by Alex Brooks
At the Berlin School Board meeting on Thursday, January 26 a preliminary look at the Berlin District’s 2017-2018 budget was offered. The presentation described what a “rollover budget” would look like.[private] A rollover budget includes contractual increases in salaries, but does not include any changes in academic program or staffing, and assumes all sports and extracurricular programs continue as they were this year. Under these assumptions the rollover budget would be $20,504,502, which would be a spending increase of $879,464, about 4.84%. Revenue at this time is expected to increase by $332,345, which means the current shortfall is $547,119.
The projected revenue increase includes a 1.4% increase in total state aid of $136,790 and an increase in the local tax levy up to the amount allowed by the tax cap law, which is a 2.17% increase or $195,555. Despite the Governor’s announcement at the time he released his budget about a big increase in school aid, the increase in foundation aid for the Berlin District is just 1%, which is $72,984.
Most of the projected increase in expenditures is for salaries and benefits. These are expected to increase by $826,665, which is an increase of 5.46%.
The District plans to keep the amount of the previous year’s fund balance applied to this year’s budget the same as it was last year, so it will be $450,000. The District does not plan to use any reserves in this budget.
Overall the District is looking to improve the situation by $547,119 by the time it gets to a final budget. District Superintendent Dr. Stephen Young said while that may sound like a daunting number, the District has faced similar shortfalls at this stage of the budget many times before. He said by the next meeting of the Board, the District will know how many retirements it will have by the end of the year, which will lower the District’s cost. Young said it could be $120,000 to $150,000. School Districts call this “breakage,” and it refers to the savings when a District replaces senior teachers with newly hired young teachers at lower salaries.
Young also noted that State aid almost always increases when the final budget package is passed by the State Legislature, so the District will have to wait to see what the final number will be for State aid. [/private]