by Garrick Moritz, Gazette
Five years ago, the school was facing a potentially school-closing deficit. Substantially more funds were going out than coming in, and the Garretson School Board requested to pass a $500,000 per year opt-out measure to turn the school back around. When the school received permission from the voters to go ahead with the tax increase, they promised to do their best to reduce costs and asked the community to do its best to grow. The five years are now up, and while there have been promising signs in the right direction, a potential deficit still remains.
Due to that possibility, at the school board meeting on Monday, the Garretson School Board passed a new $350,000 tax opt-out measure.
Both a public meeting and presentation will be held in April, and a public vote on this opt-out measure has been scheduled for May 11, 2021.
Back in 2016, the school was facing financial difficulty and they passed a tax opt out measure for $500,000 per year for five years to support the general fund balance. The school was deficit spending at a rate that the administration did not feel was sustainable.
The school’s general fund is comprised from a mix of local, state and federal revenue sources. The tax levies are set by the state, and the state regulates how much can be maintained in the school’s general fund balance.
State monies are determined by a complicated per-student formula, a formula that determines how many teachers the school should have based on the number of students enrolled determined by an annual count that is taken in October.
The General Fund’s purpose is to pay for the operational costs and personnel of the district. This translates to payroll for staff and school programs.
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