School district administrators presented a budget proposal Tuesday evening that would reduce the district’s mill levy about a half mill to 49.355 mills for the 2007-08 school year down from 49.787 for 2006-07.
The proposal was presented during a budget workshop for school board members Tuesday evening in the Mary Herbert Learning Center.
The district expects to collect $8,184,675 from the levy, which is part of the district’s approximately $31 million proposed budget. Last year’s budget was about $29.8 million.
The public will be able to discuss the budget proposal at a meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Mary Herbert. The board is expected to set a publication date for the budget when it meets today at 7 p.m. at Mary Herbert.
The proposed mill-levy decrease is the seventh consecutive reduction for the district, Superintendent John Heim told the board. Funds from the mill levy will come from property taxes.
“That’s the only source of income we have access to”, Heim said.
If the budget is approved as proposed, tax-levy funds would be distributed as follows: general fund, $3,089,988; supplemental general fund, $2,769,600; adult education, $86,778; capital outlay, $694,223; bonds and interest, $1,544,086.
The school district differs from city and county boards in its access to funds. All utilize property taxes; however, cities and counties have other ways to collect money, such as franchise fees and sales taxes. All of the entities also receive federal and state money as supplements for specific purposes.
The local school district has one of the lower per-pupil valuations in the state, according to figures from the Kansas State Department of Education for 2006-07.
Per-pupil valuations range from the lowest — Fort Leavenworth with $745 total valuation per pupil based on a total valuation of $1,214,989 to the highest — Santanta with $541,010 total valuation per pupil based on a total valuation of $195,845,630. The Fort Leavenworth district has 1,631.4 full-time equivalency pupils while Satanta has 362 FTE pupils.
Emporia’s total valuation per pupil is $36,411, based on a total valuation of $169,858,579, with 4,665 FTE pupils.
Fort Leavenworth has a substantial amount of untaxed federal property within the district, Heim explained; Satanta’s property valuation is high because of natural gas fields.
“There are two factors that go into that total valuation per pupil — your total valuation and your enrollment,” Heim said. “If valuation stays the same and pupils go up, your valuation per pupil goes down and your state aid goes up. You get more state aid the poorer you are.
“In Emporia, our valuation has been going up, but so has our enrollment been going up.”
Heim said that Satanta gets 7 percent of its money from the state andthe remainder is raised locally. One of the poorer districts, Galena, gets about 97 percent of its money from the state.
Both are affected by the Legislature’s solution to help school finance equalization two years ago, which demands that wealthier districts contribute excess funds to the state to help finance other school districts.
Emporia receives about 91 percent of its budget from the state and about 9 percent from local property taxes.
“So, in our general fund, the good folks of Johnson County are helping us fund our students’ education, as it should be,” Heim said.
School districts also are allowed to access up to 30 percent of its general fund as a supplemental general fund, which formerly was called a local option budget. The local district accesses about 25 percent. The state will pay approximately 58 percent of that amount.
Associate Superintendent for Business Susan Hernandez said that this school year the district brought in members of the community, as well as teachers, classified personnel and administrators, to set priorities for spending and to identify budget items that could be reduced.
The district also will qualify for some additional, weighted state funds available as a result of the addition of a fitness center at Emporia High School.
Health insurance, utilities and salary increases have been budgeted higher this year, in part because of the uncertainty of costs of insurance and utilities.
Hernandez said that the number of free meals for students is decreasing, though a substantial number of meals still are served at reduced rates. The federal government reimburses the district; however, the reimbursements usually do not arrive until the end of the school year. The district must bear the costs until the funds arrive.
The district also has budgeted additional money for special education and litigation that may occur. Those funds may not be needed, Heim said, but have been added in as a safety valve. A due process hearing, he said, as an example, could cost $100,000 in legal fees.
“Sometimes you may have a student that moves into your district that requires a lot of care — hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Heim said.
Although the district may not be bound to provide exactly the same services as provided by the student’s prior district, Heim said that it could be difficult to reduce local services for that student.
“You just want to plan for that contingency,” Heim said.
Medicaid support also has dropped in recent years to $400,000 this year from $961,717 two years ago.