Update: Copy of Latest 2010-2011 Draft Budget Page 1 and Page 2
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The Audit Finance Committee met last Thursday night and went over the latest draft of the 2010-2011 budget. The Administration has been working to bring down the increase in taxes from the 14% increase outlined in the preliminary budget that was passed in January. This 2010-2011 draft budget now reflects an increase of 10.83% or an increase of 2.61 mills on top of the 24.11 mills from the 2009-2010 budget.
The largest reduction in expenditures to date has been 13 teacher retirements. The average salary savings realized this year for teacher retirements is $42,572 per teacher. This savings is realized when we replace an experienced teacher at the upper range of our pay scales with a less experienced teacher towards the bottom of our pay scales. The total savings for the 2010-2011 budget for these retirements is $553,432 or .26 mills. The District is also planning to pay for $542,444 in textbooks and program change proposals by using our Capital Budget. If this money was to be spent from our General Fund then the District would need to allocate money in the budget (and an additional .26 mills) for the expenses.
The largest increase in expenses is for the first payment of the High School Project bonds that were floated in October. There is a 109.5% increase in debt service to pay for the first set of high school project bonds. The total increase in debt service this year is $5,224,989 or 2.61 mills. There will be another round of bonds floated for the high school project in a few years. The PSERS increase for this year amounts to .37 mills or $767,891.
According to Dr. Steinhauer, this budget is the budget that maintains our existing programs. However, the Administration did create a Concept List for Possible Cost Reduction. I won't go through the entire list here but to give you a feel for it, there are potential reductions on there as small as charging fees for student parking. There are some rather big ideas as well, including pursuing a multi-community merger. I expect that there will be much discussion on this topic at our special budget meeting on April 5th.
Email me with any questions.
Thanks for reading.
James
