BURTON SCHOOL BOARD EXPECTED TO ADOPT BUDGET/TAX RATE, MONDAY
The Burton School Board is expected to adopt the 2016-17 budget and taz rate when they meet, Monday night.
At their meeting on August 15th, the board set the proposed budget at $5,110,000—a 4-percent increase over the previous budget.
According to district officials, revenues to the district are expected to fall $259,000 short of the budget mainly do the drop in mineral values.
The shortfall in the budget is expected to be made up when the TEA adjusts their funding to the district to match the new enrollment which has risen to 440 students.
The proposed tax rate has been set at $1.182 per $100 valuation. That is up just over a penny from last year’s tax rate of $1.170.
A public meeting will be held Monday at 6:30 for comments on both the proposed budget and tax rate.
The board will also consider changes to the Supplemental Salary Schedule and changes to the Board Policy, concerning acceptable use.
The Burton School Board is set to meet at 6:30, Monday night at the District Administrative Office on North Railroad Street.
The M&O stays the same at $1.04. So the increase is to pay more on the Interest and Sinking debt from the bond of 2008. That was refinanced at a lower interest rate just recently, which would have lowered the cost of repayment.
However, the loss of mineral values means that each penny of taxes brings in less revenue than before. For example, one penny used to bring in about $35,000 in revenue. Because values are down, one penny brings in much less. So even though the district raised the tax rate, they will bring in less revenue.
Add to that an increase in spending in this years budget, and you have a deficit budget of over $200,000. The increased spending is to fund a 3% raise for teachers and administrators and some other staff. Some of the support staff got a 5% raise. The raises were the result of a “salary study” performed by an outside agency. Additional spending would be to pay for purchasing new buses. With the increased enrollment, the buses are needed for additional routes and to transport students to extra-curricular events.
School finance is very complicated. There are adjustments including small schools, Chapter 41 and federal funds. Most of the state funding is derived from student enrollment. However, the state uses enrollment figures that are a year behind. That gives the state time to verify enrollment averaged over the year. So in Burton’s case, with increasing enrollment of about 40 students each year, they will not get the money for those kids until NEXT year. Enrollment also affects Chapter 41 payments. Burton ISD will pay Chapter 41 based on 430 students. With 480 students, Burton ISD will get some of those funds returned over the summer. So, the district could very well end up getting enough “rebates” to balance the budget by year’s end.
With the past experience of Sheila Ripple building the budget AND monitoring the spending over the past several years, I would have high confidence that Burton ISD will be close to a balanced budget at the end of the school year. In addition, In the past decade, Mrs. Ripple has ended the school year with a surplus nine of those years. The Burton ISD is very lucky to have an experienced, capable and diligent employee in the Administration Office.