The Morgan Hill School District is walking a financial
tightrope.
“This is the true budget of the School District,” Deputy
Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini (formerly Branco), who heads the
business services department of the district, told trustees during
a review of 2003-04 spending and income figures.
The Morgan Hill School District is walking a financial tightrope.
“This is the true budget of the School District,” Deputy Superintendent Bonnie Tognazzini (formerly Branco), who heads the business services department of the district, told trustees during a review of 2003-04 spending and income figures.
“It reflects the number of students that we hired teachers for, the teachers’ salaries, any increases in staff development and any changes in state funding since the budget was adopted. The bottom line is, our adopted budget had an unallocated amount of $1.34. We’re now looking at 74 cents.”
Tognazzini told trustees that there is no padding in this year’s budget.
“We project we will spend every nickel in this budget,” she said.
The district must also come up with a budget for next year that includes salaries and operating expenses, such as electrical and water, for the new Sobrato High scheduled to open in August 2004.
Also, the district has yet to begin actual negotiations with employee groups on new contracts.
And with the state budget situation uncertain, revenue projects are not certain for this and next fiscal year.
The report also indicates that based on current projections, the district may have to cut an additional $555,616 from the general fund budget to provide funds for deferred maintenance. The state provides matching funds for deferred maintenance, but only if the district sets aside its share. The report noted that special reserve fund resources of $584,977 could be used if necessary.
While income increased over projections in the adopted budget by $1,622,380, expenses also increased over the projections by $3,781,301. The increase in income is due to increases in categorical funding, allocations of deferred revenue from prior year and several additional resources. The increase in expenses is due to allocation of categorical funding, allocations from deferred revenue.
Trustee Shellé Thomas said she is very concerned about the deferred maintenance fund.
“Here we are doing extensive work on Los Paseos and Live Oak, not to mention building a new high school, and we have no money to maintain the buildings we do have,” she said. “There is more than one definition of bankrupt … And no where are we talking about the impact Sobrato will have on us … We are really going to have to problem-solve in order to move forward.”
The first interim report, Tognazzini said, shows an unallocated amount in the budget of $0.74 and a 2.3 percent economic uncertainty fund of $879,548, .7 percent less than the state mandated amount of 3 percent. The district can dip below the 3 percent requirement this year, and also for next year, but then it must come back to the 3 percent required, she said.
