The Coweta County Board of Education approved a final operational budget of $175.9 million for the 2008-09 school year at their regular board meeting on June 10.

The budget will become effective in the school system’s new fiscal year starting July 1. It projects no increase of the school board’s maintenance and operation property tax rate of 18.59 mills, assuming a 5.5% rise in the Coweta County tax digest.

The tax digest is the value of taxable property in Coweta County, which provides local revenue for operations of public schools through the school system property tax. The budget for the school system’s new fiscal year must be set before final estimates of tax digest growth are set later in the summer.

The school system estimated a 5.75 percent increase in the tax digest for its 2007-09 school year budget, with actual increases in the tax digest coming in at approximately 6.1 percent because of new home and retail growth in the county.

The school system’s budget also projects the use of up to $3.6 million in reserves to balance the budget. A similar amount of reserve spending was budgeted for the 2007-08, but Superintendent Blake Bass noted that the school system spending in the current school year is on track to finish under-budget at the end of June, and will actually add some revenue to the school system’s reserves.

Bass said that his office will make a similar attempt to keep down spending and avoid use of reserves in the 2008-09 school year.

The General Fund Budget of $175,931,581 tentatively adopted by the school board Tuesday reflects an increase of $9.4 million over last year’s General Fund budget of $166,525,599.

School System Assistant Superintendent Keith Chapman reported that most of this year’s increase in the General Fund budget driven by personnel costs, energy inflation and other price inflation, and somewhat by expected growth.

The budget provides a 2.5 percent state raise for certified and non-certified employees, and “step” raises to employees based on experience are also funded in the General Fund budget.

$7.4 million of the $9.4 million increase reflects student enrollment growth (a net increase of approximately 30 new teaching positions are anticipated next year), and cost-of-living and step raises for existing personnel in all positions. $800,000 more is being budgeted for fuel costs, reflecting an anticipated increase in bus routes (serving more students) and, most of all, a 65 percent increase in diesel costs, most of which has been experienced during the current school year.

Those cost increases – along with cost increases for general energy costs and textbook costs – account for all but $600,000 of the $9.4 million general fund increase, Chapman said.

The general fund budget is the operating budget for the school system, and is financed by a combination of state revenue and local sales taxes. The general fund includes instructional funds, school system personnel, pupil services, school maintenance and operation, transportation and other day-to-day costs of operating the school systems.

In addition to the $175.9 million general fund Budget, there are three other school system budgets approved by the board as a part of its total 2008-09 budget, which reflect special federal and state funding, school construction, and service of bond debt. Those budgets, combined with the operations budget, total $246,439,483.

The additional budgets include the special revenue Fund (which accounts for state and federal funding sent to special federal programs such as Title I and federal lunch programs, as well as the school system’s self-supporting school food services), the Capital Projects Fund (for construction) and the Debt Service fund.

School construction and debt service are funded principally by the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funds and some state funding.

The total capital projects fund of $36,835,900 reflects the construction this year of a new elementary school on Jim Starr Road in northern Coweta, several school refurbishment and improvement projects, student transportation expansions, and $12.1 million in SPLOST funds that will be used to retire short-term bond debt issued in 2006 that allowed for the start of several SPLOST projects under the current school sales tax.

The school refurbishment projects – including Moreland Elementary School and various reroofing, HVAC and other projects – have been largely begun already. Following Board approval of Construction Manager subcontractor bids on June 2, site work is expected to get underway on the new 950-students Jim Starr Road elementary school project before the end of June. That school is expected to open in time for classes in August of 2009.

This year’s operational budget includes a continuation of state budget cuts. Cuts in state educational funding began in the 2002-2003 school year for all Georgia school systems because of difficult economic conditions in Georgia. The state has restored some of that funding in recent years, with a cut of only $1.2 million in 2008-09, following state funding cuts to Coweta County of $1.9 million in 2007-08 and $2.1 million in 2006-07.

Over the five-year period since state funding cuts began the Coweta County School System has experienced an estimated $17.8 in cumulative cuts of its state funding.

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