Oxford’s school board received good news at a Feb. 13 meeting, when Assistant Superintendent of Business and Operations Sam Barna reported on the 2017-18 General Fund Amended budget – Oxford Schools is anticipated to end the fiscal year with an increase of almost $48,000 in the general fund’s fund balance.

On the revenue side, Oxford Schools has seen an increase of nearly $2.75 million (5 percent) overall.

Local revenue decreased by 9.4 percent following recent changes to the Oxford International Program (OIP), which required all second and third-year international students to start attending classes at Rochester College rather than within the district (a total loss of nearly $614,000 this year).

The program also saw a near $13,000 (3.3 percent) reduction in expenditures due to the changes.

Following an FTE increase of 262 students and a $120 increase per pupil, the district also saw a $3,145,678 total increase in state revenue.

Federal funding decreased nearly $55,000 from last year’s budget following changes to the federal funding formula and following improvement to the district’s poverty index estimate.

Leonard elementary recently improved its standing as a Title I funding school under the No Child Left Behind Act, which means it is no longer considered a high-poverty school and will no longer receive additional financial assistance from the federal government, according to Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Ken Weaver.

On the expenditure side, the amended budget shows a near $25,000 (149 percent) increase in the “community services” category, which includes custodial costs for school facility rentals.

Barna added that this cost to the district was offset by facility rental fees, which provide around $100,000 annually in revenue to Oxford Schools.

Three collective bargaining agreements which saw salary and benefit increases for many of the district’s staff and employees led to increases underneath the instruction and support services categories.

Under instruction, ‘basic programs’ saw a 4.1 percent increase and ‘added needs’ saw a 4.4 percent. ‘Instructional staff’ also saw a 28.4 percent increase following these agreements.

Under central expenditures, the amended budget shows nearly a $990,195 (45.5 percent) increase from last year’s budget.

A large part of this increase, according to Barna, was related to a $555,000 expense to the district in order to update the district’s wireless network to keep up with its growing student population.

The district is expecting to be reimbursed for a portion of that cost by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) through the schools and libraries universal service support program, commonly known as the E-rate program.

“We’re supposed to get a federal reimbursement up to as high as $235,000 (for the E-rate equipment),” Barna explained. “When I budget, I’m very conservative and I don’t know when that’s going to transpire and exactly how much, so I decided to place the whole entire expenditure as a budget line item in that particular account. That’s why you’re seeing a larger variance. I expect that variance to be much, much smaller.”

An increase in staffing to support Oxford Virtual Academy also accounts for a portion of the central expenditures, which accounted for $200,000 of that total.

The amended budget also allocated $200,000 of the general fund to be transferred to a capital projects fund, which is a designated account meant to help offset the cost to the general fund budget if an emergency repair to infrastructure should come up.

According to the budget, the district will be adding over $48,000 to its end-of-the-year fund balance, which would increase its balance to more than $9.2 million. This represents 15.72 percent of the overall budget.

“Overall, we’re expecting excess revenue and we’re running in the black,” Barna told the board.

The school board will receive the final budget amendment in June, then receive the proposed original budget for 2018-2019 shortly afterward.