Given the current financial climate for Missouri school districts, the Warren County R-III district is doing about as well as can be expected. That’s the message the district superintendent passed …
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Given the current financial climate for Missouri school districts, the Warren County R-III district is doing about as well as can be expected. That’s the message the district superintendent passed on at the April school board meeting.
At the monthly meeting, Superintendent Dr. Gregg Klinginsmith briefed the board on the current financial status in preparation for the board's vote on a budget amendment, including an operational deficit of $750,000.
That figure is up from the projected deficit, he said.
“We originally planned for a deficit of about $500,000,” Klinginsmith said. “The shortfall in state funding is really pushing that back, so we’ll see how that all lands.”
One area that is helping the district fiscally is the funding it is receiving and will continue to receive to support high needs students. With the monies received, even with an overall decrease in state funds, the impact was lessened somewhat as the district incurred a loss of $71,833 in state funding.
That figure could have been much larger, Klinginsmith said.
“We did see an increase in the high needs fund and, next year, we should see another increase,” Klinginsmith said. “That’s because we have more high needs students needing access and needing services. That has been good to offset costs and that’s why we’re seeing purchase services higher, too.”
Klinginsmith said that the district’s fund balance is also in a good place – for now.
“I’m projecting our fund balance to be close to 32 percent,” Klinginsmith said. “That’s close to what we’ve had. That’s healthy for what we have. It is, however, something that we cannot sustain for a long time. We had some minor changes, but the big change is in the state funding.”
Overall, the district has the funds to deal with an overage in expenses. That’s due to bond money that Warren County R-III has in its bank account.
He reminded the assembled board members that the operational deficit must be addressed in the long run.
“Our revenue is at $58 (million), and our expenses are at $73 (million),” Klinginsmith said. “We’re not deficit spending almost $20 million. It’s not what you see. We have money in the bank. On the operational side, we do have that deficit.”
After the presentation, the board voted unanimously to approve the budget amendment.
