The Lake Forest School District’s finance staff presented July and August monthly budget reports at the Sept. 11 board meeting, saying state revenue is largely received up front and that federal reimbursements had not yet been posted for the new fiscal year.

"We approved the preliminary budget last meeting, and so we needed those numbers to be able to populate the budget columns on the monthly budget report," said Mr. Kirkhald, finance staff, as he introduced the reports. He said state funds are "pretty much preload[ed] about 90%" and that the district still had not received federal funds that typically arrive monthly.

On the expenditure side, staff reported discretionary-budget balances that reflect only two payrolls processed so far in the fiscal year. "With only 2 pays completed in the fiscal year out of 26 pays, I should expect to see 92% remaining there, which is what we have," Kirkhald said, noting some higher encumbrances for purchases placed early in the year.

The finance presenter identified specific drivers of year-to-date variance: an upfront expense for the school resource officer at Harrington, higher division 3 local salaries compared with the prior year, and increased tuition reimbursements. He also said some accounts are temporarily negative: water and sewer and the summer-programming line were over-encumbered compared with initial projections.

"There was a little bit of a miscalculation in terms of what I suspected we would need in terms of water and sewer," Kirkhald said, adding that many funds were encumbered early and that he expects to adjust allocations for the final budget. He also said the district ran more driver’s-education courses over the summer because of a larger cohort of 10th-graders and expects to recode some summer-program expenses to driver’s-ed funds to return that line to positive territory.

Board members asked about timing for federal funds; staff said last year federal reimbursements arrived around October. Overall, the presenter said the district had roughly 84% of the total budget remaining at the moment compared with 88% at the same point last year and characterized the activity as within expectations but worthy of monitoring ahead of the final budget.

The board took no separate action on the narrative discussion; later in the meeting it voted to approve the formal financial reports for July and August.