The Troy Board of Education Tuesday approved a budget of nearly $20 million in revenues and expenditures for the 2018 fiscal year, nearly identical to the budget drafted last year.

“There are no new initiatives or programs this year that would cost any extra money,” said CFO Mickey Daughtry. “Our state funding declined a little bit, but we got an increase in federal funding that kind of offset that a little bit.”

The total revenue projected for the school system is $19.41 million while projected expenditures total $19.73 million.

The board will have to dip into the general fund reserves again this year, but will make a smaller dent in the reserve fund than it did last year and Daughtry said it would be statistically stay the same.

“The state requires us to have a reserve that would last one month if we had no other funds,” Daughtry said. “For this current fiscal year we’re at about 1.3 months and we expect we’ll still be at 1.3 months at the end of the upcoming fiscal year.

“We like to keep it in the 1.3 to 1.5 month range. We don’t ever want to get to 1.1 months because you never know when a school bus might break an axle and can no longer be part of the fleet and you’ll have to buy a new bus. On the other hand, we’re not a bank. We don’t like to sit on money. We want to turn around and invest it into programs.”

Daughtry said the budget remains mostly the same from year to year because nearly three-quarters of the expenditures go to personnel. The exact budget for personnel costs varies though based on how much experience teachers have and their degrees.

“Teachers step up the salary matrix as they gain experience,” Daughtry said. “The average teaching experience for teachers in our system is up slightly from 12.8 years average last year to 13.1 years.”

Over 62 percent of teachers also have master’s degree or higher– earning them a higher salary on the matrix.

Daughtry said there are no capital outlay projects planned for the year such as renovating the gym or fixing a roof.

 

 

 

 

Mickey Daughtry- Troy BOE budget

 

No new initiatives program no adm student count last year down from previous year state funding declined a little bit foundation funding based on that. Revenue statistically the same from last year. State down a little bit increase in federal that kind of offset each other.

73 percent of budget is personnel. You’ve got experience increase annually step up salary matrix as they gain experience. Average teaching experience for teachers up slightly from 12.8 years last year average teacher 62.3 percent have masters or higher well-educated workforce. Several are working towards masters or higher. Always trying to get that next step up. Some hired came in with higher experience and some fresh out of college. Sales and advalorem tax accounts for about 83 percent projecting them to be relatively flat not seen a big growth in sales taxes like we anticipated. 2017 capital outlay funding we derived from savings on refinancing of our bonds projects we did a the high school to renovate the gym repair the band room roof at the high school and provide for changing out heating and air conditioning units in the. NO capital outlay projects budgeted.

 

We have a general fund reserve state requires us to have at least one month. In current year we expect to have 1.3 to 1.5 months in reserve cash in hand to handle your costs. State requires a minimum of one. We estimate when we finish next year we’ll basically have about the same no big changes.

 

Hope to end statistically the same in general fund reserve. Part of it is savings we realize if we have a person retire we’re paying at the top of this pay scale top of range for master’s with 37 years saving not just the difference in their salary but associated fringe benefits. $20,000 saving in salary roughly 20 percent of that saved in benefits.

 

We’re not a bank we don’t want to sit on money. Would be the same for similar sized systems. We don’t want to get into a bind but we don’t want to sit on cash either.