Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Budget Finance topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Finance director: transportation brought in-house drives multi-million-dollar line shifts; special-education and tuition costs remain a concern
Summary
Finance Director Karen DeFrancis outlined revised general-fund expenditures after transportation moved in-house, reporting a $2.4 million salary/benefits shortfall, a projected $2 million specialized-transportation overage and other budget pressures; the committee approved the financial reports and related warrants.
Karen DeFrancis opened the financial report and described line-item reallocations resulting from transportation moving in-house. "A large majority of that is for the bus drivers. Again, we're now, employing them, so they're in that line item," DeFrancis said.
DeFrancis said the transfer of transportation costs into payroll produced a $2.4 million shortfall in salary and benefits lines and a $265,000 repair-and-maintenance shortfall (including a $100,000 management fee to MTA and $165,000 expected bus repairs). She reported an estimated $2,000,000 overage in specialized transportation and said $500,000 of that amount may be shifted from the expendable trust if necessary by year-end.
Other items included a $400,000 utilities overage tied to bus fuel, a $154,000 shortfall in special-education aid compared with projections, and a $370,000 added-district-tuition shortfall that the district is reconciling through purchase orders and other accounting adjustments. DeFrancis said the books-and-information-resources line was over by $1,400,000 because of curriculum purchases approved from the expendable trust.
DeFrancis summarized expendable-trust balances and prior approvals: the district ended fiscal year 2024 with $28,700,000 in expendable trust funds; the board authorized using $1,200,000 of that to support revenue during the budgeting process and $1,400,000 to purchase curriculum. If transfers for special-education overages are required, she said final trust balances could be approximately $25,000,000 at year-end, plus interest earnings.
On revenues, DeFrancis said recent interest projections could add roughly $80,000 by year-end and that some federal and state grants total about $37.5 million for the year, with $32.8 million expected to be spent this year and the balance carried forward.
During the meeting the committee voted to approve the financial reports and related warrant items. The payroll final for February was reported as $9,636,770.98, which updated the warrant grand total to $23,497,329.83; the committee approved the manifest of authorized expenditures and payroll warrant.
DeFrancis also presented the food-service and legal-analysis reports and said the district is monitoring rising food costs and legal-services expenditures, both of which could affect year-end results.
