Carson City schools’ deficit could be $1M in 2019 budget

The Carson City School Board was presented the tentative fiscal year 2019 budget Tuesday.

One aspect of the budget is what Andrew Feuling, director of fiscal services, called the “known unknowns” meaning they’re factors of the budget that may or may not come into fruition and how if they do. These factors include waiting on the Department of Taxation for final revenue projections and various taxes, the Nevada Department of Education for final per pupil amount, enrollment numbers, class reduction size and Special Education funding.

“Fortunately we aren’t in a legislative year so that makes things easier,” Feuling said.

The tentative budget also included numbers from the revenue and expenditure assumptions.

For revenue assumptions, Feuling said in FY19, they expect 7,796 students on the headcount day, as opposed to the 7,723 in FY18.

“We expect growth, we just hope it is steady instead of seeing fits of it,” Feuling said.

There will also be an assumed increase in Nevada per pupil amount from $7,103 in FY18 to $7,193 in FY19, along with the Nevada DSA revenue increase from $54,372,044 in FY18 to $55,569,522 in FY19.

Feuling said they also expect to see revenue increases with services taxes, ad valorem taxes and local school support among other categories.

The district will also see a number of expense assumptions such as staffing, as total compensation will be about $51.9 million with a 5 percent increase in staff’s health benefits; non-staffing needs such as operations budget, the School Resource Officers and instructional tech replacement cycles. With the SRO budget, they have $230,000 with $180,000 already paid in FY18, and for the tech cycle they have $775,000 with $610,000 paid in FY18 however will see a jump to $800,000-$900,000 annually thereafter.

Feuling did present their initial projections for FY19. First, he said revenue increased $1.8 million from FY17, and he expects to see $64,985,642 in general fund revenues and $65,063,353 in general fund expediters.

“There is a good chance we will break even this year for the first time in 20 years,” Feuling said.

But, that has yet to accommodate for the impact of negotiations, impact of curriculum purchases, staff turnover and new staff FTEs.

Feuling said most likely the deficit with the curriculum will equal $1,077,711.

This budget will be presented again to the board for approval in April, before it’s sent to the Department of Taxation in June.