After a short public hearing, the Lansing School Board approved its 2010-2011 school year budget during a meeting Monday.
Superintendent Randy Bagby said there were a few changes made to the preliminary budget presented to the board last month. The foremost, he said, stemmed from an annual review by the state’s department of education and was related to the district’s bond and interest fund.
“We have to budget for bond and interest for 18 months, not just 12 months,” he said. “So we needed to keep that cash basis up there.”
Adjusting the bond and interest for 18 months, Bagby said the district would still be able to decrease its mill levy — but only by about .3 mills to 51.518, compared to the 1.7-mill reduction, resulting in a total levy of 50.118, that was originally proposed.
“It’s not as much as we’d hoped,” but it is still a reduction, he said.
According to Bagby, the budget for the year is figured with a full-time enrollment of 2,600. In the past, he said he has underbudgeted and republished if necessary to save the district and taxpayers money at the end of the year. But after two consecutive years where the state has handed cuts to its schools in the middle of the year, Bagby said he has changed that practice.
“We wanted to be as accurate as possible,” he said.
A $1.2 million new facility waiting fund available for the first two years of operation of the elementary school will no longer be available in 2010-2011 and will not be levied for, Bagby said. Because the local option budget is a percentage of the total general fund, the LOB decreased too.
Between that and a slight increase in real estate property valuations in the district, Bagby said last month that the district has not had to lay off any teachers.
