By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
There was good news and bad news for the Sitka School Board Wednesday night as members looked at the first round of revisions to the budget for the current school year.
The bad news reported by Superintendent Mary Wegner and district business manager Cassee Olin was that revenue is $301,575 less than projected in the $22,154,084 budget. A major reason was a greater-than-expected decline in district enrollment, causing $244,276 less in per-student funding from the state.
The good news was that lower expenses in some categories and additional money from the state will allow the district to continue all programs through the end of the year by making an additional transfer from reserves.
Olin and Wegner said total end-of-the-year revenues are anticipated at $19,723,561 before transfers, while total expenditures are expected to end the year at $20,439,266, or $163,990 lower than the original budget.
The officials recommended that $137,585 needed to cover the budget gap be taken from the operating fund balance.
The primary source of revenue from the state is the base student allocation (BSA) from the school foundation program. Sitka will receive $244,276 less than budgeted because the October 2018 count showed enrollment of 1,207.17 students, 36.83 fewer than the number projected in the budget. The actual decrease in students from the last school year was 48.83.
“We made it up by the legislature issuing one-time funding to the school district,” Olin said, “which was in June after our budget was already adopted. So we received an increase that was based off of that enrollment of 1,207. So we get additional money on top of that.”
The Alaska Legislature issued a one-time funding to school districts at the end of the 2018 legislative session, providing an additional $187,111 for Sitka.
Sitka schools received $258,859 in Secure Rural Schools funds in June, which was placed in district fund balance. The school board did not receive this impact funding for the current budget, although it had projected $244,000.
Olin said the $666,205 total from the operating fund balance, a $137,585 increase from the amount budgeted, and $49,500 already in the budget from a transfer from the Performing Arts Center fund balance, allows the budget to be balanced with expenditure reductions of $163,989.
Expenditure savings included salaries and wages $141,743 under the original budget, attributed to outgoing teachers and incoming new teachers’ salary placements and teacher credit movement in the salary schedule; and a benefits decrease of $4,731 mainly due to changes in health insurance selection with new employees and in reviewing all employee changes to insurance from the FY19 adopted budget.
School officials also listed a maintenance expenditure decrease of $14,838 that was attributed to property insurance premiums less than expected. An increase of $3,464 in revenue is a combined result of individual school discretionary budgets carryover from FY2018 for $10,000 and adjusting programs to budget actuals on line items such as professional/technical services and purchased services, which was a decrease of $6,536. The $6,141 decrease in expenditures is a result of a drop in liability, bonding and cyber security insurance premium renewal.
“So we had a decrease of our expenditures overall of $163,990,” Olin said. “Which helped offset the decrease in student enrollment... basically we don’t have to do any additional cuts, and none were taken, in the current school year to make up for the deficit in less enrollment.”
District officials said it’s anticipated that three teaching positions will have to be cut for the FY20 year. Wegner, and Olin showed graphs to preview the year.
“This is a 60,000-foot view,” Wegner said, “because we don’t know anything yet. The legislative session hasn’t started, there are so many unknowns. This is not a specific budget, just generally what we are looking at for the coming year.”
The officials showed graphs of assumptions for FY20 showing projected enrollment for 1,187; no secure rural schools funding; and one-time funding from the state with flat base student allocation.
The district student population was shown as 51 percent Caucasian, 26 percent Alaska Native/American Indian, 14 percent “other,” and 9 percent Asian/Pacific Islander.
A FY19 student withdrawal data graph shows the teacher/student ratio for the FY17 audit as 112/1,276, for FY18 audit 110/1,257, FY19 Budget 108/1,207 and FY20 budget 105/1,187.
Another graph shows the number of students who withdrew from Sitka schools from the end of the 2017-18 school year to November 5, 2018: 3 summer dropouts, 37 in-state transfers, 30 out-of-state transfers, 1 transfer to a private school, and 7 dropouts.
A pie chart showed the district is funded 65 percent by the state and 35 percent local for a total revenue of $19,472,027; with 83 percent of the district money spent on salary and benefits, 8 percent on maintenance/utilities, 6 percent on school/department programs, 1 percent on district administration, and 2 percent other for total expenditures of $20,852,130. The projected FY20 deficit is $1,380,103.
