Financial update: operations fund down $4 million; trustees and public press for tighter spending

Daniel Dalton, the district's finance presenter, told trustees April 21 that the district's operations fund began the year at roughly $20,100,000 and is —now sitting at 16,100,000. So, yes, that is a 4,000,000 drop deficit.—

Dalton said the education fund is running relatively stable and that a roughly $2,200,000 deficit in the debt service fund is expected to be covered when property-tax revenues arrive in June and again in December. He also reported a rainy-day balance of $6,300,000 and a self-insurance cash balance that had risen from about $2,600,000 to roughly $3,700,000.

Trustees asked for line-item clarifications after Dalton showed monthly cash-flow slides. He attributed month-to-month variances to differences between projected and actual monthly expenditures (for example, support services spending in March was about $2,900,000 compared with an anticipated $2,500,000), and he said the district will add a Q&A section to future financial reports for clearer explanations of terms such as the circuit breaker.

During the public comment period, Mary Ellen Slizak urged the board to tighten spending and consider cutting contracts and outsourcing to avoid risks she likened to other school corporations that have been taken over by state authorities. Salinas and trustees said they would provide additional context in forthcoming financial reports.