By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
During Monday’s Hays USD 489 Board of Education meeting, the board heard information about financial state of the district and, despite the Kansas Legislature having set up a block grant funding formula for this year — and a subsequent court ruling striking down that formula — the district is working to ensure the budget stays in line with expected revenue. State funding losses, lower tax valuations and decreased enrollment remain challenges, staff told the board.
“We do have $225,000 less budgeted for expenses this year, so we are looking at already holding that over,” said Tracy Kaiser, executive director of finance and support, adding if there are no more legislative changes, the district might be able to save even more.
“That’s our plan right now is we reduce our expenses by the $225,000,” she said.
That measure is anticipated to balance the expected loss of revenue, with the largest loss coming from lower state valuations.
State valuations in Ellis County are down by 3.8 percent, which equates to about $94,000 less from the mill levy for capital outlays. While this amount is a financial blow to the district, it pales to cuts to other districts through the state.
Some school districts lost up to 30 percent from their budgets due to lower valuations, according to Superintendent Dean Katt.
The second largest portion of lower revenue coming into USD 489 stems from the state’s school funding plan.
“We are receiving 99.6 percent for our general fund state aid, but the 0.4 percent, including the block grant, is going into the extraordinary needs fund, so that 0.4 percent will be up to the governor and their committees discretion on who’s having enough changes in their valuations or student population, or whatever, to divvy that out,” Kiser said. “Our portion is just over $54,000 that will be going into that extraordinary needs fund, so our budget has been reduced, our state aid, has been reduced by that amount.”
The smallest cut the district will face this year is lower revenue from students totaling around $50,000.
“We still have less budget expenditures than (lower revenue) so I still anticipate we’ll be able to stay well within our budget, even with those losses,” Kiser said.
The district can also maintain its $335,000 contingency fund this year with the budget cuts.
Katt added to the budget information that he felt the mill levy would likely stay the same and that the district’s fiscal situation makes it much better prepared than many districts in Kansas if state education funding changes next year.