School Board holds public hearing on 20013-14 proposed budget

One person and one reporter showed up for the June 17 public hearing on the proposed 2013-14 budget for the Van Buren Public Schools, that is expected to be adopted at the June 24 regular meeting of the Board of Education.
One of the assumptions for the proposed $46,806,254 budget is an enrollment loss of 120 students, with a blended student count estimated to be 5,105 for the 2013-14 school year.
With state aid expected of $7,372 per student that would bring $37,634,060 to the district.
A graph showed this blended rate to be the lowest since the 6,062 enrollment of the 2004-05 school year. The highest count was 6,358 in the 2006-07 school year. The count for 2012-13 was 5,225.
During the 40-minute public hearing, Financial Officer Karen Moffitt led the school board members through details of the proposed budget that is expected to be approved Monday.
“We have lost 1,133 students in the past six years, which equates to $8.4 million per year,” she said.
Salaries will take up 51% of the upcoming general fund budget, with 30% more for fringe benefits. The rest of the budget is 9% purchased services, 8% supplies, 1% capital outlay, and 1% other.
Other assumptions for the proposed budget include teachers’ half-step increase per the union contract and 10 teacher retirements / resignations that will not be filled.
Revenues of a total of $465,755 were added, which includes state aid increase of $54 per student (plus $275,670) and reduction in MPSERS Offset by $38 per student (minus $193,990).
A total of $13,000 in sale of property was due to the public sale of school items at Haggerty School in March.
The fund balance as of June 24 was $1,005,694 and is expected to be $1,133,035 on June 30, 2014.
Additional expenditures include retirement rates, teacher-half step increase, salary lane increases, health insurance cost increase of 5%, Haggerty School opening, purchase of buses, $10,000 more for police liaison officer, hiring of more security personnel ($46,896), technology equipment and services.
One of the unusual items was a $23,000 natural gas bill from DTE for Owen school.
Moffitt said DTE has informed the district that it has under-billed since 2005, explaining that it changed from a five-digit meter to a six-digit meter, which caused the problem. Moffitt scratched her head.
DTE will charge $23,000 just for this year, Moffitt said, to settle the situation.
Moffitt said the debt retirement fund is spending more than it is collecting, taking the extra funds needed out of the fund balance, which will be down to $198,521 by June 30, 2014.
This will be a problem if the district’s taxable value doesn’t go up. She said the economy is starting to turn around.