LIMESTONE COUNTY SCHOOLS: Board questions budget projections

Published 5:45 am Thursday, September 7, 2017

The Limestone County School Board was scheduled to approve the system’s 2017-2018 budget Tuesday night, but board members had too many unanswered questions.

Charles Shoulders was the only board member to vote for the budget as presented.

Board member Ronald Christ asked Superintendent Dr. Tom Sisk and Finance Director Ann Swanner if it was realistic to assume general fund expenditures of only $67 million. He explained the number had not been that low since 2013.

Swanner explained such a level of spending would be possible, considering the board had cut “a lot of items” at a meeting in April. The proposed budget before the board includes state revenues of $91 million and expenditures of $82.8 million.

Sisk’s primary objective is to bring the school back up to a one-month operating balance of over $6 million by the end of the next fiscal year. He said if the board “holds the line” on spending, it would be back up to a two-month operating balance of more than $12 million.

“That’s where we were before I arrived, and we’d be doing that without cutting teacher units,” Sisk said. “It’s realistic if we don’t have a lot of catastrophes.”

Sisk has previously said the school system lost out on about $1.1 million in revenue this year because of the ongoing lawsuit over tax revenues for education. The lawsuit, which also included Athens City Schools, Madison City Schools and Huntsville City Schools, resulted in Limestone County’s share being held in escrow until the lawsuit could be settled.

Now that a tentative settlement has been reached, school board member Edward Winter asked Swanner if she could determine what Limestone County’s portion would be for the next fiscal year and said it should be reflected in the new budget.

Swanner said she would work to answer board members’ questions ahead of the next scheduled meeting on Sept. 26.