| School board begins budget process |
By: Stephanie Hill
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Posted: Thursday, February 4, 2010 3:07 pm
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There are many unknowns as the Le Sueur-Henderson school district start the process for planning the 2010-11 budget.
During a presentation at the January 26 school board meeting Pat Goggin, the district business manager, presented a revised 2009-10 budget which will be the starting point for determining the 2010-11 budget.
The revised budget for 09-10 shows a decline in revenues, mostly in funding from the state, and a decline in expenses thanks to a lower interest rate in the debt service fund.
While it is early in the budgeting process, some assumptions have already been made.
“Once we start the process,” Goggin said to the board, “we start changing things.” Things like retirements, changes in health insurance premiums, etc. are some of the items that affect the budget.
Some of the assumptions made are a 1 percent increase in non-salaried items, a 5 percent increase in health insurance premiums, a small decrease in enrollment, a 3 percent salary increase in 2010-11 (there was a freeze in 09-10), and acceptance of deficit spending by the board.
Currently the LSH school district is looking at spending down $100,000 of their unreserved fund balance. This is due in part to the state of Minnesota reducing their funding to school districts.
In the best case scenario the district is looking at reducing $355,046 from the budget in 2010-11. That’s assuming a zero percent increase/decrease in funding. The worst case scenario is a reduction of $1 million from the budget. That is with a 10 percent decrease in funding.
Goggin said $160,000 in reductions have already been identified.
“We are not the only district going through this,” said superintendant David Johnson.
Other districts in the surrounding area are going to experience a delay in their payments from the state (see chart) after the Department of Education announced the state will be withholding payments from districts that have a $700 per pupil unit funding level. The Le Sueur-Henderson district is not affected and will receive their scheduled payments in March and April.
LSH is funded at $300 per pupil unit, one of the lowest in the state. The state average is $616 per pupil unit. Johnson said at the board meeting that he anticipated the district asking voters to approve a new operating levy once the bond is paid off at Park Elementary in February 2011.
The budget process continued on Feb. 1 when department heads presented their program reports to the school board. In the coming months public meetings will be held to discuss budget strategies which include discussion of a four day school week and options for Hilltop Elementary in Henderson. Some options up for discussion regarding Hilltop are not new discussions and include chartering and making Hilltop a grade 4-5 school. Meeting dates will be announced in this paper as they are made.
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