Facility improvements are a continued focus for the Poplar Bluff R-1 School District after administrators proposed the 2018 budget to the board of education Thursday evening.
The financial plan ends with a deficit balance to the tune of almost $800,000. However, the majority of the expenditures are slotted to cover one-time facility improvements and will be paid for with the district's capital project reserve fund.
According to Superintendent of Finance Rod Priest, the excess spending will not negatively impact the district.
"As of last month, our capital projects fund had $7.6 million," Priest said. "Even with our big projects we've done, facility maintenance is ongoing. Every once in a while projects come up that are a bit more expensive."
Superintendent Scott Dill stressed the deficit spending will not impact the operating budget or take away from teachers.
"We have strong reserves. You have to keep moving forward and taking these projects off a little at a time, otherwise you fall too far behind and can't catch up," Dill said.
Proposed capital expenditures for the 2018 fiscal year include a kitchen renovation and new roof at Oak Grove Elementary School, a new roof for the middle school gymnasium, four school buses, beginning phases of a district-wide telecommunication update, bleachers for the FEMA building at the junior high, band instruments, vocational grant, building trades project, vehicles for district use, window wall update at Lake Road Elementary and construction carryover from 2017.
Four of the most expensive capital improvements include the telecommunication updates, the Oak Grove kitchen, buses and new roofs. The construction carryover is about $375,000 and technically will be accounted for with monies leftover from 2017.
According to Dill, the telecommunication update is essential to enhance safety district-wide and would allow him to personally access every classroom with one phone call in the event of an emergency.
Dill said the current phone system is antiquated and lacks a streamlined system. He said ultimately, he feels the phones are a safety concern and would like to see a full turn-around in approximately five years, beginning with this year's slated updates at central office and the middle school anticipated to cost around $109,000.
According to Priest, the Oak Grove Elementary kitchen remodel is a necessary expense. He said three additions have been added to the school building since the kitchen has seen an update. The renovation would include a square-footage expansion, all new equipment and the addition of a walk-in freezer. The projected remodel could cost up to $463,000.
Bus additions are important in keeping the fleet fresh, said Priest, who has determined adding four buses each year helps keep repairs down and attempts to ensure no buses are more than 10 years old. The bus costs are estimated at $290,000.
Finally, Priest said roofs at the middle school gym and Oak Grove are "well past their anticipated life expectancies." He said after years of patching, they continue to leak and finally have reached the point of needing to be replaced. The cost is estimated at $406,000.
Poplar Bluff Board of Education President John Scott said he supports the budget and thinks the facility improvements maintain the district's momentum with providing safe and quality facilities.
"This is a good budget," Scott said. "Rod does a great job conservatively projecting revenue while also estimating expenditures on the high side. That way we don't have any bad surprises at the end of the year."
Scott said the district's healthy reserves are "set aside precisely for projects like these."
Board members will vote on the proposed budget during next week's meeting, which will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday in the central office board room located at 1110 N. Westwood Blvd.