GAINESVILLE - The biggest "elephant in the room," the Gainesville school board agreed Saturday, was School Superintendent Dr. Steve Ballowe's fiscal accountability, one of six goals and objectives on his evaluation that the board plans to take action on at their July 7 meeting.
"Fiscal accountability is the elephant in the room today," board member Sammy Smith said, "but it cannot and should not be any more important than facilities, quality instruction, buses, text books, etc. We understand we have an issue of the day, but it would be wise to look at the entire school year."
"Fiscal accountability is our priority at this moment," Smith added. "We do not diminish our thoughts or efforts toward that but we're 30 days from opening a new school year so we cannot lose sight of that duty."
Board member David Syfan said, looking at Ballowe's evaluation big picture, he gave Ballowe a very low score on fiscal accountability.
The board decided to have their evaluations on Ballowe submitted by Tuesday with a rating based on a scale of one to five on each of his goals and objectives.
BUDGET
Another "elephant" appeared at the board room table when Financial Director Janet Allison cited what she called a "fairly huge" $4 million flaw on the expenditure side of the 2008 school budget.
"I came up with about $4 million worth of expenditures between school nutrition and the federal programs that weren't in there," Allison said. "Had it been in the summary sheet with the other funds revenue in the summary sheet you would have noticed that revenues would have been $55 million and expenditures would have been $59 million.
"This whole thing about missing lunch money is not the case," Allison added. "It was not an actual revenue and expenditure issue, it was a budget problem."
Allison said this helps explain the system's $6.5 million deficit.
"If they had noticed it at that time, the deficit wouldn't be where it is today," she said.
School board members on Monday expect to approve a continuing resolution, not a balanced budget, to buy them another month to plug in recommended cuts and hopefully find additional revenue sources.
This puts them past the end of the end of the fiscal year, which is Monday, June 30.
Allison must also develop a deficit reduction plan; the state Department of Education expects monthly reports on that plan and it must meet state approval.
The board reviewed a resolution draft and Smith wanted the title changed from a "spending resolution" to a "continuing resolution."
"Essentially it is a continuum of the existing level of revenues and spending rather than an anticipation of new levels of revenues," Smith said. "It is a carry on of where we were instead of anticipation of where we might be."
Syfan suggested the goal to achieve a balanced budget should be set for July 31 just in case that does not happen; Smith disagreed, saying the budget would remain a priority if the July 31st deadline remains in place.
The resolution draft states that the superintendent is authorized to expend funds from all sources for the month of July not to exceed one-twelfth of the final amendment budget for all funds for the end of the fiscal year on Monday.
This includes debt services, proper expenses, acquisition of school buses already approved, text books and school supplies as needed to start the new school year.
Ballowe said one-twelfth is not enough alone, but the resolution allows some flexibility.
"The resolution does have the open end to give principals flexibility to buy the supplies 'as needed'," Ballowe said. "The message that I want our parents to understand is we're going to be ready to open school.
"There are some large expenditure items that are on hold, but generally we are ready to open school, we'll maintain the teacher-student class ratios and we're looking forward to an exciting year."
Thursday
October 17th, 2024
10:37PM
