Sorry I didn't write a blog last month. I was very busy and there wasn't much business to talk about. A couple things from last month. Bart Cook was presented a lifetime Idaho High School Activities Association pass. After 12 years of board service a board member qualifies for this pass. Bart has served 17 years, so they are a little slow presenting this to him. Thank you Bart for all your years of service to our district.
Mr. Kunz asked to get permission to send out a bid for a new bus. The old one being retired is 17 years old and has 160,000 miles. It will be auctioned when we get the new bus next summer.
The new bus lane was discussed. The curb and gutter has been put in. There is still some landscaping to do, but it sure looks better. Next year the plan is to lower the roadway between the high school and berm. Repave the roadway, and repair and replace the sidewalk, and put a curb in on the other side. Hopefully the next phase can start early next year.
Well onto this months meeting.
The first thing was the annual audit report by Morgan Hatt. The annual budget year ended June 30. Our total district revenue from all sources was $4,997,645. $4,027,443 from the state, $514,884 federal, $314,753 property taxes, and $120,565 other local revenue. I can't remember what other revenues are. The total revenue amount was $7000 more than last year. Total expenditures were $4,900,765, for a net revenue gain of $76,880.
We had 754 enrolled last year and spent $6,500 per student. State average was $6,659. Mr. Hatt thought for a district of our size we did very well. He said smaller schools usually spend more per student. For example he said Rockland spends about $11,000 per student. Large schools much less.
Our fund balance increased $53,382. This was the first increase in many years. Our total contingency fund balance ended up at $836,144. Mr Hatt also indicated this was very good compared to other school districts. With our revenue down $564,000 this past year compared to 2010, the chart only went back this far, it is remarkable that we still have a good balance in our contingency. Thanks to all our staff who manage the budget. Now with the support of the community in voting for our supplemental levy, we will be able to do some much needed updates, and still maintain a responsible amount in our contingency.
We had 41.57 units of students. Our M&O budget per unit was raised just under $300 per unit from the year before. I asked if our attendance had improved this past year with the efforts mostly through the Education Foundation to reward perfect attendance. He said we went up from 96% in 2013 to 98% last year. I'm not sure how much this helped our funding, but better attendance does help. We received $13,419 in facility maintenance money from the state. This is the first time in many years we received money for this use. There was also $15,173 from the state lottery. We were told the past few years the lottery money was just put into the overall state education fund, so we didn't know just how much we received. For whatever reason this year they separated it again. We have $821,871 in our non student occupied fund, which is where the money comes from for the bus lane project. We have $203,343 in our student occupied fund, which we used a couple years ago to buy the high school bleachers.
Last year we had a $28,060 budget surplus in our school lunch budget. This year thanks to the new federal nutrition standards we ended up with a $9,793 deficit. The added cost of the required food really adds up. We were told we are losing about .30 for every meal we serve. The government reimburses us $2.95 for free and reduced lunches which has helped fund the difference between what meals cost and what we charge, but with the higher food costs and less participation we are going in the hole. In 2009 our free meal participation was 68%, now it's 61%. Only 50% of the kids that qualify for reduced price lunches are eating it. Overall this past year only 53% of our district students ate school lunch. The lunch service personnel spend a lot of time doing required paperwork, they didn't used to have to do. It will be interesting to see if the standards will get changed much going forward. The waste and how unbending the new standards are is sure messed up.
The district was given thirty five computers and some chairs from the FBI office out of Pocatello. Lisa Trent was instrumental in acquiring this equipment for our district. So thanks to her for her efforts. They will be distributed to several rooms in the district. Trying to put them all together drew to much amperage and the elementary breakers couldn't handle it. Next year we will get some new computers which will use less power and should work okay in the planed elementary computer lab.
The high school participated in a detailed survey to determine how many kids worked during spud harvest, and what they did. Out of about 250 kids 217 filled out the survey. 51 kids worked in the potato harvest. 116 other kids worked during harvest, doing many different things. There may have been a few more kids still working Wednesday when this survey was done. There were 4 kids who worked 13 days, 4 who worked 14 days and 1 worked 16 days, all the rest worked less days. I was surprised to see how many kids that worked during the harvest doing other things. Some spent a lot of time babysitting which could have been related to harvest. They did a simple survey in the middle school. 23 middle school students worked in the potato harvest. We have a lot of ambitious kids in our district.
I asked during public comment how many students we have enrolled this year. Mr. Tubbs didn't have this information, but would soon update the board. Another suggestion was for us to put up a sign by the main road to indicate where the football field is. We thought this would be a good idea. Just a thought, maybe this could be a good eagle project for someone.
This meeting had as poor attendance as you could have at a meeting. Three board members, Mr. Tubbs, the board secretary and business manager, and two reporters. Bart came after we adjourned for an executive session, he was still helping in the potato harvest. Well this ended up very long, but I hope I provided valuable information. The board is going to walk through the buildings and receive training from ISBA on October 22. If you have questions or comments let me know. Thanks, Brian.
