As the school year comes to an end the district’s budgetary uncertainties are only rising. Now that the district’s Budget Advisory Steering Committee has concluded their meetings, budget plans will be discussed at Board of Education meetings starting this Wednesday. The passing of the block grant funding in the State Legislature has led to a loss of funding for the district.

“With the block grant that was passed and signed we lose $592,128 in what’s known as LOB equalization aid and that was part of the law that was passed in the state legislation last spring and we built a budget on it in good faith and, of course, now they’ve changed it and we’re short that amount,” USD 383 Director of Business Services Lew Faust said.

The block grant funding system will be in place for the next two years.

“It freezes our funding for two years, in spite of the fact that costs go up each year, so I am not in favor of the block grant,” BOE president Leah Fliter said. “The block grant also takes away funding for increased enrollment and for additional numbers of military students. Everything is frozen, even if we have more students in the district next year than we did this year.”

Additionally, to meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, the district will have to pay another $1 million in health care costs.

“We also know that as a district we have to meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act for certain employee groups starting on Oct. 1 next year,” Faust said. “That’s primarily for our paraprofessionals and bus drivers and employees who average more than 30 hours a week. We have to provide them health insurance.”

The district’s contingency reserve fund, which has been available for withdrawal for the past four years, is yet another source of capital that will soon be unavailable.

“This year we added $250,000 from what’s known as the contingency reserve funds which is added to the general fund to supplement the budget which has been allowed the last four years and we’ve done it all four years that it’s been allowed,” Faust said. “We’re not going to be able to continue to do that and rely on that. It’s just like if you’re pulling from savings at home, you can only do that for so long, so we’re going to have to make up that amount as well.”

Likewise, increase in operating costs and a further increase in the State’s tax deficit continue to add to the district’s budget woes.

“If you just look at a basic 1 percent increase in operating cost, just for gas, electricity, insurance, things that are required just to do business that’s probably another 480,000,” Faust said. “So you put all those things together and that’s 2.3 million in negative numbers and that doesn’t even begin to take into account if we have an increase in health insurance costs – which is likely to happen – if we want to do anything for employees as far as a salary increase or if there are any other increases we want to make. We don’t know what to expect and that’s what’s difficult because when they passed the block grant and it was signed into law but they hadn’t funded it. That’s what they’re doing right now. They’ve got to fund it and they have a $400 million deficit. So they’ve got a real challenge and there does not seem to be consensus amongst the legislature on a strategy on how to try and fill the gap.”

“We won’t know much until the legislature adjourns, I hope sometime this month,” Fliter said. “Many legislators have said they don’t want to cut K-12 spending any more, and the block grant is supposed to ensure we get level funding for the next two years while they figure out a new formula. But other legislators want to keep cutting. We’ll have to see what happens in Topeka.”