The West Shore School Board unanimously passed a proposed budget that will hit taxpayers in York County with a 4.6 percent property tax hike.

The $93.6 million budget, which will be finalized next month, calls for a 0.54-mill property tax increase for West Shore families living in the York County portion of the district.

The resulting 12.32-mill rate would represent an extra $81 in taxes for the owner of a home assessed at $150,000.

West Shore's property tax limit was 1.7 percent. Each school district is assigned a property tax cap based on inflation and other factors.

But West Shore got an exception from the state Department of Education to raise taxes above that amount.

The budget has been a contentious process this year because the district entered it with a $3.7 million deficit and board members considered a wide array of cost-saving ideas, such as consolidating the sports programs in the district's two high schools.

West Shore's sports teams will remain separate, though. The board shot down the idea earlier in the budget process and did not include it in the proposed budget.

"It's still Red Land. It's still Cedar Cliff," said spokesman Ryan Argot.

The budget includes all the cuts the board had previously told the district to pursue, such as cutting six librarians and the middle school world languages and high school Latin program.

As part of the budget, Mount Zion Elementary would close. The district recently built a new Hillside Elementary, which created space to take some students from Fairview Elementary, a third- fifth-grade building. That created space at Fairview, enough that Mount Zion, a feeder school for Fairview, could close and transfer all its students.

- Reach Andrew Shaw at 505-5431 or ashaw@yorkdispatch.com, or on Twitter @ydblogwork