Glenbrook Dist. 225 board passes balanced budget
At Tuesday's Glenbrook High Schools District 225 board meeting, members took formal action to approve the 2020-21 budget.
The bottom line? The bottom line.
"First and foremost we have a balanced budget," said Dr. R.J. Gravel, District 225 assistant superintendent for business services, who spoke with the Daily Herald before the meeting.
"Second of all - it's a question on everyone's mind - COVID is a reality, how do we anticipate COVID to impact our revenues?" he said.
"As of right now, our revenues are stable. The one impact it has had is our revenues from interest earning - school districts have a fund balance, or reserve, and we earn interest off that - as you probably can imagine have significantly declined."
A tentative budget was compiled in July, and a public hearing on it was held at the last regular board meeting on Sept. 14. On Tuesday the budget's adoption carried 7-0.
Revenues, reflecting a decrease of 0.16% from 2019-20, total $142,586,905. Some 94% of that comes from local sources including $117,740,636 in property taxes. Receipts due to property taxes increased by $1.7 million partly due to an increase in new property equalized assessed value of $65.4 million.
Expenditures likewise decreased from 2019-20, by 1.31%. Total direct expenditures actually were $144,562,311, but a one-time purposeful use of fund balance for capital projects and debt service of $1,975,406 created the balanced budget.
The purposeful use of fund balance included $1,205,724 for approved capital projects that included new roofing, track resurfacing and the modernization of the Glenbrook South nurse's office, Gravel said, adding that the district attempts to maintain a capital project plan, supplied by impact fees for new housing or new development, of about $1.5 million annually for modernization or enhancement of facilities.
"We're using funds that have been accumulated for a certain purpose - in this case debt or capital projects, and we're using that balance. But in order to use it because you don't have revenues coming in the same fiscal year, you're using what's been accumulated," he said.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the federal CARES Act provided $250,000 to district coffers. In addition, District 225 has designated an additional $500,000 within operating funds to handle currently unanticipated COVID expenditures.
Gravel said the district has spent a little more than $1 million in COVID-related items, such as "grab-and-go" meal service, mobile hot spots for remote student learning, digital learning tools, additional staff and more than $75,000 for Zoom licensing.
Funds were taken from other departments, he said, to pool together the $500,000 for unanticipated expenditures.
District 225 currently has $66.3 million in debt on bonds. In August the board approved refinancing of the debt to save $1.7 million by paying lower interest on the debt. That debt was purchased between 2002 and 2020 and is set to be paid off by Jan. 1, 2028.
While there might be additional debt for modernization, Gravel anticipated that in the future taxpayers will benefit by a significant decrease in debt on hand.
"They'll pay less money because they won't pay that debt portion," he said.
Dr. Gravel said the District 225 budget has been balanced in each of the six years of his involvement, with the exception of Purposeful Use of Fund Balance.
"Typically Glenbrook kind of prides itself on developing a balanced budget where we utilize resources we have available to us in the best way possible. We also have worked very diligently to ensure that our residents, our taxpayers that have children attending the school, receive the benefit of the taxes they're paying," he said.