Wednesday, July 3, 2024
The Gatesville Independent School District Board of Trustees gave final approval to the 2022-23 budget and tax rate during a special meeting on Aug. 30, setting the budget at $29,717,793 and the tax rate at $1.0546 per $100 property valuation.
The approval came after a difficult process in which GISD staff, led by Chief Financial Officer Darrell Frazier, made several reductions to the budget in order to offset a $2 million shortfall caused by the reduction of state funds. State funding had been reduced because of lower enrollment and attendance rates following the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, trustees received some good news that should have a positive impact on funding moving forward. Frazier noted that both attendance and enrollment numbers were up so far for the 2022-23 school year.
"Enrollment is good – we're up to 2,704 (students) and that's more than last year," he said. "We've had really good attendance levels, too. If we can keep enrollment and attendance up, we'll be doing great."
School board President Charles Ament commended Frazier and the district's staff for pulling together in difficult conditions to propose the budget.
"A lot of people worked on that budget," Frazier said.
The tax rate consists of .08546 for maintenance and operations – GISD's day-to-day expenses - and 20 cents for the interest and sinking fund, which relates to longer term debt payments.
Frazier said the maintenance and operations rate was down nearly a penny from the previous tax rate, and that the interest and sinking rate had declined by about half a cent.
Because of higher property values, the district will bring in more local revenue for 2022-23 than it did for the previous year, but the state also reduces its funding by a similar amount when local revenue rises.
Based on property values, the tax rate was effectively raised by 12.29%, which will raise taxes on a home valued at $100,000 by about $11.62.
The board also approved designating portions of GISD's fund balance to meet specific obligations, including:
* $100,000 committed toward satisfying a requirement under the Disabilities Education Act
* $500,000 committed toward GISD's property and casualty loss deductible in case of catastrophic loss.
* $2 million to offset potential future decreases in state funding or delays in receiving that funding.
* $500,000 for major capital acquisitions and facility projects as authorized by the superintendent with board approval.
The board also voted to allow each campus to maintain the portion of the fund balance related to campus activity funds, and resolved not to relegate that money for other expenses.
"This preserves the integrity of funding for each campus (and specifies) that the district will not remove that money," Frazier said. "It's important ethically for the school district to protect those campus activity funds."
Superintendent Barrett Pollard said the district's financial office did an outstanding job in preparing the budget.
"Darrell's office put in a lot of long hard hours preparing this," Pollard said.
