Local levy revenues down by more than 14%
By Holly Neumann
The Clintonville School Board approved a proposed 2019-20 budget during its Sept. 23 meeting.
In the General Fund, total local revenues are down 14.37%, from $5.3 million during the 2018-19 school year to $4.54 million this year.
“This is a huge transition,” said Holly Burr, the district’s business manager. “Half of that has to do with the TID District that was closed last year. That bumped last year’s revenues up more than normal, so that is skewing these numbers.”
The other impact is the revenue limit imposed by the state calculations.
“As you are aware, we can only take in up to a certain limit between taxing authority and state aid,” said Burr. “Even though our state aid went down, our revenue limit also went down, because our enrollment went down.”
State revenues are also down 3.28%, from $11.16 million last year to $10.8 million.
“We are at the low spending limit,” Burr said. “This means we actually spend less than the state average on our students, but we are at that limit going into this year. Despite the bad news with all of this, we are still doing an incredible job.”
“We do far more with much less,” District Administrator David Dyb said.
The district will also see a loss in grant revenue, with a large chunk of that from the safety grant last year.
“To go along with that is the loss of high poverty aid, an additional equalization aid, that we missed this year because our poverty level slipped just below the 50 percent mark,” said Burr. “This means we lost about $100,000 this year and next year.”
School expenses
On the expense side the district is seeing a 2.69% increase in overall salaries and benefits.
“This is very conservative,” Burr said. “I think we did very well here keeping this number down.”
The overall operational budget has less than a 1% increase, keeping it as close to last year as possible.
For the current year, the district is looking at a net fund balance with an operational negative of $816,904, starting the year at $5,7 million.
Approved fund balance purchases include post-employment benefits in the amount of $138,037, capital purchases for $141,000 and real property purchases in the amount of $437,500.
There will be a $4.2 million fund balance, which is about 25% of the district’s operational funds.
“Despite that this feels like a setback, we are right in line,” Burr said. “We are still in a very good financial position.”
The tax rate would be set at $10.75 per $1,000 of evaluation.
The board unanimously approved the proposed budget and levy as presented.
Enrollment trends are the single biggest factor impacting the district’s financing.
Over the past 10 years, the district has seen a downward trend.
According to Dyb, statewide data shows two-thirds to three-fourths of the districts have declining enrollment.
Burr said a large number of schools are starting feeder programs for their districts.
“Once we’re getting them in here, they’re staying,” Burr said. “But we’re having a problem getting them into school. This is something we need to talk about with the city or future plans.”
Some of the programs other districts are trying are Head Start, 3K, Early Childhood and school-run daycare facilities to get children in the building.
“Last year, 55 students in 4K. This year we went to 79, with 13 kids going elsewhere,” said Dyb. “I would attribute that to where the parents work and lack of licensed daycare in the area.”
Strategies to increase enrollment will be discussed at future meetings.