Published: June 17, 2009 08:12 am      

GUEST COLUMN: Budget committee meets with BOE and director of schools

Last week’s Budget Committee meeting with the Board of Education (BOE) and Director of Schools (DOS) started off poorly and was less than productive. In February, the Budget Committee had asked the BOE to submit as proposed General Purpose School budget for Fiscal Year 2009-2010. We asked that it be submitted on or before June 5, 2009. We had specified the format and data we were interested in, which was very similar to the format and data that they would eventually have to submit to the Tennessee Department of Education for final state approval in order to receive state funding.

The document we received on June 5 was of little value. We had asked that the actual expenditures for the 2007-2008 school year be included as a reference point. We received what had been budgeted in that fiscal year even though last year’s final budget submission had that year’s actual in it. Perhaps the two year old budget data was used because the actual expenditures for that year were approximately $2 million less than budgeted and that amount was put into their Fund Balance (savings account/rainy day fund).

We had asked for an estimate of what the expenditures are estimated to be for this 2008-2009 school year (which ends in less than three weeks). That data simply wasn’t provided. When questioned about the lack of useful data, we were told by the DOS that she was advised by someone in TDOE not to give it to us. Apparently the BOE was not aware of that until the DOS said it. The BOE apparently had most of this data available to them when they approved the budget back on May 24 and when they held a public hearing on the budget on June 1.

Finally, we had requested information on their fund balance, including what they expected to have at the end of this fiscal year and how much might be available for next year’s expenses. Again, no information whatsoever was in the package we were given concerning their fund balance. None of the requested supplemental schedules had been included in the June 5 submission either. After some contentious discussion, the DOS offered to give us a budget package that she had, which contained most of the information, but she only had one copy. We had to delay the meeting while the director of finance left the meeting and made copies for the budget committee.

Needless to say, reviewing a 45-page budget document, with the pages still warm from the copier, containing 70 percent “new”(different than what was in the June 5 document) information, was less than efficient. After 4 additional hours of discussion, a few major conclusions could be drawn.

The proposed budget for next year has $5.5 million worth of expenditures greater than the amount of revenue the BOE expects to receive. There was no discussion of where the BOE expected that money to come from when they approved the budget. As previously mentioned, we don’t know how much fund balance might be available to offset that over-expenditure. The expenditures are forecasted to increase $2.6 million (5.7 percent) over this year’s budgeted amount. During the discussion, several opportunities were identified to reduce the forecasted expenditure increase next school year.

Looking at the projected expenditures for this year, it would appear that next year’s budget could be several million more than this year’s actual expenditures (couldn’t quantify, since even the “new” data we were given, didn’t have the 24 pages of projected expenditures for this year totaled anywhere on the document).

Before the meeting was over, the budget committee discussed our commitment to meet or exceed the state local matching funds required in the BEP formula. The committee voted to recommend to the full commission that the property tax growth dollars (3.2 percent increase) and an additional two cents of tax rate (from .50 to .52, a 4 percent increase) for an overall growth of over 7 percent growth in property tax dollars, be allocated to the General Purpose School fund. We asked that the BOE reflect these increases in local revenues on their budget document, make any expense reductions that we had agreed were likely and resubmit the budget package, including the fund balance flow analysis, by June 29. We’ll see what we get.      

As always, please feel free to contact me with your questions, suggestions, concerns, issues or comments at 484-4137 or e-mail at cocomlynch@comcast.net.