Brookville school board gets update on budget revenue
BROOKVILLE — Brookville Area School District business manager Ellen Neyman gave the school board an update on the proposed revenues for the 2023-24 school year this week.
She said the local revenue makes up only 35 percent of the district’s revenue, but it is the revenue source that the board has the most control over. She said the biggest change in local revenue was the real estate tax, which increased by $325,000. She said this did not come from a tax increase, as the board was not looking to raise real estate taxes for the upcoming budget. She said this is likely because of natural lifting of assessed values. She said she has not made any other significant changes in local revenue, as they have not put together their list of expenses yet. She said she will be bringing those numbers in the April meeting.
Neyman said the state revenues make up 60 percent of the budget. She said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro just released his first budget and there is not a lot of information as of yet. As such, the numbers she presented were very preliminary. She said this year is the highest allocation she has seen for a basic education increase, an increase of $559,000. She said this is because Shapiro is putting $567 million more into the formula. She said if everything is accurate, that $559,000 would accurately reflect the increase. She said all of the numbers are not in, so that number will change, but hopefully not significantly. She said a similar situation is going on with special education. The increase was $137,000, a number she has not seen for the district. She said it is usually in the ballpark of $18,000. She said, again, this is due to Shapiro proposing to move $100,000 more into the formula. She said other than those, there are not a lot of changes. She said this year showed a decrease in the PSERS expense.
She said it is very early to show federal revenues and noted that federal revenues go up one-toone with expenses. For Title 1, she said while it looks like a drastic drop from $694,000 to $416,000, it only shows the salaries and benefits, which supports three teachers and four aides. She said when they receive their allocation, Jessica Weible will make recommendations for what to use the other funding for, whether they
continue with the longterm sub and if the district will have other materials and programs available. She said there was not data for Title 2, as they did not have any salaries or benefits in that category. She said Title 4 represents their school resource officer and said even if the allocation goes up or down, they will commit funds for that purpose. She said the preliminary amount for Title 4 was $33,000.
She said for the ARP-ESSER III, the proposed $1,492,000 represents 15 teacher salaries and benefits at the high school English and math departments. She said they picked the high school because most of the federal money seems to fall on the elementary side of things and they wanted to keep a balanced approach with their funding sources. She said that is the area they need to watch closely when the fiscal cliff arrives, as when that funding source disappears, they still have those teachers’ salaries.
She said the total local revenues for the 2022-23 school year were $9,313,000, and $9,702,000 for the 2023-24 school year, representing a change of $390,000. The total state revenues for the 2022-23 school year were $16,765,000, and the preliminary state funds are $17,061,000 for the 2023-24 school year, representing a change of $296,000. The total federal revenues for the 2022-23 school year were $3,130,000, and the preliminary federal funds for the 2023-24 school year are $2,109,000, representing a difference of $1,021,000. Total revenues for the 2022-23 school year were $29,208,000, and the preliminary total revenues for the 2023-24 school year are $28,873,000 representing a difference of $335,000. She said while the upcoming year’s revenues are lower, they are only one percent lower, which is right in the ballpark of where they should be.
The second part of her presentation centered on the district’s fund balance. She explained the different levels of the fund balance in the general fund to the school board. Board member Herb McConnell asked if the only fund the board couldn’t change was the restricted fund. Neyman said that was correct.
Specifically, she made mention of the unassigned portion of the fund balance, which totaled $5,947,355 at the end of 2019-20, $6,630,533 at the end of 2020-2, and $8,198,599 at the end of 2021-22. She said while these may seem like large numbers, they represent only three weeks of the district’s expenses. She said the district could not get a loan in three weeks. She also mentioned that the district has increasing receivables, with the last two years coming in at $2 million from the state, and $750,000 last year. She said some of the fund balance isn’t exactly cash in hand. She said over the last two years, they have used $1.6 million in salaries and benefits from ESSER funds. She said of the increase to the fund balance, $1.6 million of it is ESSER funds, which are freed-up monies.
She stressed that these are one-time funds that will not come back around again. She reminded the board that the surplus funds came about because their revenues came in three to four percent more, with expenses coming in to four to five percent lower.
McConnell asked if this is the last year for the ESSER funds. Neyman said in 2023-24, they should be spending the last of their multi-year allocations, unless the funds are renewed or extended.