Ladue School District Receives Preliminary Budget

The Ladue School Board was presented Monday night with a preliminary budget for the 2011-2012 school year that is effectively balanced. But one of the district’s assistant superintendents says a five-year projection forecasts rough budgetary times.

Jason Buckner, who serves as the Ladue School District’s Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance, said in a memo to the board that “extensive expenditure adjustments have been made for this budget year in an attempt to provide the district with a balanced budget and to keep fund balances steady.”

A corresponding document presented to the board showed that the board will have about $50,371,461 worth of revenue and about $50,248,152 of expenditures. That equates to a surplus of roughly $123,309. That figure was reached because of, among other things, a nearly $3.22 million decrease in certified and non-certified salaries.

“In the final stages of formulating the preliminary budget for operations the bottom line is $119,344 to the positive,” Buckner wrote in the memo to the board. “It is still predicted that the 2010-11 operating budget will be $3.1 million in the negative. As you know, two main components of the budget are revenue and student enrollment.”

“This data is very difficult to predict in the current economic environment,” Buckner added. “We have taken our best approach per the data available at this time. If additional staff, per district policy, is required due to student enrollment increases it will be necessary to increase expenditures during the budget year.”

The board will vote on whether to adopt the budget on June 27.

Buckner also provided the board with financial projections for the next five years. He said it was a roadmap of sorts for the district to use in the upcoming years.

He told the board that in the coming years, the district will be back to running deficits. For instance, he predicted that 2013-2014 budget year would bring a $2.1 million deficit and the 2014-2015 would bring a $3.5 million deficit.

“I think we all knew what was probably going to happen, being logical people,” Buckner said. “But it is going to happen. We are going to go back to deficit spending in a few years if the economy doesn’t turn around and we don’t find a source of revenue or make additional cuts.”

Board member Audrey Mack said the document was good to have when planning for the district’s finances going forward. She added that she was opposed to taking money out of capital fund budget.

“I want our kids to have the money and all that,” Mack said. “But I think it’s important that we maintain our buildings. This is my ninth year on the board. And we have been playing catch-up for 10 or 11 years now. And that’s been a major issue in the nine years I’ve been on the board, because we went for such a long time without taking care of our buildings. And now, we’re kind of caught. We need to maintain our buildings and the infrastructure is important.”

“It’s easy to take money out of that when you need it,” Mack added. “But doing what’s easy isn’t always doing what’s right.”

You can examine the five-year projections by clicking here and here.