Manheim Township school board Thursday agreed to limit any tax increase in next year’s budget to 1.7 percent and approved a five-year contract with superintendent Gene Freeman.
The employment agreement, which runs through June 2018, will pay Freeman in excess of $1 million in salary and compensation over five years, making him the highest-paid superintendent in Lancaster County.
The vote on Freeman’s contract was unanimous, as was the vote to keep a possible tax rate increase for 2013-14 at or below the school district’s Act 1 index of 1.7 percent.
That vote marks a return to form for the district, which had stayed within its state-mandated index every year since 2006 until 2011-12, when it boosted taxes by 3.96 percent in the face of a revenue shortfall of about $4.7 million.