The Dade County Board of Education held a required public hearing on its proposed fiscal year 2020 budget at noon on Monday. A second hearing on the budget is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Monday, July 22, just before the board's regular July meeting, at which the budget is scheduled to be adopted.
"Public hearing" is a term of art as used here: Even in Dade, where the whiff of a tax increase by the county government can fill rooms with angry hecklers, the public has largely left the school board alone--even though school taxes represent 65 percent of a typical homeowner's property tax bill and the county must maintain law, order, roads and the justice system with the crumbs. And the idea that the B of E has gotten rather comfortable with life below the radar might well be evidenced by the locked front door that separated the "public" from the "hearing" at the July 1 event.
Whether for that or some other reason, the public was thin on the ground Monday, but The Planet in any case tapped on the glass and was buzzed in to get you the proposed budget numbers. Here they are.
General fund expected revenue for FY2020 is $19,703,900. The Board of Education, which receives money from diverse sources and must often spend it by diverse rules, segregates its budget numbers accordingly. Total revenues from "special revenue fund" is expected to be $3,588,934, and total from SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) $2,580,000. This by The Planet's math makes for total revenues of $25,872,834.
Meanwhile, projected expenditures for next year are (general fund) $20,299,818, (special revenue) $3,588,934 and (SPLOST) 2,580,000, for a total of $26,468,752.
That leaves a slight deficit between incoming and outgoing but Financial Director Paula Stallings said the board had been expecting this, and that's what financial reserves are for.
Russell Raney, the B of E's accountant, who presented the budget, said revenues are actually up this year by 3 percent but expenses were up 6 percent. He said salaries and benefits were 90.6 percent of the budget, and most of the increase of this year's budget over last year's was due to the state-decreed pay raise for teaching staff plus associated benefits.
"The good thing is, we have about a month and a half in reserve," said Raney.
Last year's general fund figure, both for expenses and revenues--the B of E was able to balance its budget for FY2018--was $18,847,585 .
Raney said another factor in the deficit is that Dade got no "equalization money" from the state this year. These are funds school systems receive for their level of low-income students--a statistic which in Dade is skewed by high property values in some sections that mask the level of poverty overall.
Another point that The Dade Planet tracks: This year, the school board will keep its level of funding for the Dade County Public Library the same as last year, said Raney. That means $25,000, still not up to the $38,000 it was chipping in as its share of local funding for the library when former Superintendent Shawn Tobin, with the board's blessing, ducked abruptly out from under in 2012. The school system, which had historically shared local support of the library with the other two taxing agencies, the county and city of Trenton, contributed nothing at all for two years, forcing the library to close all but three days.
Now, though the board gave Tobin the shove a couple of years later, his legacy lingers in the irony of a board of education that snubs the local library, that collects the lion's share of its community's local tax dollars but pays exponentially less than either county or city toward the library's upkeep. The B of E has, in begrudged increments at wide intervals, kicked up its support from nothing to the $25K, letting the county and city shoulder ever-increasing portions of the burden. The library has managed to open for more hours now but remains closed on Mondays as a direct result and enduring reminder of the school board's refusal to support books and learning.
In other business, board member Gen. Bob Woods (ret.) asked if the current SPLOST expires soon. Current Superintendent Jan Harris said no, it expires in 2022, but it must go on the ballot for renewal in 2020.
Personnel
After an executive, or closed-door session on personnel, the board approved the resignation of bus driver Angela Cantrell and the retirement of Tammee Schrudder as of Feb. 1, 2020. Rhiannon York was promoted from paraprofessional to teacher at Dade Elementary School and John Smith from supervisor of transportation to supervisor of facilities and transportation.
Angie Cornutt was named assistant principal at Dade County High School. Also hired here Belinda Jolley and Nicholas “Nick” Amendolare, both as science teachers at DCHS. Connie Walker was granted her leave request.
Next
The board voted to approve the proposed budget. The next step is to mesh the budget with numbers from the current county tax digest to determine millage rate. Another public hearing is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Monday, July 22, just before the board's regularly scheduled July meeting at 5 p.m.
The public is welcome, but may have to tap on the glass to be buzzed in.
