Schneider also revealed that the number of certified staff had actually decreased slightly, from 646 to 642, during the same period. And while enrollment is expected to increase by more than 100 in the next two years, to 6,982, a decrease is expected to begin by 2020 to 6,910.
“We need to start to do something differently in order to make our budget sustainable,” she said during the Jan. 25 school board meeting. "We are looking at a 2 percent (tax) increase. We are seeing a slight decrease in the federal grants."
Schneider revealed that the school district's 2016-2017 operating budget will be just over $111 million, about $2 million higher than the current year budget. Schneider also indicated that the tax levy would likely go up just 2%, but with state aide staying flat and federal aid slightly lower.
Schneider indicated that debt service would increase from $4.119 million in the current budget to $4.152 million next year. State and federal aid, meanwhile, are down about $28,000 from the current spending plan.
See her presentation HERE. The board will continue the budget discussion at its next meeting on Feb. 22.
We're obviously way past the contractual "statute of limitations," but it remains important to record the ruse pulled on the taxpayers by the BOE years back, who hired a dishonest demographer who rigged a bogus analysis to claim enrollment would begin to decline, sparing the BOE from acquiring a new building for an elementary school (candidates included the old Police Station and, especially, the IHM Campus). Everyone knew with our property tax "death spiral" that homes would be purchased increasingly by families with multiple children, but the BOE and the demographer lied anyway.
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