By implementing measures that detail how much a student meal costs and how many staff members it takes to make that meal, among other things, the system’s $4.1 million deficit stands at about $675,000, Robert Lloyd, director of business and operations for the school system, said during a 2 p.m. finance committee meeting Monday.
Lloyd said the substantial reduction is in large part due to employees buying into a new system of efficiency
“Nobody stole anything,” Lloyd said of the millions, dispelling a notion that has floated around the community. “We were just inefficient in our (spending).”
The system had estimated it would take 13 years to reduce the deficit.
Lloyd also gave committee and board members Emily Jean McAfee, the Rev. James C. Bush and chair Richard H. Anson an update on the budget process for the 2008-09 academic year.
There’s still about $60 million out in county tax appeals, Lloyd said, which makes projecting income for the next fiscal year difficult.
“Ninety-nine percent of my income is tax digest and the (state) QBE formula,” he said.
Also, the recent countywide revaluation changes the system’s standing as it relates to equalization, a program that aims to level out richer and poorer school systems.
With the 2007 tax revaluation, “We got richer, so we’ll get less from equalization,” said Lloyd. “We’ve become wealthier by 18 percent.”
That prediction, he clarified, “doesn’t assume that anyone else had a revaluation in 2007-08.”
The school system’s midterm allocation has the system receiving $82.7 million in state funding, about the same as at the beginning of the year, Lloyd said.
The state has raises of 2.5 percent coming down for teachers, child nutrition services workers and bus drivers, Lloyd said, “but I don’t know how much (of that will be) unfunded.”
Lloyd also told the committee that rising fuel costs have created a deficit in the system’s transportation budget, in which he had anticipated a surplus.