A new fiscal year began for the Chelsea School District at the beginning of July and that means working with a new budget.
The Chelsea Board of Education held a budget hearing on June 23, followed by a board meeting in which it unanimously approved the preliminary budgets for the 2014-2015 school year.
Teresa Zigman, executive director of business and operations for the Chelsea School District, spoke to the board about having to dip into fund equity.
“I think the most important aspect of the 2014-15 budget is that overall the district will dip into fund equity in 2014-15 another $578,279,” said Zigman. “The use of fund equity is the result of one-time funding sources at the state/local level ending or being reduced.”
Superintendent Andy Ingall said, “The Chelsea School District will see $54,000 less in combined per pupil funding (foundation, best practices, performance) in the 2014-2015 year than in the previous year.”
He says that the best information with which the district had to do its initial planning was with the proposed budgets by the governor and the house.
“Compared to those projections, we are seeing $146,400 less than anticipated,” said Ingall.
Zigman said that the budget was affected by the last minute decision by the state legislators to change the funding formula.
“Completely doing away with the 2x formula really put Chelsea behind as it reduced our revenue,” said Zigman. “We were able to trim staffing costs mainly through retirements and attrition which helped to offset the revenue loss.”
At the June 23 meeting, Ingall said that he was watching enrollment for the fall closely and said that he estimates the upcoming kindergarten class will exceed 150 students. There were 189 students who graduated in the spring.
