Finally! School Board Talks Turkey (and Budget)

This past Wednesday night, the school board, possibly bowing to public [cough, cough] pressure, held a "work/study" meeting to discuss the status of the 2010-11 budget.

School District Budget Projections

• General Budget: $72,000,000 [ 4.8% increase over 2009-10- $68.65M]
• Enrollment Growth: 133 students [based on UW-APL estimate]
• State aid: 11% increase
• Property value growth: 1% [last year was 0.92%]
• Levy Increase: 8.6% = $48.05M [last year= $44.25M]
• Mill Rate Increase: 7.6% = $12.10/ $1,000 [last year was $11.24]
(That's an additional $0.86 per $1,000, or $215 on a $250K home)
• Below state revenue limits by at least $600,000

The budget is based on 9 Parameters:
1. Adherence to the "Mission Statement"
yada yada

2. Dedication to the district "Priorities"
more yada yada

3. Compliance with statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements
yada yada continues

4. Maintain existing district class size guidelines, including SAGE criteria for Bird and Westside; no "+/- 2" used for Creekside.
(Note: 9th grade will be moving from a 7 to 8 period day. This will require a 15% increase in staffing due to contract requirements.
We know. The day isn't any longer, but there are 15% (8÷7) more classes to teach. WTF!

5. Open the new high school and upper middle school safely, effectively, and efficiently
Secondary staffing plan Grades 6-12. Calls for hiring 22.2 new staff:
•Teachers: 11.1 FTE
•Support Staff: 9.3 FTE
•Admin. Support: 0.8 FTE
•Ass’t Principal: 1.0 FTE
Culver seemed to indicate that this was less than originally planned, but we were told $1.1M in new costs to open the new high school, and the district uses a figure of about $50K per FTE for budgeting. Funny thing: 22.2 X $50,000 equals $1.1M

6. Fulfill SPEA contract
Sheee-ah! like there was a choice!

7. Do NOT ask voters to exceed revenue limits.
This is big. That being said...sheee-ah!

8. Balanced budget; use fund balance to pay any tax charge-backs
Notified to date of about $110,000 in property tax charge-backs.
This from the folks that were screaming to never touch fund balance 6 months ago.

9. As small an increase in the local levy & mill rate as possible

The Budget Projections are based on 7 key assumptions
1. Budget was developed using the RW Baird forecast model

2. Use UWAPL data to predict enrollment of 133 more students

3. No changes in state law, DPI regulations, or district policies

4. No cuts in state equalized aid in the 2nd year of this biennium

5. 4K Grant is received (budget assumes $575,000 received)

6. Property Values Grow 1 %

7. The 2010-11 budget includes all the borrowing needed for the new HS, 8/9 school and the pool.
The borrowings were done at much lower interest rates than were used during the referendum saving $39.9 M in interest costs compared to what was originally projected


The district propaganda, meeting notes, and questions from the board to the district can be found here:
District Powerpoint overview of the budget

Meeting Notes

Follow-up questions from the school board