School board approves $72.8 million budget for FY18
Homewood City Schools expects a $2 million surplus during the upcoming fiscal year.
During its regular meeting on Sept. 12, the Homewood City Schools Board of Education approved the budget for fiscal year 2017-18, which starts on Oct. 1 and continues through Sept. 30, 2018. The meeting included the second budget hearing for FY18, during which Chief School Financial Officer Lynn Buch walked everyone through a breakdown of the budget, which includes about $72.8 million in total expenditures and $74.5 million in total revenues.
The system’s total revenues break down to $19.15 million (26 percent) from state funding, $2.42 million (3 percent) from federal funding, $32.76 million (44 percent) from local funding and $20.19 million (27 percent) from other funding.
The bulk of expenditures — about $40 million, or 76 percent — are personnel costs, Buch said; $32.6 million (44 percent) are non-personnel costs, including $20 million in spending for capital improvements, from the city of Homewood bond issue.
The city of Homewood took out a $110 million bond in late 2016, and $55 million of that is going toward an expansion project for Homewood City Schools. The FY18 budget includes $20 million of that total for capital projects, including system-wide building and land improvements on the school system’s FY18 Capital Plan, which was also approved at the meeting. The remaining $35 million of the bond issue will be used on the capital plan in 2019, according to a summary provided by Buch.
In its general fund, the school board starts FY18 with $11.8 million, and according to the budget, projects $46.6 million in revenues and $44.7 million in expenditures.
“The majority of these [expenditures] are salaries and benefits,” Buch said, “but it’s also instructional supplies and textbooks, professional development, special education, technology hardware and software, transportation, maintenance, operations, utilities … and then our other costs and our expenditures.”
About 78 percent of expenditures go directly to instruction — salaries, benefits, materials, supplies, etc. — and the remaining 22 percent go toward operations, Buch said.
The projected general fund ending balance of around $13.7 million, Buch said, is equivalent to 3.69 months of operational costs for the school system.
Buch said the increase in the general fund is attributable to increased enrollment, which brought in $1.1 million in state revenue, an increase in state-earned teaching units, and a projected 2 percent increase from city and county property taxes.
The school board unanimously approved the budget, and all board members took the time to thank Buch for her meticulous work.
Also during the meeting, the board recognized head coach Tom Esslinger, who was named the 2017 National High School Coaches Association National High School Girls’ Track and Field Coach of the Year.
While they joked that Esslinger would need an assigned seat at school board meetings due to the frequency with which he or he athletes he coaches are recognized, they also thanked him for his hard work and dedication to students.
Other school board business included:
- Approval of the minutes of the Aug. 22 and Sept. 5 meetings.
- Approval of check registers, accounts payable, payroll and financial statements.
- Announcing board bank accounts have been reconciled through August 2017.
- Approving the FY18 Capital Plan.
- Approval for the superintendent to apply for federal funds and to negotiates contracts relating to the 2018 capital plan.
- Considering personnel items, technology license renewals, approval of additional supplements for the 2017-18 school year and revised Instructional Support contracts for the current school year.