Budget nearly ready, unspent funds may go to reserves

District looking at small purchases now to trim next year’s budget

The North Penn School Board is just weeks away from passing its 2018-19 budget, and getting a head start on balancing the books by using extra funds from the current year.

“We’re chipping away at the 2018-19 budget by prepurchasing some items like textbooks, but nothing major has changed since the passage of the proposed final budget,” said Director of Business Administration Steve Skrocki.

Since the start of 2018, the school board and finance department staff have discussed a proposed $260 million 2018-19 budget, which would require a 3.4 percent tax increase made possible by exceptions from the state’s Act 1 of 2006. On May 17, the school board voted to adopt the proposed final budget, and final adoption is scheduled for the board’s June 21 meeting.

In the last meeting of the board’s finance committee before that night, Skrocki said the figures for next year have barely changed, but the 2018-19 budget could be boosted by good news from the 2017-18 one.

“We’re projecting at this point in time, the current budget, the 2017-18 budget, on the expense side, that we’re going to come in under budget by about $2.7 million,” Skrocki said.

“Going back several years, what we have done, what the board has considered, is transferring money from the general fund over to the capital reserve fund,” he said.

Last year the school board voted to transfer $1.7 million in unspent funds from the year-end general fund into capital reserves, and in the prior year the transfer was roughly $2 million, Skrocki told the board — in 2014-15, the board exactly matched that year’s revenues with expenses, so the transfer that year totalled $2,258,391 instead of a round number.

With several big-ticket capital projects on the school board’s to-do list, transferring part or all of the unspent funds from 2017-18 into reserves could help cover those costs later.

“With the possibility of athletic field upgrades on the horizon, with the possibility of building renovations on the horizon, the tenyear capital plan, I think it’s prudent to consider transferring some or all of that $2.7 million,” he said.

The final total of unspent funds from 2017-18 will not be known until the budget audit process is underway, likely around September, Skrocki said, and any early purchases for next year will have to be processed by June 30 to be counted in the 2017-18 budget before the 2018-19 fiscal year begins. So far staff are looking into possible purchases of textbooks, projector equipment, and possibly athletic equipment, and any purchases done with 2017-18 funds can then be removed from the 2018-19 budget, Skrocki said.

More details on the year-end unspent funds and early purchases could be announced when the board discusses and votes on the final 2018-19 budget on June 21.

The school board next meets at 7:30 p.m. on June 12 and 21, both at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock St.; for more information visit www. NPenn.org.