Board reviews budget proposal

School Board
By: 
Pete Temple
Express Associate Editor

     Facing an April 17 deadline to submit the 2016-17 budget, Superintendent Brian Jaeger and the Monticello School Board went over a schedule and a proposed budget during its monthly work session Wednesday, March 8.

     The full budget proposal, printed elsewhere in this week’s Express, calls for a proposed property tax rate of $13.81926 per 1,000 of taxable valuation, down from $14.066 a year ago.

     District business manager Marcy Gillmore, who presented the budget to the board, noted that the district faces the challenges of decreasing enrollment, and a Supplemental State Aid (SSA) increase of 1.11 percent, which Gillmore said doesn’t cover increasing expenditures. Based on estimated enrollment for the next school year, the district would receive $69,212 in SSA for the next school year, down from $289,564 this school year.

     The district plans to meet these challenges in two ways. One of those is by using some of its unspent balance, which for fiscal year 2017 dropped from $1,130,800 to $894,719, and is estimated to drop again to $831,175 in fiscal year 2018.

     The second way is to go through the budget for each district “area,” focusing on what each one needs, ahead of what it wants. Areas include each of the school buildings, and departments such as Buildings and Grounds, Transportation, and Special Education.

     Area leaders are being assigned to get their budget requests to Jaeger by May 15. They will be reviewed, Jaeger will meet with each leader to discuss the budgets, and they will be submitted to the school board for its June 26 meeting.

     Jaeger discussed other scheduling plans for the budget on Wednesday as well. A public hearing on the budget will be held at the start of the board’s regular meeting on Monday, March 27 at 6 p.m., where public comments can be taken. The board will then consider final budget approval.

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