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The Coweta County Board of Education
approved a tentative operational budget of $175.9 million for
the 2008-09 school year at a called board meeting on May 27.
The board met at the Board of Education office at 237 Jackson
Street for the called meeting. Tentative adoption allows the
Board to consider final adoption of the budget at its regular
board meeting on Tuesday, June 10. The budget must be adopted
before the start of the school system’s new fiscal year on July
1.
The budget for the next fiscal year projects no increase of the
School Board’s Maintenance and Operation property tax rate of
18.59 mills. The budget projects a 5.5% rise in the Coweta
County tax digest, which provides local revenue for operations
of public schools through the school system property tax.
The school system’s budget also projects the use of up to $3.6
million in reserves to balance the budget. A similar amount of
reserve spending was budgeted for the 2007-08, but
Superintendent Blake Bass noted that the school system’s current
school year should end far enough under budget that no budgeted
reserves will be spent. Bass said that his office will make a
similar attempt to avoid actual reserve spending in the 2008-09
school year.
The General Fund Budget of $175,931,581 tentatively adopted by
the school board Tuesday reflects an increase of $9.4 million
over last year’s General Fund budget of $166,525,599.
The budget provides a 2.5% state raise for certified and
non-certified employees, and “step” raises due to employees
based on experience are also funded in the General Fund budget.
School System Assistant Superintendent Keith Chapman reported
that most of this year’s increase in the General Fund budget
driven by personnel costs and energy inflation.
$7.4 million of the $9.4 million increase reflects student
enrollment growth (approximately 30 new teaching positions net
are anticipated next year), and cost-of-living and step raises
for existing personnel in all positions. $800,000 more is being
budgeted for fuel costs, reflecting an anticipated increase in
bus routes (serving more students) and, most of all, a 65%
increase in diesel costs, most of which has been experienced
during the current school year.
Those cost increases – along with cost increases for general
energy costs and textbook costs – account for all but $600,000
of the $9.4 million General Fund increase, Chapman said.
The General Fund budget is the operating budget for the school
system, and is financed by a combination of state revenue and
local sales taxes. The General Fund includes instructional
funds, school system personnel, pupil services, school
maintenance and operation, transportation and other day-to-day
costs of operating the school systems.
In addition to the $175.9 million General Fund Budget, there are
three other school system budgets approved by the board as a
part of its total 2008-09 budget, which reflect special federal
and state funding, school construction, and service of bond
debt. Those budgets, combined with the Operations Budget, total
$246,439,483.
The additional budgets include the Special Revenue Fund (which
accounts for state and federal funding sent to special federal
programs such as Title I and federal lunch programs, as well as
the school system’s self-supporting school food services), the
Capital Projects Fund (for construction) and the Debt Service
fund.
School construction is funded principally by the Special Purpose
Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funds and some state funding.
The total Capital Projects fund of $36,835,900 reflects the
construction this year of a new elementary school on Jim Starr
Road in northern Coweta, several school refurbishment and
improvement projects, student transportation, and $12.1 million
in SPLOST funds that will be used to retire short-term bond debt
issued in 2006 that allowed for the start of several SPLOST
projects under the current school sales tax.
This year’s budget includes a continuation of state budget cuts.
Cuts in state educational funding began in the 2002-2003 school
year for all Georgia school systems because of difficult
economic conditions in Georgia. The state has restored some of
that funding in recent years, with a cut of only $1.2 million in
2008-09, following state funding cuts to Coweta County of $1.9
million in 2007-08 and $2.1 million in 2006-07.
Over the five-year period since state funding cuts began the
Coweta County School System has experienced an estimated $17.8
in cumulative cuts of its state funding. |
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