Sun Prairie district report: $10 million in general-fund 'nonfixed' spending identified as discretionary

Phil Frey, director of business and finance for the Sun Prairie Area School District, presented a report to the school board on Jan. 13 that identified about $10 million — roughly 7% of the district’s general fund — as “nonfixed” or discretionary spending.

Frey said the district’s budget is heavily concentrated in personnel and fixed costs. “66% of our budget is for salary and benefits not included in fixed cost,” he said, and “93% of our budget is connected to salary benefits or fixed costs,” leaving an estimated 7% for supplies, equipment and other discretionary uses.

The nonfixed total is the sum of roughly $1.7 million allocated to school-level budgets and about $7.7 million in district support budgets, Frey said. He cautioned that the classification is not produced by a state-required accounting report: "this is not a report that's a canned report that you can get from the state of Wisconsin," and the district’s numbers are…