Business manager reports $12M favorable cash position, flags CTC tuition overrun and PlanCon accrual

At the Oct. 10 meeting the district's interim business manager gave an overview of audit preparation, staffing transitions, and budget forecasts. She said auditors will be on-site soon and a presentation on the audit is expected in January. "I did get them this week all the detail that they need," she said.

On the budget, the manager said the district currently shows roughly $12,000,000 favorable revenue to expenditures year to date, driven largely by tax collections. She also identified several line-item variances: a PlanCon reimbursement that was accrued to last year's books created a roughly $300,000 negative actual-to-budget effect on that line; CTC tuition was underbudgeted and actual expense last year exceeded budget (she cited about $6.45 million actual vs. $5.75 million budget in the prior year), and projected CTC tuition this year could be about $800,000. "So that's a little bit of a miss," she said.

The manager explained Act 1 index calculations for 2025–26 (base 4%, adjusted 5.4%) and presented theoretical maximum millage examples for the district's counties to show how changes affect revenue ("each tenth of a mill that we increase is about 190,000 of revenue"). She also described moving cash to higher-yield accounts (raising a sweep account from 0.7% to 1.5%) and pursuing an underpayment of about $3,500 on a prior sale.

What the board acted on: the board approved an engagement contract for Mark Turnley, CPA to perform the 2023–24 audit for $22,000 during the meeting. No vote was required for the business-manager briefing itself.