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New forecasting software shows small surplus projection; substitute-teacher spending forecast under budget
Summary
District finance staff demonstrated new budget-forecasting software and substitute-teacher trend reports. The model projects a modest increase in fund balance by year-end and forecasts substitute costs to land under budget despite added professional-development days.
District finance staff presented a new financial-forecasting tool and a substitute-teacher budget-versus-actual report at the finance committee meeting on Feb. 13.
Anthony Rapp, director of administration, and finance staff ran through charts showing year-to-date revenue and expenditures through Jan. 31. Staff reported year-to-date revenue of about $220,612,000 and expenditures of about $140,165,000, leaving a notional fund balance position typical of timing differences between revenue receipts and expenditures.
Using the forecasting tool, staff said the model projects the district will finish the fiscal year with approximately $277,000,000 in revenue and $274,000,000 in expenditures, producing an estimated increase in fund balance of about $2,588,682. Rapp cautioned that the model is a projection and that some line items, such as IDEA-related funds, are irregular in timing and harder for the software to predict.
On federal funding, staff noted IDEA money is recorded as local revenue in the system and that Council Rock budgets roughly $1.8 million for IDEA (appearing in the local-revenue classification). Staff said the district's total federal revenue expectation in the general fund is about $3.6 million and that the district had received portions of that funding, with roughly $643,587 recorded and about half of IDEA payments received to date.
The substitute-teacher report showed a projected annual substitute cost of $2,548,490, which the model projects to be under the adopted budget of $2,599,540 by $51,014. Staff noted the district has provided additional professional-development (PD) days this year (more PD days year-to-date than in all of last year) and attributed good substitute-cost performance in part to scheduling and vendor-management changes (including adjusted building-substitute scheduling and work with ESS, the third-party substitute vendor).
Board members asked for more regular reporting; staff said the forecasting graphics could be provided monthly or quarterly and that the finance office plans to incorporate the tool's functions into routine treasurer reporting. Members also raised a question about the potential federal funding freeze; staff said most of the district's federal funding is formula-driven and that the district has reserves and fund-balance buffers to absorb near-term fluctuations for this year.
