School Board Approves Slight Budget, Levy Hikes

The Glenwood Community School District budget will see a slight increase next year.

Following a public hearing Monday evening at the high school media center, the Glenwood Board of Director’s unanimously approved its $43.9 million budget for the 2017-2018 school year. The budget shows an increase of $232,277 – or about .5 percent – above the district’s current re-estimated 2016-2017 budget. No comments from the public were voiced during Monday’s hearing.

With the budget increase, the district’s tax levy for next year will go up slightly to 14.01 per $1,000 of taxable valuation from the current rate of 13.74.

Glenwood must certify its budget with the state by April 15.

The budget, which represents an estimation of the revenues the district anticipates collecting and the authority to levy taxes accordingly, includes all district funds, projected expenditures and projected revenues, including state, federal aid and local tax dollars. Instruction – which covers all staff salaries, benefits, instructional supplies, purchased services and training – is the district’s largest line item at $15.4 million, followed by plant operation and maintenance ($2 million), non-instructional programs ($1.9 million) and instructional staff support services ($1.7 million).

Of the district’s $43.9 million budget, state aid makes up 75 percent of that figure. The remainder of district revenues come from local taxes (24 percent) and federal funds (1 percent), according Glenwood Superintendent Devin Embray.
“Most of the budget is dictated by the state to us,” Embray said.

In February, Gov. Terry Branstad signed his state education-funding bill after several weeks of contentious debate in the Iowa legislature. The bill calls for a $40 million increase to the more than $3 billion K-12 education budget that goes into affect this July. The increase represents a 1.1 percent increase in state funding to Iowa’s public schools.

With the fractional hike in state funding, the state’s cost per regular student for the upcoming school year will increase to $6,664, or approximately $73 per student compared to the current academic year, according to the Legislative Services Agency.

But Glenwood won’t see all of that 1.1 percent increase in its state supplemental funding.
Due to shrinking enrollment, Glenwood will operate next year under a “budget guarantee,” meaning state aid figures will remain largely the same from this year through the 2017-2018 budget.

That’s a potential financial problem for Glenwood down the road, Embray said.

The district has lost more than 150 students in the last seven years, including 43 over the last year. With those student losses, Embray added, and if enrollment doesn’t show improvement in the fall, the district is facing potentially tough budget reductions for the 2018-2019 school year.

“We’ve been doing fairly well but we’ve lost kids and received very little in supplemental state aid in return,” Embray said. “So we’ve had to dip into our unspent, undesignated reserves to get us by and we’re getting to a point where we’re not comfortable going any further in that fund.”

The district estimates its unspent balance will likely drop from $6.3 million at the end of the 2017-2018 budget cycle to just over $5 million by the end of 2018-2019 budget year, according to Kristi Buman, business manager for the Glenwood School District.

“Going on the budget guarantee for one year isn’t a bad deal for us,” Embray said. “When you go on the budget guarantee for consecutive years, that’s when you really start spiraling down fast. That’s why we’re discussing reductions for 2018-2019. We don’t know what our enrollment will be this fall, but looking at projections, we’re going to be down.”

If enrollment is up in the fall, the district could get off the budget guarantee for 2018-2019 but “minimal cuts,” Embray said, are still likely.

“If it’s (enrollment) really good, we may not have to make any cuts,” he said. “It all depends on enrollment. If you’re just getting the one percent new money, your unspent balance is dropping by over a million and your cost of living is going up three percent, those numbers never really add up.”

A recent change to Iowa’s collective bargaining laws signed by the governor in March that affects pay and benefits for the state’s teachers and other school employees could free up revenue for schools. Glenwood is currently in negotiations with the district’s teachers union, the Glenwood Education Association, on its new master contract.