Highlights of School Board Meeting for July 26th, 2011
What an eventful day, new teacher orientation introduction, school visit, budget workshop, special board meeting and lastly a public hearing all in one day.
After spending time at our new teacher orientation meeting the Board then convened for a touring workshop of Crystal River High School Renovation/Remodeling (follow link for photos of the new CRHS), Crystal River Primary School Renovation/Remodeling and Lecanto High School Cafeteria Renovation/Remodeling projects. Each of these projects or phases is coming to a close and “should” be ready for the first day of school. The previous Board, Ms. Himmel, and the whole Facilities and Construction team should be commended for these improvements.
We then re-convened in the afternoon for a budget workshop. After the workshop we had a Special meeting and Public hearing to adopt the Tentative Millage Rates, the Tentative Facilities Work
Program, and the Tentative 2011-2012 budget. We also approved the 2011-2012 Student Progression Plans.
Because of the very difficult budget decisions for 2011-2012 and the 2012-2013 school years I wanted to give you a better understanding about the school budget and funds.
The Tentative Millage Rates
Often people misunderstand millage rates. Neither the School Board, the Superintendent, the County Commissioners, the Property Appraiser nor Tax Collector sets the maximum millage rate that is collected to operate public schools. It is the Legislators that set the millage rates. As the Chronicle Editorial Board shared in November 1, 2010, “Since the 2007-2008 school year, the state has cut capital budget funding to the Citrus County School District nearly in half, from $35.7 million in 2007-08 to about $18.3 million for the current school year.” “…In 2007-08, the state allowed school districts to levy 2 mills for capital budgets, then that amount was cut to 1.75 with the state retaining the remaining quarter mill to return to school districts for their operating budgets. The state has continued to cut the millage, so now school districts have 1.25 mills allocated for capital improvements and maintenance. If a school board wants to make up the difference, it must go on the ballot.” The voters approved the Critical Capital Needs referendum at the November 2010 elections. Then, during the 2011 legislative session, the Florida Legislators passed a law that beginning in 2012 districts could no longer put a referendum for the millage rate on a ballot for the citizens to vote on. This means that now we can only collect the Critical Capital Needs Millage Rate for the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 fiscal year’s budget only.
PECO Funds
Florida public school districts received PECO (Public Education Capital Outlay) funds. PECO funds could be used by districts for acquiring land, building, altering, remodeling, improving, enlarging, furnishing, equipping, maintaining, renovating, or repairing of capital outlay projects for school purposes. These were important funds for our schools and students.
The 2011 Florida Legislators allocated $55 million in PECO funds with a big exception. Only the 350 Charter Schools will share $55 million, while the approximately 3,000 traditional public schools will get nothing.
It should be noted that there are more than 2,000 traditional public elementary and middle schools in Florida. Fewer than 1 percent (or 17 schools) received an “F” grade for the 2010-2011 school year. There are 270 charter elementary and middle schools in the state and more than 5 percent (15 schools) received an “F” grade for the 2010-2011 school year.
“The Budget” Tentative for the 2011-2012 School Year
The total tentative budget for the Citrus County School District for the fiscal year 2011-2012 totals $261,691,898. This reflects approximately $32 Million or 11% less than last year. The largest fund in our school budget is the General Fund, which is used for the operations of the school district. The largest funding for the General Fund is the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP). The FEFP funding program provides approximately $95 million, which is approximately $11 Million less than last year’s funding or 10.6% less. This is also compounded by the fact that the federal stimulus funding received two years ago of $5 Million has expired.
What is very scary is that we are expecting that we will be receiving another $5 to 6 million less for the 2012-2013 budget. As I have said, “this budget year looks bad, but next budget year will feel bad!”
We are going to face some very challenging financial times ahead for our schools. It is for that reason that we will not being waiting until next year to begin working on the 2012-2013 budget, but instead will begin budget work right after the 2011-2012 budget is formally passed, meaning October 2011.
The Best Part of the Day
With all the many tough budget issues during the meeting we had one agenda item that stood out as a light for me that day.
Dr. Trish Kallenbach, Education Committee Chairperson for the Rolling Thunder, Florida Chapter 7 organization, gave a presentation requesting that Citrus Schools begin flying year round the Nation’s second National Flag, the POW/MIA flag, at all our schools. In addition, Rolling Thunder will provide our schools with the flags at no cost.
I want to thank Rolling Thunder and Florida Chapter 7 for their presentation and more importantly, for their generosity for providing the National POW/MIA flags to our schools. I had the honor at the encouragement of fellow Board Member Ms. Pat Deutschman to make the motion to accept this gift and request. The motion passed unanimously!
I believe this flag will be a beacon helping our students remember what has been sacrificed to allow and provide the great opportunity of learning knowledge each day. From the words of one my heroes, retired Crystal River High School teacher and former Vietnam POW Capt. Richard Tangeman, who spent approximately five years of imprisonment at Hoa Lo Prison (a.k.a. “Hanoi Hilton”), “Don’t let the MIAs or their families be forgotten. Now that we are home, please transfer the support you have shown us, the returned POWs, to the effort of aiding the MIA families in their search for knowledge concerning their heroic loved ones. These families still face the pain and problems connected with the absence of their husbands, fathers and sons. God bless your efforts in the past – and those in the future.”
I look forward to seeing these flags flying soon at our schools.
Our next meeting is a Regular School Board Meeting at 4:00pm on Tuesday, Aug 9th, 2011.
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Wishing You A Wonderful School Year!
