April 29, 2008 01:28 pm
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By Leslie Gibson
Herald-Banner Staff
Rockwall ISD trustees got their first look at a preliminary 2008-09 draft budget in the April 21 regular school board meeting, and learned that for a second year, the fund balance will need to take care of a shortfall in revenue from expenses.
Expenditures for Rockwall ISD for the next fiscal year are estimated to be just under $105 million.
This is almost $3.7 million more than the projected revenue of approximately $101 million.
To take care of the shortfall, the district will pull from the $24 million projected fund balance, which is being carried into the 2008-09 fiscal year, from the current 2007-08 fiscal year.
Finance director Mike Singleton explained the workshop draft of the budget to the entire board and commented in a phone interview later.
“We are going into ’08-09 knowing we will decrease our fund balance a little bit,” said Singleton in a phone interview.
The fund balance is having to be used because of the nature of the state finance system, he said. “It doesn’t incorporate an inflation factor into it. “We’re still being reimbursed on a targeted revenue amount per student set in ’06-07,” he noted.
“The school district is hoping to work with legislature; to work together with local representatives to evaluate and improve the system,” he said.
Local property taxes, at a rate of $1.47, are expected to generate about $56.5 million, which accounts for more than half of the district’s revenue. State funding to the district is expected to be about $38 million. Other local and state funding rounds out the total revenue to a projected figure of $101,028,448.
District demographers and finance department research are expecting approximately 13,597 students.
School districts typically have these projections down to a “fine science,” Rockwall County Chief Appraiser Ray Helm said Wednesday, noting that the preliminary valuations from the Central Appraisal District won’t be delivered to taxing entities until near May 15, with the certified valuations by July 25.
This year’s 2007-08 budget is ending up with revenue shy of expenses. It is projected that the total revenue of $97 will be just less than the expenses by $742,715. The current fund balance will cover that shortfall, so that the district enters the 2008-09 fiscal year with a fund balance of a little less than $24 million or, $23,866,805. When last year’s budget was adopted, no shortfall had been expected.
Last years’ local property taxes for the budget in effect now, which ends Aug. 31, are bringing in just more than $54 million.
Most of Singleton’s presentation focused on school finance issues, which come down to the board having an option to go to the voters to approve an 11 cent increase in the tax rate. The board expressed no interest in that, and the finance department is not recommending that. Last year, about 100 to 110 districts went to such a vote. This year, it could be as many as 300 to 400, Singleton said after the meeting.
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