talk about the district’s situation in more depth at the next meeting.
The school board is next scheduled to meet 7 p.m. June 24 in Wyoming Area Secondary Center.