The Chelsea Standard
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
School board adopts budget for 2008-09
By Edward Freundl, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: June 26, 2008
Rising costs will take a big bite out of next year's Chelsea School District budget, but the general fund equity will remain healthy at more than $5.1 million.
Advertisement
District finance director Teresa Zigman informed the school board on Monday that expenditures of $26.9 million will outpace revenues of $25.7 million, forcing the district to dip into its savings for almost $1.2 million.
"The main items are salary adjustments, health insurance, and increases in utilities and fuel costs," Zigman explained.
"Overall, we're adding $1.8 million in expenditures this year."
On the other side of the ledger, she noted, the district is facing a loss of about $127,000 in revenue largely due to changes in taxable property values.
Zigman also presented the annual request for the tax rates to be levied on property within the district in Washtenaw and Jackson counties.
The state will allow the district to levy the maximum 18 mills ($18 for every $1,000 in taxable value) on non-homestead property, as well as 7 mills for debt service on three bonds and 0.9250 mills for a sinking fund authorized in November 2006.
According to Zigman, school taxes come on residents' winter tax bills so the resolution was more of a formality to let county officials know what the district's numbers will be.
And as a third part of the annual financial ritual, Zigman presented the board with the final amendments to the budget for the current school year.
Again, changes in taxable values, health insurance and fuel costs figured into a budget that ended up with income topping outlay by more than $773,000.
"Expenditures were $232,000 better than we anticipated," Zigman said.
The board approved all figures following no response from the public at the required public hearing.
Secondary budgets
In addition to the overall general budget, the board also approved other funds on which the district operates.
Zigman presented the proposed 2008-09 "special revenue funds" budget of approximately $2.49 million, divided among such items as food service ($997,225), athletics ($712,162) and community services ($777,562).
The special funds budget finished the current year at nearly the same level, a little over $2.5 million.
The breakdown is food service, $1 million; athletics, $732,491; and community services, $793,827.
Debt retirement was the other separate budget Zigman presented to the board on Monday.
One of the four bonds which Chelsea taxpayers approved, the 1998 issue, will drop off the books at the end of next year, Zigman noted, leaving debt from the 2004, 2006 and 2008.
The total of $39.5 million in revenues this year was offset by $37.8 million in expenditures, leaving a balance of approximately $1.7 million.
For 2008-09, anticipated revenues of almost $8 million will top expected expenditures of more than $6.5 million for a balance of approximately $1.4 million.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
TOP JOBS
