Union Public School District Business Administrator George Hedgepeth revealed the proposed $8.8 million budget Fiscal Year 2018 budget to the school board at their meeting on Friday evening. The district is expected to receive around $8.34 in total revenue this year, not including funds from 16th Section sources.
Seventy percent ($5,890,778.49) of the UPSD revenue will come from the state, 17 percent ($1,399,705.26) will come from local sources, including ad valorem taxes, daily lunch sales, activity funds and the Citizens Bank Debit Card program, 13 percent ($1,058,435.89) will come from federal funding and less than 1 percent will come from 16th Section sources.
The MAEP program was $40 million short this year but the state did start a school recognition program this year that is funded with $20 million. The school recognition program will reward teachers for their schools’ good performances and improvements on the state accountability grades.
Hedgepeth showed that the district’s total assessed valuation has steadily increased since the 2012-13 school year, going from around $17.75 million to an estimated $20.50 million this year.
Board President David LeBlanc said local revenue sources have become more important in the past two years as the state has suffered revenue shortfalls.
“The bottom line is the state has made it abundantly clear for the past 16 years that they’re going to move that burden to the local taxpayer,” LeBlanc said. “So, what that means is the local area has to have the tax base to support the services including the school.”
Unlike last year, the state legislature did not decrease funding for K-12 education but Board President David LeBlanc said it still results in a budget cut.
“The state also mandates that school districts increase teacher pay each year,” LeBlanc said. “If the income is the same and the outgoing increases then, where I come from, that’s a loss.”
LeBlanc said that the district has average 1,020 students on the first day for the past several years but the district will be funded on its average daily attendance which will be about 940 students. Based on the state’s Adequate Education Program each school district receives around $4,000 per student.
The total expenditures are projected to be $8,892,116 for the 2018 Fiscal year, with 54 percent ($4,782,015) going towards instruction, which includes teacher salaries, 40 percent ($3,518,842) going to support services, 6 percent ($501,695) going towards non-instructional services, less than 1 percent ($17,490) and less than 1 percent ($72,074) towards debt services.
This year’s expenditures will include a slight decrease in teacher salaries, dropping from $6.37 million in FY 2017 to $6.25 in FY 2018. The district has 125 full-time employees and two-part time employees.
The district will more than double expenditures for purchased services, which includes legal fees, insurance, travel costs, advertisement and repairs. Purchased services will increase from $445,197 in FY 2017 to $925,837 in FY 2018.
Hedgepeth said that most of the increase comes from legal fees for negotiating the district’s 3-mill note that it received last year and also auto insurance for two new school buses.
Utility expenditures will decrease slightly from $237,030 in FY 17 to $220,200 in FY 18, although Hedgepeth said that the water rate increase recently approved by the City of Union could change the final total.
The 3-mill note is also mostly responsible for the increase in the district’s supplies expenditures, which will increase from $299,852 to $485,459 this year.
The district’s expenditures on equipment will also increase from $209,637 to $444,949 mostly due to proposed plans to install security cameras and new doors on the three campuses.
The board is expected to approve the budget at its Aug. 14 meeting.
