School Budget: State Money Bailout?

As Alice Cooper sang "school's out for summer," but funding questions remain to be worked on over the summer.  The Daily Journal summarized the issue

Burlingame School District’s budget is in the red but officials are hopeful the small funding gaps will be diminished by additional state contributions to the public education system.  “I’m happy that the numbers are getting so close to balanced. Hopefully, I would presume, if some of the good news from Sacramento comes our way we can look at 2023 as a positive, as a black number instead of a red number which would be fantastic,” said Trustee Dan Devoy during the board’s meeting Thursday.

Here are the highlights of the budget as it sits for FY22/23

More than half of the district’s $47 million budget will go toward employee salaries next year with just more than $5 million covering services and operations and about $3 million covering supplies.

Meanwhile, the district is slated to bring in $35 million from the state’s Locally Controlled Funding Formula, $2 million in federal COVID-19 relief that’s slated to diminish over the next two fiscal years, $4.3 million in other state funding and more than $5 million from local revenue in the next fiscal year.

So it all tallies to a $631K deficit for the fiscal year and a shade more in FY23/24.  That leads to the hope that Sacramento will ride to the rescue

Given that state officials are still hammering out deals on how to spend the ($97B) surplus, Amanda Bonivert, the district’s chief business official, said district staff did not account for the proposed increases in the draft budget aside from the LCFF boosts out of concern the distinct would end up overbudgeting for money not received. Without the additional state funds, Bonivert noted the district would still receive a positive budget certification, meaning they will meet their budgeting obligations.

Fingers crossed that the cavalry arrives.

Comments

[Mom]

I wonder what enrollment will be like in the coming years. We lost population in town but are building like crazy. That is not an easy calculation to make and that drives the funding.