Brandon Twp.- The school board approved a first amendment to the 2014-15 budget which essentially balances the budget and leaves the district with a relatively healthy 8.14 percent fund balance; however, hefty cuts are coming in order to keep the district above the state’s critical threshold of a 5 percent fund balance.
The amended budget has $26,870,217 in revenue, and $26,880,550 in expenditures,but the district is currently looking at a $1.1 million deficit in 2015-16 based on a continued projected decline in enrollment.
Without changes, that would reduce the fund balance to 3.92 percent next year. However, changes are coming.
‘We are projecting no less than $1.1 million in cuts, based on enrollment projections,? said Superintendent Matt Outlaw.
‘As you get smaller, it requires compassionate right sizing of the district. Over the next few months, we’ll look at a number of things, but we want to keep the cuts as far away from the students as we can. When there is right sizing, there are common sense things to do? if there are less students, less sections of courses. That is one component.?
The district has lost more than 800 students since 2006, resulting in a shrinking fund balance, as well as numerous cuts, including a 7.5 percent decrease to teacher salaries, implemented in 2013. That wage cut enabled officials to finally balance the budget for the first time in years.
‘I am pleased that with the budget amendment we will balance the 2014-2015 budget and we are committed to balancing the budget in the future,? Outlaw said. ‘As we go to the future, we are going to continue to lose students and that has to do with the birth rate, lack of new builds in the district, and reduction of schools of choice. That trend will continue.?
Outlaw noted that the birth rate is down 15 percent across the state and 36 percent in Brandon. In 2014, 311 seniors graduated from Brandon High School. This fall’s kindergarteners numbered only 133.
Two-thirds of all districts in the state have declining enrollment. Additionally, he said a ‘schools of choice bubble? is moving through the district. One-third of all the district’s soc students are currently in 11th and 12th grades and will be graduating soon.