Saddled with a budget deficit and stalled reimbursements from a state school expansion program, Mid Valley School District could use a cash infusion.

But district directors agree that money from the Keystone Sanitary Landfill is no cure for their financial ills.

“At the bottom line, I personally don’t want to be looking out my window and seeing something of that nature,” school director Mary Ruth Tanner said. “All the money in the world can’t buy health.”

Dunmore School District is set to receive $100,000 each year per a new agreement penned last week with Keystone.

Related: What you need to know about the planned expansion of Keystone Sanitary Landfill

Throop Borough, which hosts both the school district and most of the landfill, receives about $4 million annually from the landfill. Mid Valley, which serves students from Olyphant, Throop and Dickson City, gets nothing.

Last month, the Mid Valley board unanimously agreed to oppose a proposed expansion plan at Keystone, which sits less than a mile away from the district.

School board members plan to send a letter to the state Department of Environmental Protection should it approve Keystone’s application and open up the matter for public comment. They decided to wait until the public comment period to be sure their concerns reach the right hands, board Vice President Paul Macknosky said.

Part of their unity stems from the fact that Eddy Creek originates near the landfill and passes through district property. An accident upstream could potentially deliver toxins to the district’s doorstep via the stream they hope to use one day for science classes, Mr. Macknosky said.

Director Rick Barone said Keystone is a business and it should have the same freedom as any other as long as it stays within the law.

“It’s Mr. DeNaples’ land ... and in my opinion, he owes the school district nothing,” Mr. Barone said.

He noted landfill owner Louis DeNaples was generous to help pay for some of the elementary school expansion, including lights and storage.

School director Donna Dixon said considering Mid Valley’s annual operating budget climbs to around $22 million, “$100,000 to me is a drop in the bucket. That’s my opinion,” she said.

Directors Peter Kolcharno and John Bukowski said they stand with their fellow board members, even though the district is strapped for cash.

The state has not made a single payment toward the promised $2.7 million in cash reimbursements for the $15.9 million elementary school expansion, Mr. Macknosky said. Mid Valley should have received payments in excess of $700,000 by now, and Mr. Macknosky said their finances could be in the black if the money had arrived on time.

If the district received a cash infusion similar to Dunmore’s, they could set it aside for capital projects, or to pay the outstanding bond for the elementary school building improvements, school board President Gerald Luchansky said. His explanation was not to endorse the notion.

Ms. Dixon said she couldn’t entertain the thought of taking money from the landfill.

“I don’t think there’s a monetary value on this,” she said.

Mr. Macknosky reiterated her thought.

“This is not about us trying to get money,” he said. “No amount of money would offset the risks to the kids.”

School director Joanne Pesota likened running the district to running a business.

“We were all in agreement that this would be detrimental to the health and wellbeing of the students, the faculty and staff of Mid Valley, and we just feel it would not be a cost that we’re not willing (to pay),” Ms. Pesota said. “We’re just making good business decisions that are ethical.”

Contact the writer: joconnell@timesshamrock.com, @jon_oc on Twitter