Outgoing Chief Financial Officer Tony Chance addressed several of the biggest challenges faced by the Warren County R-III District in its preparation of the 2017-2018 budget.Chance, who recently left for a similar position in the Hancock Place School District, St. Louis, was an integral part of a hurried effort to finalize the budget in time for the special June meeting. Much of the process hinged on the delays of release of numbers from the state.“The Legislature didn’t finalize their budgets until very late in the session,” explained Chance.“They went into special session later on to finalize other points of the budget. It puts the school districts in a tight position when we’re supposed to have our budget to our board in the month of June. It only leaves us with a couple of weeks to work.”Chance says the $10 million bond project, teacher salaries and substitute services had some of the most profound impacts on the budget this fiscal year.“I think we got through all the negotiations with the teachers and putting together salary schedules with other groups,” said Chance. “That’s the main thing, because salaries and benefits usually comprise about 70 to 75 percent of a school district’s budget.”As for substitute services, the board recently voted to contract out its substitute search process to Penmac. Chance says this could have positive implications on the budget moving forward.“That helps out in a lot of different ways,” said Chance. “The contracted service that has taken over will be the employer of the substitutes.”In regards to the bond project, occasional unforeseen circumstances have called for additional monies to be used, but the board also voted on that matter, deciding to put a $15,000 limit on what could be allowed by the administration without the approval of the board.For the fiscal year 2017-18, the board adopted a budget with $36,664,120 in revenues and $44,257,600 in expenditures.Total operating revenues for fiscal year 2017-18 are budgeted to be $32,776,838, while expenditures are budgeted at $32,535,511.Capital projects revenues are budgeted at $1.5 million with expenses at $9.5 million, as $8.7 million of that goes toward bond construction.School Budget