BURTON SCHOOL BOARD ADOPTS BUDGET & TAX RATE, APPROVES $500 INSURANCE SUPPLEMENT FOR EMPLOYEES

  

The Burton School Board on Wednesday adopted a balanced budget and set the tax rate for the new school year.

The budget comes out to $14,905,972, a reduction of 2.42 percent from the 2023-24 actual budget of $15,276,098.  The new budget consists of $11,684,832 in general fund appropriations, $421,200 in food service and $2,799,940 in debt service.

The tax rate is $0.9455 per $100 valuation, made up of $0.7355 for maintenance and operations (M&O) and $0.2100 for interest and sinking (I&S) to make debt payments on bonds.  The tax rate is higher than the previous $0.9380 per $100; while the new M&O rate is lower than last year’s $0.7380, the I&S portion is more than the $0.2000 used last year. 

Adoption of the budget and tax rate followed a public hearing that had no comments from citizens.

Click here to view the adopted budget.

Click here to view a hearing notice detailing the new tax rate.

In other business, trustees agreed to give a $500 insurance supplement to all Burton ISD employees.  Superintendent Vikki Curry said only teachers are receiving a step increase this year, so many employees would go home with less money if the district did not provide some form of increase to them.

The supplement will be provided to employees regardless of if they take the district’s insurance or not.  Business Manager Caitlyn Blakey-Staal said this decision was made because whatever form of insurance an employee takes, they are most likely seeing an increase. 

Also on Wednesday, the board approved a resolution authorizing the superintendent to not pay invoices to DSA Inc., the former construction-manager agent for the bond project. 

The resolution reads that the district has received invoices from DSA that the company claims are past due, but there is a dispute between the two parties about the goods delivered or services performed.  Curry said she was advised by an attorney not to pay the invoices, since the district feels the firm is asking to be paid for work that was not completed. 

The board also approved budget amendments to close out the 2023-24 year.  In addition, it approved 26 contract bids for the bond construction project.  A representative with Burton ISD’s current construction manager-agent, Weaver & Jacobs, said the firm found upon starting that there were several project scopes not properly contracted out, so it had to republish and readvertise for bids.