School finances have gotten boost

FORT RECOVERY — Budget deficits are no longer expected until at least 2025.

Fort Recovery School Board reviewed its five-year financial forecast with treasurer Deanna Knapke during its meeting Monday. Because of several influxes in funding, such as more than half a million in grant funding along with the new Ohio Fair School Funding Plan, Knapke explained, school finances are looking healthier.

Fort Recovery Local Schools is projected to finish fiscal year 2022, which ends June 30, with a budget surplus of $370,127. That would bring its year-end cash balance to more than $7.8 million and continue the budget surplus trend in recent years.

November’s forecast shows an improvement from May, when a budget deficit of $101,736 was projected for fiscal year 2022. (The district ended fiscal year 2021 with a budget surplus of $586,281. May projections estimated it would end with less than half that amount.)

The financial forecast presented Monday projects budget surpluses of $370,127 in 2022, $441,318 in 2023 and $76,686 in 2024. Budget deficits aren’t expected until 2025, when the school is projected to have a deficit beginning at $147,212. In 2026, it’s projected at $507,795. Those figures would bring the district’s year-end cash balance to $8.18 million in 2025 and $7.67 million in 2026. (In the May forecast, it was predicted by 2025 the year-end balance would fall to about half that amount at $4.43 million.)

Additional funding for Fort Recovery Local Schools includes $671,000 in federal funding through Elementary and Secondary Schools Education Relief Funds (ESSER), Knapke said. Those dollars will need to be spent between fiscal years 2022 and 2024.

The school previously received about $60,000 from ESSER funds, and those monies were used along with Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds for technology, cleaning and other coronavirus-related materials.

In June, the Ohio legislature passed the Fair School Funding Plan along with its budget, setting a new standard for public school funding. The new plan, which will result in about $12.4 billion in spending this year and $12.6 billion in 2023 across the state, compares a district’s expenses in order to create its per-pupil state funding total. (This includes expenses such as teacher salaries and benefits, technology and other costs.)

Its base cost is estimated to be as high as $7,202 per pupil when fully phased in, according to Knapke. At that point, the plan calculates a state share percentage before determining the district’s allotment.

Another financial increase for the district is income taxes. Ohio Department of Taxation is projecting a 5% increase in fiscal year 2022 and 2.7% increases each year from fiscal 2023 through 2026, according to Knapke. (The projection for fiscal year 2022 is at $2.16 million.)

“Overall it’s a strong forecast, and it looks pretty healthy through the five years,” Knapke said.

In other news, board members Anne Guggenbiller, Jake Knapke, Greg LeFevre, Don Wendel and Nick Wehrkamp:

•Hired or renewed contracts with the following: substitute Maria Hartings, freshman basketball coach Jerry Barga (he was previously a volunteer), high school varsity assistant baseball coach Ben Homan, volunteer assistant baseball coach Tom Galdeen, volunteer assistant swim coach Ava Bubp.

•Appointed Jose Faller as the district’s representative on Fort Recovery Park Board from Nov. 15 to Dec. 31, 2024.

•Agreed to join Ohio Schools Council and purchase a chiller from Gardiner through the council consortium.

•Established that school board members be paid $80 per meeting at a maximum of 20 meetings per year.

•OK’d a Fort Recovery Middle School field trip to Cincinnati from May 5 to 6.

•Approved policy additions, revisions and replacements made to the following areas: public participation at board meetings, evaluation of principals and other administrators, weapons, college credit plus program, Ohio Teacher Evaluation System, eligibility of residential/nonresidential students, educational opportunity for military children, attendance, student mental health and suicide prevention, early high school graduation, student hazing, positive behavior intervention and supports and limited use of restraint and seclusion, cost principle for spending federal funds, disposition of real or personal property, property inventory, student records, student abuse and neglect, transportation and non-routine use of school buses.

•Allowed a Tri Star advisory referral requesting $10,000 for equipment, which will be paid for in donations and other incoming funding.

•Accepted $460 in donations.