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The Coweta County Board of Education
approved a final operational budget of $175.9 million for the
2008-09 school year at their regular board meeting on June 10.
The budget will become effective in the school system’s new
fiscal year starting July 1. It projects no increase of the
School Board’s Maintenance and Operation property tax rate of
18.59 mills, assuming a 5.5% rise in the Coweta County tax
digest.
The tax digest is the value of taxable property in Coweta
County, which provides local revenue for operations of public
schools through the school system property tax. The budget for
the school system’s new fiscal year must be set before final
estimates of tax digest growth are set later in the summer.
The school system estimated a 5.75% increase in the tax digest
for its 2007-09 school year budget, with actual increases in the
tax digest coming in at approximately 6.1% because of new home
and retail growth in the county.
The school system’s budget also projects the use of up to $3.6
million in reserves to balance the budget. A similar amount of
reserve spending was budgeted for the 2007-08, but
Superintendent Blake Bass noted that the school system spending
in the current school year is on track to finish under-budget at
the end of June, and will actually add some revenue to the
school system’s reserves.
Bass said that his office will make a similar attempt to keep
down spending and avoid use of reserves in the 2008-09 school
year.
The General Fund Budget of $175,931,581 tentatively adopted by
the school board Tuesday reflects an increase of $9.4 million
over last year’s General Fund budget of $166,525,599.
School System Assistant Superintendent Keith Chapman reported
that most of this year’s increase in the General Fund budget
driven by personnel costs, energy inflation and other price
inflation, and somewhat by expected growth.
The budget provides a 2.5% state raise for certified and
non-certified employees, and “step” raises to employees based on
experience are also funded in the General Fund budget.
$7.4 million of the $9.4 million increase reflects student
enrollment growth (a net increase of approximately 30 new
teaching positions are anticipated next year), and
cost-of-living and step raises for existing personnel in all
positions. $800,000 more is being budgeted for fuel costs,
reflecting an anticipated increase in bus routes (serving more
students) and, most of all, a 65% increase in diesel costs, most
of which has been experienced during the current school year.
Those cost increases – along with cost increases for general
energy costs and textbook costs – account for all but $600,000
of the $9.4 million General Fund increase, Chapman said.
The General Fund budget is the operating budget for the school
system, and is financed by a combination of state revenue and
local sales taxes.
The General Fund includes instructional funds, school system
personnel, pupil services, school maintenance and operation,
transportation and other day-to-day costs of operating the
school systems.
In addition to the $175.9 million General Fund Budget, there are
three other school system budgets approved by the board as a
part of its total 2008-09 budget, which reflect special federal
and state funding, school construction, and service of bond
debt. Those budgets, combined with the Operations Budget, total
$246,439,483.
The additional budgets include the Special Revenue Fund (which
accounts for state and federal funding sent to special federal
programs such as Title I and federal lunch programs, as well as
the school system’s self-supporting school food services), the
Capital Projects Fund (for construction) and the Debt Service
fund.
School construction and debt service are funded principally by
the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funds and
some state funding.
The total Capital Projects fund of $36,835,900 reflects the
construction this year of a new elementary school on Jim Starr
Road in northern Coweta, several school refurbishment and
improvement projects, student transportation expansions, and
$12.1 million in SPLOST funds that will be used to retire
short-term bond debt issued in 2006 that allowed for the start
of several SPLOST projects under the current school sales tax.
The school refurbishment projects – including Moreland
Elementary School and various reroofing, HVAC and other projects
– have been largely begun already. Following Board approval of
Construction Manager subcontractor bids on June 2, site work is
expected to get underway on the new 950-students Jim Starr Road
elementary school project before the end of June. That school is
expected to open in time for classes in August of 2009.
This year’s operational budget includes a continuation of state
budget cuts. Cuts in state educational funding began in the
2002-2003 school year for all Georgia school systems because of
difficult economic conditions in Georgia. The state has restored
some of that funding in recent years, with a cut of only $1.2
million in 2008-09, following state funding cuts to Coweta
County of $1.9 million in 2007-08 and $2.1 million in 2006-07.
Over the five-year period since state funding cuts began the
Coweta County School System has experienced an estimated $17.8
in cumulative cuts of its state funding. |
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