LMSD 2012 Budget Hearing - Board Deals with State Cuts & Public Concern

A small but vocal group of citizens attended the Louisville Municipal School District's 2012 budget hearing on Monday morning (6-23). The hearing's purpose was to allow for public input and comment prior to the establishment of a final budget for the next fixcal year. The Board hopes to review all comments and make any additional changes before adopting a final budget on July 19th.
The Special Education budget was presented separately as required. The Special Education budget is funded by federal dollars and the budget allocation is based upon Ms. Department of Education calculations rather than figures from the local district. Lacking firm numbers from the State, Laquita Moore presented budget figures based upon the previous year. The budget proposed for Special Education is $1,041,363.90 for the 2012 fiscal year.
After a PowerPoint presentation from Business Manager Tracy Luke, citizens were provided time to comment. Several questions concerned differences in projected revenue vs expenditures and requests for access to copies of the budget prior to finalization. A local citizen, George Hailey expressed concerns about the amount of staff employed by the school system, specifically administrators, assistant principals and coaches: "This is not a big school...you haven't cut the fat enough..."
After all discussion, Board Chairman indicated that the Board would take everything discussed into consideration. He also expressed a desire that in the future, budget hearings would have to be moved to the school auditorium if the public would take more interest in the process.
Superintendent Wade indicated that the last two years had seen cuts in funding from the state and other agencies of almost 2 million dollars and that it was necessary to make reductions while still protecting the quality of our schools. He thanked the previous superintendent and administration for the fiscal management that allowed the system to deal with the current funding cutbacks and that any additional cuts would likely affect the existence of some programs. Wade indicated that increases in state and federal mandates for teacher salaries and programs requires an additional $700,000 increase from one year to the next.
The LMSD preliminary budget basics are as follows:

PROJECTED 2012 REVENUES                    $24,002,895
PROJECTED EXPENDITURES                    $25,436,000*
*transfer of funds from existing accounts(internal transfers) will account for the differences in revenue vs expenditures.

State funds account for roughly 50% of all revenue or approximately $12 million of the $24 milliion
Fedral funds account for 20% of all revenue or approximately $5 million. Most federal funds go into Title 1, Special Education and Child Nutrition.
16th Section land accounts for about 2% of revenue and local ad valorem taxes account for approximately 28% of revenue.

Of each dollar in the budget:
56% - salaries
19% - benefits
25% - operations

It is yet to be seen what effect, the 2012 budget will have on local taxes. The status of the local tax base will determine if an increase in millage rates will be required.

William McCully