By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
A public hearing was held by the Juab School District prior to the adoption of the 2019 budget and the approval of the actual final budget for 2018. Following the hearing, the 2019 budget was adopted and the 2018 final budget including adjustments was also adopted by unanimous vote of the board. The certified tax rate can be a problem for those entities with a fiscal year budget but this year the rate was set prior to the Juab School District budget being adopted for 2019. “This is my 21st time in preparing a district budget,” said Darin Clark, district business administrator. “This is the first time we have had the certified rate in time.” In Utah, tax rates are supposed to be approved by June 22. The Certified Tax Rate is a fractional percentage that is calculated every year by the Utah State Tax Commission. “Certified” means that the tax rate is calculated to provide roughly the same amount of taxes every year. “I would like to express my appreciation to our patrons who voted to allow us to increase our teacher salaries and allowed us to be competitive with neighboring districts,” said Dr. Rick Robins, superintendent. “That helped us to be competitive with districts along the Wasatch Front and made it so that high quality educators would want to come to Juab.” One bit of good news, said Clark, was that three weeks prior to the budget proposal the final payment had been made on the Juab High School building. “Because of our population growth,” said Robins, “we may look forward to more building in the district.” The next big project is the remodeling being done on the West Campus School which has begun the process and will be ready for service in the fall of 2019. “We have a limit on what we can borrow,” said Clark. “We have a 4 percent limit based on the total property evaluation in the school district.” “The lion’s share of the budget is the general fund,” said Clark. Most of the general fund revenue by source comes from state funds which represents 71 percent of revenues. Federal funds bring in 4 percent and local funds 23 percent. “Charter schools are set by the state,” he said. The general fund expenditure budget for education is highly labor intensive. Clark said that the budget, by object, showed that personnel costs represented 89.4 percent of the expenditures. Textbooks, now mostly digital format and educational software, and supplies were another 6.4 percent, purchased services were 3.4 percent, equipment was 0.5 percent and other needs were 0.3 percent. The general fund budget, by function, indicated that 70 percent of the budget was spent on instruction, 8 percent on maintenance, school administration was 6 percent, student instruction and support was also 6 percent, transportation was 4 percent, general administration was 5 percent, and central was 1 percent. The 2018 final budget shows that the total revenues for the year were $17,700,000 and the school district spent that same amount. “By state statue, the district must have a balanced budget,” said Clark. “We cannot ask for more money if expenses begin to rise during the year, instead we must spend less in other areas by making cuts.” Unlike with the federal government, the district cannot have deficit spending. In 2019, it is expected that property taxes and other local revenue will bring in $4,200,000; state funds will add $13,200,000; and federal funds will add $1,100,000 for total revenues of $18,500,000. Expenditures for 2019 are proposed to be $12,900,000 for instruction. That is up from last year’s final budget of $12,250,000. “Total support services expenditures are $5,600,000,” said Clark. That includes student, $660,000; instructional staff, $560,000; general administration, $910,000; school administration, $1,050,000; central, $170,000; operation and maintenance, $1,500,000; and transportation, $750,000. “The real work of the budget has been done since the legislature ended in March,” said Clark. “The budget is the culmination of a lot of meetings.” The school activity budget for 2018 shows other local revenue of $1,100,000 and the same budget for 2019 is exactly the same. Expenditures in that budget for both 2018 and 2019 are also $1,100,000. The budget also addresses the revenues and expenditures for the Non K-12 programs. The Non K-12 programs are outside direct instructional services for students Revenues for this budget come from property taxes and other local revenue at $270,000, from the state at $160,000, and from the federal government at $30,000. Other sources come from appropriated reserves at $30,000. Expenditures in the Non k-12 program are to pay for salaries at $330,000, benefits at $90,000, supplies and property at $60,000 and other costs at $10,000. “The Debt Service Fund is a straight forward fund,” said Clark. The proposed budget, which comes from property taxes and other local revenue, is $1,850,000. Of that, expenditures go for bond principal at $1,250,000, bond interest at $60,000, and other bond related costs of $40,000. A capital projects fund is used in governmental accounting to track the financial resources used to acquire and/or construct a major capital asset. Once the asset has been completed, the fund is terminated. The capital projects fund for 2019 also comes from property taxes and local revenue at $3,100,000, from the state at $65,000 and from bond and debt proceeds at $3,000,000. Instruction equipment and supplies will use $900,000; operation and maintenance of facilities will use $160,000; facilities acquisition, constitution and equipment will use $4,400,000; bond and capital lease principal will take $452,000; bond and capital lease interest and issuance costs will be $70,000; and the increase in the designated fund balance will be $183,000. The school food services budget revenues will come from sales and other local revenue at $375,000, state $225,000 federal at $710,000 and total appropriated reserves of $75,000 for a total of $1,385,000. Expenditures go for salaries at $390,000; benefits at $130,000; purchased services at $65,000; food purchases and supplies at $760,000 and equipment and other costs at $40,000. “We have built a warehouse freezer for the food services program which is a great benefit to food services,” said Clark.4>
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