BASD begins to peel back budget layers

Dwindling revenue streams are discussed at first of three budget presentations to School Board

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Staff writer

With two new board members who ran on platforms of change to the status quo sworn in Monday night, the Burlington Area School District Board of Education launched right into the business of figuring out the challenge that is its budget for the 2012-13 school year.

The new board is largely the product of a contentious budget process for the current school year, but there was no indication Monday the new members had anything in mind other than getting up to speed on the administration’s proposal for next year.

Philip Ketterhagen and Roger Koldeway, were sworn in at a special organizational meeting and then were relatively quiet during BASD Assistant Superintendent Peter Smet’s budget presentation, the first of three explaining the budget process.

Monday night’s meeting dealt with the expected revenues the district will have for 2012-13. The next meeting, scheduled for May 7, will touch on non-wage and benefits expenditures.

The third meeting will be May 21 to address wages and benefits – a meeting that is likely to create even more fireworks, as both Ketterhagen and Koldeway have expressed disappointment that the district has not asked employees to pay more toward their benefits.

Smet, who will step into the superintendent’s post in July, has been preaching all winter that the new budget will have to be a balancing act between asking more from teachers and taxpayers to make up for a steep decline in state aid.

At Monday night’s meeting, Smet stressed that everything under consideration is in draft form with revisions expected.

“This is a starting point,” Smet said. “We do have assumptions built in here. It’s all adjustable. We can bring it back so it works for the School Board’s approval.”

He called the situation a multi-step math problem – with about 50-60 steps.

“The purpose of tonight is to try and make sure everyone on the board knows where we’re at with revenues,” he said.

The state aid number was highlighted in Monday’s revenue study session, and reflected what school district officials had been guessing since last fall – a cut in state aid of about $2.4 million.

That number is still only an estimate, as Smet stressed.

“If we knew that exact number, it would help us a lot,” Smet said, adding that the district is working on the assumption that since it lost 15 percent in state aid last year, that it would lose another 15 percent this year – the maximum the state can cut in a given school year.

The first official state aid estimate is due out July 1 – about two to three weeks after the board is expected to vote on the budget.

BASD is also a declining enrollment district, and expects to have a total membership – which doesn’t necessarily mean enrollment – of 3,324. In addition to having fewer students in the district, there are also 220 open enrollments out of the district.

The result is a hit in the state aid.

The next part of the revenue equation is the property tax levy. Smet put out three possible sets of numbers Monday night:

• A 17.62 percent tax levy increase would be the maximum Burlington Area School District could levy for the 2012-13 school year. Smet stated that this wasn’t a feasible option for a number of reasons, but wanted the number out there so people could see how much the district could levy if it chose to.

• A 6.13 percent tax levy increase, the minimum the district would increase in order to receive the $50 per pupil adjustment aid from the state.

• A 1.3 percent levy increase, which Smet called “as close to a zero percent levy increase” as the district could get. That increase would include no levy increase for Fund 39 (referendum approved debt).

In presenting the revenue limit worksheet to the board, Smet also pointed out an $800,252, one-time declining enrollment exemption.

The last major point of emphasis in Smet’s presentation – and the only part that required board action on Monday – was the student fees portion of the revenue.

According to the information Smet provided, student fees are expected to generate $14,140 more in 2012-13 – all because of a mandated increase in school lunch fees.

The district is required to raise school lunch fees because of Paid Lunch Equity and the Department of Agriculture free and reduced lunch programs. Currently, about 40 percent of the district’s students are on free and reduced lunch. If the district does not raise the lunch fees, it will be required to pay back money to the government.

School lunches will go up a nickel per day at all schools – from $2.25 to $2.30 at Karcher, BHS and Dyer, from $2.05 to $2.10 at the elementary schools, and from $3.30 to $3.35 for adult lunches.

The odd side effect is one of the other items discussed Monday night – at the BASD School Board building and grounds meeting. Because of the required hike in school lunch fees last year, the district ended up with a surplus in Fund 50 (food service). That surplus will go to fund a lunch van replacement plus renovations at Dyer School for the cafeteria and walk-in cooler.

Both of those items were approved by the board to move forward at the building and grounds meeting, with Ketterhagen the lone no vote on the renovations because the district chose to not bid out the process, instead going with known vendors.