Waitsburg School Board Approves 2016-17 Budget

WAITSBURG – No one from the community spoke at the school district’s sparsely attended July 27 budget hearing, leaving it to the board to approve and adopt a $4.2 million budget for the 2016-17 school year.

At the same meeting the board authorized the district to run a revised capital improvements bond levy of $3.8 million on the Nov. 8 general election ballot.

Next year’s budget was based on a projected enrollment of 270 students in grades K-12. This is down from the 2015-16 projected enrollment of 279.75 and the 2014-15 projected enrollment of 291.39.

District superintendent Carol Clarke said that enrollment has continued to decline since she was hired in 2005 when the schools had an actual enrollment of 344 students. Clarke said the district started school last Sept. with an enrollment of 279.58 but lost 5.3 students to end the year with 274.28 students.

The budget includes $4,052,463 in projected revenues and funding, with $4,205,849 in expenditures, an anticipated $164,886 in expenditures over revenues. The overspending will drop the projected beginning General Fund balance of $575,679 (13.9% reserve ) to $410,793 (9.8% reserve) by the end of the 2016-17 school year. (I don’t understand what those percentages are.)

“Obviously, we can’t go on like this,” said Clarke, regarding the steadily declining General Fund. “If one more person decides to retire, we’ll be in trouble,” she added.

Board chair Ross Hamann expressed concern and said the board has historically based the budget on a very conservative enrollment projection.

“What worries me now is that we’re preparing a budget that’s not short, but where we think it’s really going to come in. We don’t have that built-in buffer. The other thing that makes me nervous is the fact that prudent practices require that you have money set aside for a rainy day fund. I’ve always been proud of the fact that our general fund balance would let us survive a couple of months and we could still make payroll. At this level, we’d be out in about a month and a half,” he said.

“We also pay our staff early in December so they have the money for the holidays and that comes out of the General Fund, even though it’s for short term. We’re a relatively poor district in that we don’t have the tax base infrastructure that some other districts enjoy,” he added.

Since 2006, Waitsburg’s General Fund balance has fluctuated between a high of 21.7% in 2014 to a low of 11.8% in 2012, with the majority of years between 16% and 18%. Clarke said the State Auditor’s Office generally considers a 15% reserve to be prudent.

“We’ve gotten fairly close to this before. We were at 11% one year, but this would put us below 10%,” Hamann said.

Clarke said that salaries and benefits are by far the largest expense at approximately $262,000 per month. Increased expenditures for the coming year include an increase in supplemental contracts for certificated staff, a 1.8% increase in salaries for all non-state and categorical funded staff, an increase in contracted services, increased athletic expenditures due to the addition of high school baseball and softball, and two retirement buyouts.

Additionally, $15,000 is earmarked for a required audit that the district must foot the bill for and $7,000 is set aside for special education administration – a duty Clarke has performed – in preparation for Clarke’s retirement in 2017.

The board also approved placing the $3.8 million capital projects bond on the Nov. 8 ballot. The bond is $1 million less than the previous attempt, which narrowly missed receiving the required 60-percent supermajority vote to pass.

The district dropped parking lot improvements and an all-weather track from the original bond package. If passed, the new bond will fund upgraded HVAC (heating, ventilating, and air conditioning) in the elementary, Preston Hall and WHS ($2.4-$2.9 million); a comprehensive remodel of the district kitchen ($660,000 - $940,000); and the construction of a field house at the athletic field ($510,000).