Van Wijk Blog

On May 6, the Collierville Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) and the Collierville School Board held a joint working session to review the draft budget for the 2014-2015 school year. The Collierville Schools budget is not finalized yet, but is very close to being finished. The BMA needs the preliminary numbers for its budgeting purposes by next week. This post summarizes my observations from today’s meeting, and any editorial comments are clearly identifiable as such below.

The full BMA and School Boards were present, as well as the town administrator, and most of the Collierville Schools senior office staff. The audience was very light.

For most of the meeting, Superintendent Aitken walked the board through the numbers that make up the detailed budget. The budget balances revenues and expenses at this time. The expense side of the budget is based on the projected enrollment number of 7900 students. The revenue side is based on an estimate of 7600 students, which is the number of students in Collierville schools as of April. This is the number the state board has decided to use as the basis for allocation of funds. Per state law, the actual payments out of the county tax and state education funds will be based on actual enrollment numbers, as determined during the school year. In June following the school year, a true up payment will be made as appropriate to account for the difference. It should be noted that in the case where the actual enrollment actually is realized, that June payment could be around $2M at the end of next school year.

There are a few items still under negotiation with vendors, but reasonable estimates have been included in the budget.

The projected total cost for the 2014-2015 school year is $60,695,411. Revenues match this number for a balanced budget. Mr Aitken pointed out that there are approximately $800-900,000 in savings realized through the use of shared services by the participating municipalities. In the current setup, Collierville is responsible for approximately 26% of shared services cost, when allocated on a per-student basis among 6 municipalities. For comparison, Germantown’s share is 19%. Should Germantown opt out of some or all shared services, those costs will then be spread among the participating school districts.

Into budget detail…

The largest portion of revenues is state funding. Second is county funding. The municipal contribution is currently set at the state mandated formula relating to the property taxes, but is being funded through the local option sales tax.

On the expense side, by far the largest portion is teacher salaries and related general education expenses. The projection is that there will be 395 general education teachers, which is an increase of approximately 13 teachers over current staffing levels. Most of the increase in teachers will go to CHS and SFMS. In the health insurance projection, the current district-employee ratio used is 66-34%. It is estimated that 80% of eligible personnel will actually enroll in the health care plan.

Another area with significant personnel numbers is special education. Special education staffing will follow current numbers, which are generally where legacy SCS was. It should be noted that by law the ‘maintenance of effort’ rules around special education are based on the first year of operations, whereas the overall maintenance of effort will be based on numbers after three years of operation. Maintenance of effort refers to the rules around towns that fund school districts not being allowed to reduce their funding levels for the schools unless there is a significant reduction in enrollment.

In reference to budget line items around instructional equipment, the question was asked if measures are being taken to ensure current school inventories will not change after the end of the school year. The settlement agreement stipulates that everything in the schools as of the time of the agreement will stay with the schools. Mr Aitken assured the boards that this is being watched closely. The superintendents in the county (including SCS’ Hopson) are discussing this in a meeting this week. Inventory documentation exists and school administration is keeping an eye on it.

Other notable budgeting items:

• Health rooms will see a nurse at each school, and a medical records clerk at each school.
• There will be a full-time librarian at each school.
• Librarian assistants and cafeteria monitors will return to the schools.
• Each school will have a plant manager again.
• Special Education clerical staff will remain at each school (these are being cut at SCS).
• Janitorial Services will continue to be outsourced as per the legacy SCS model.
• Transportation will be outsourced, because of the inability to start an in-house system in the time allowed and funding available.
• Career and Technical education will be a shared service provided by Arlington under contract.
• Curriculum Technology Trainers (CTT) will be assigned two schools each. There will also be 6 tech support resources for the district.
• After three years, the school district, by state law, must have built a reserve fund equaling 3% of its annual operating expenses.
• No major capital items are included in the budget for this year.
• Collierville Schools will be awaiting the results of discussions at the county level around some overdue maintenance items at some of the school buildings.
• In the budget is a line item for $500,000 to be paid to SCS as part of the settlement agreement for the next 12 years.

Throughout the presentation, there were clarifying questions asked by various board members. My comments above generally include the explanations given.

At the end of the meeting, Vice Mayor Maureen Fraser asked about enrollment confirmation letters, and was told that the last of those should have gone out today. Generally speaking, all requests had been honored. Another question by Ms Fraser was about school start times. After remarking that this would depend on the arrangement with the transportation company, Mr Aitken also clarified that while the aspirational goals might be to go to two start times, for practical and budgetary reasons, it looks like the district will remain at three start times at least this coming year. A change in start times would seem likely after a few years, but not right now.

In conclusion, Mr Aitken pointed out that the main objectives were to restore services and service levels to the legacy SCS levels, at the least. Having shared services is a key element in being able to spend more of the district’s money in the classrooms.

Teacher hiring:

After the meeting, in a conversation with Mr Aitken, he indicated that teacher employment offers should be going out this week. There is no requirement of currently having tenure to be eligible to be hired for next school year right now. This is good news for all those teachers eager for news about their continued employment in their municipal schools!