The Poplar Bluff R-1 Board of Education will vote next week on a budget which includes deficit spending, but ultimately ends with a positive balance.
At Thursday's annual budget workshop, Asst. Superintendent of Finance Rod Priest presented the financial plan for Fiscal Year 2018-19.
Priest also discussed paying cash for a proposed Early Childhood Center, which would be constructed at the Kindergarten Center. Current capital fund balances could support this, according to Priest.
Next year's budget includes "deficit spending of $959,170 mainly due to planned construction projects." The expense will occur in the current budget year and be paid in the FY19 budget.
"This results in some of the surplus generated in FY18 to be used during this fiscal year (FY19)," he said. "If the projects were not included in this budget, the overall budget would be estimated to end $64,718 in the black, or basically balanced."
Poplar Bluff's operating budget is approximately $50 million, while its capital projects budget is closer to $5 million.
FY19 will see the final payment on bonds issued in 2008 to pay for improvements to the former Victory Lane high school, Priest said. The payment will be $561,000. These bonds were refinanced in 2014 to lower the interest rate.
"This will not free up funds," he explained. "Bonds are levied and paid off out of our debt service account, restricted to paying off bond debt. This will either reduce the levy in FY20 or move debt from a lease to a bond, but would require no levy increase ballot issue."
Combined with a retired Apple finance lease on Macbooks from 2013, Poplar Bluff R-1 will realize an overall decrease in debt of $812,643.17 for FY19.
Currently the district's Local Operating Tax Levy is the state minimum of $2.75. Its Debt Service Tax Levy is $0.168, below the $0.18 levy that was assessed at the beginning of the debt in 2014, and the Capital Projects Tax Levy is $0.7001, Priest said.
Included in the FY19 budget is an increase to total salaries and benefits. The Board voted in April to add 4.75 percent across the board, inclusive of step movement beginning in July. Priest said the actual increase to the salary schedules after insurance and retirement is 3.34 percent.
It was discussed that due to "healthy reserves" in the capital projects fund, the district has the option to pay cash in the approximate amount of $6.8 million for the new Early Childhood Center being considered at the Kindergarten Center's site.
Priest said he supports paying the project in full so as not to "burden future boards" with a 20-year payment out of the existing capital projects levy.
Completion of a new Early Childhood Center would wrap up all major projects from Phase One of the district's improvement plan, less a few minor efforts. These would include action with the shop building located at the Junior High, parking lot updates and heating and air conditioning additions, Priest said.
Large maintenance projects in the FY19 budget are all carryover from FY18, according to Priest. These include bleachers for the FEMA building at the Junior High, Oak Grove's kitchen renovation, roofs at OG and on the Middle School gymnasium and continuation of Early Childhood Center planning and development.
New to the budget are a $6,000 allotment for a Media Center vehicle, $25,000 for a district van, $20,000 for a maintenance vehicle and $72,000 for a 20-passenger coach seating activity bus recommended by athletic director, Kent Keith.
The Board will vote next week on whether to approve the purchase of a new reading program, called Fountas and Pinnell Classroom in the amount of approximately $300,000. Asst. Superintendent of Instruction Patty Robertson said the curriculum will streamline elementary reading materials and resources district-wide. Hopefully, she said, the purchase will improve current reading practices, thus increasing student achievement.
Priest stated in the budget that the district's goal is to utilize the Fountas and Pinnell program to prevent and address gaps in reading skills to ensure more students are performing at or above grade level, effectively reducing the number of student interventions occurring outside the classroom.
Additionally, included in the budget are options for continuing and expanding the current one-to-one technology initiative Poplar Bluff utilizes in its classrooms.
When the program began in 2013, Priest said, the district leased Macbooks from Apple and made payments of more than $200,000 per year. The final payment occurred in FY18.
Four years later, after long-term care expenses proved too much for students and for the district, Priest said, R-1 stopped leasing Macbooks and began purchasing Chromebooks. He said these are "about a quarter of the price" and effectively perform the same work.
The recently graduated seniors turned in the Macbooks they used for four years in May. Those machines will be sold to a wholesaler for about $200 each.
During the budget presentation, Priest proposed an option to the Board to level expenses in maintaining the district's one-to-one spending.
"The Board may decide to phase in a program at the high school where the freshmen are issued a new laptop every year with the understanding that it will stay with them four years and then they keep it at graduation," Priest stated. "Unlike the Macbooks, there will be little to no residual value for the Chromebooks and the hope would be that they are taken better care of, if they consider the device as their own."
The Board will consider the proposed budget until next week's regular monthly meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Central Office Board of Education Room.