The Carlisle Local School board approved $413,000 in budget cuts and the necessity to ask for a 5-year emergency tax levy on Monday night.

By a unanimous 4-0 vote, the board approved a financial reduction and adjustment plan, which included: the elimination of a bus route to the Montgomery County Career Tech Center effective Jan. 23, 2013; an increase in pay-to-play fees of $100 per student per sport for the 2013-14 school year; the elimination of high school busing for 2013-14; a reduction in the purchased service contract to the Warren County Education Service Center for 2013-14; and the elimination of three secondary teaching positions for 2013-14.

The busing cuts are estimated to save the district $60,000.

“It’ll cut our hours back and possibly layoff some drivers,” said Amanda Maring, a bus driver from Carlisle. “That’s not good at all.” Maring guessed that there were 14 drivers on staff now. She estimates the cuts in service would likely cost 3-4 drivers their jobs.

The elimination of three teaching positions will save the district an estimated $273,000.

Pay-to-pay fees, which will increase 100 percent from $50 this school year, are expected to earn the district $20,000.

“I don’t think it will have an effect on most student-athletes. But the ones who play more than one sport in a season, those are the ones it will affect. And for a small school like Carlisle, we need as many student-athletes as we can get,” said Mark Townsley, Carlisle’s athletic director.

Townsley said that he had been told the pay-to-play fee increases for next school year would be taken off the board if the levy should pass next May.

The $413,000 in savings would not solve the district’s fiscal woes past the 2013-14 school year.

In order to stay financially stable beyond next school year, Carlisle superintendent Larry Hook asked the board to consider placing a 5-year, 5.9-mill levy on the ballot in May. That amount would raise $993,222 per year and would cost the owner of a $100,000 home $180.69 per year.

The board, minus board president William Jewell who was absent due to a family emergency, also passed the levy resolution by a 4-0 vote.

“But sadly, if this levy passes, we won’t start to see that money until January 2014,” Hook said. “With the recent levy failure, that cost the district $812,000 in tax money. That’s why we had to go to a higher millage rate this time.”

Hook gave a presentation that showed what would happen if a tax levy were not passed in May. Based on figures as of Oct. 22, 2012, Carlisle’s five-year forecast — including the $413,000 in cuts that were made on Monday — would be solvent through the 2013-14 school year by roughly $287,000. But from that year on, the district would rapidly fall into debt. They’d be $160,260 in debt after the 2014-15 school year, and as much as $2.7 million in the hole by 2017.

“We’re at a point where any reductions we make will be really damaging now,” Hook said. “This is not a pleasant looking forecast, and we need to pass a levy to make the situation better.”