JAMESTOWN – Jamestown Public School officials are facing a possible budget gap of over $2.5 million for the upcoming school year. That’s according to Assistant Superintendent for Administration Dale Weatherlow, who presented the initial numbers for next year’s school budget during a Jamestown School Board meeting Tuesday night at Bush School.
According to Weatherlow, the districts expenses have been kept in check, with an increase of just 1.72 percent over the current year’s budget. However, he said revenue will remain a problem because the district is only seeing a modest increase in state aid. He said the district will also not be able to draw from its fund balance like it did for this year, nor will it have any debt service reserve money to use. As a result, the district is facing a $2,551,000 budget gap.
Superintendent Tim Mains said that much of the problem stems from the state not fulfilling its obligation to support poor school districts like Jamestown.
“I’m very frustrated,” Mains told reporters following the meeting. We’ve got a significant program here in Jamestown that we need to support and we don’t have adequate revenues to do that. The state simply has not come through with the dollars that we need in order to educate children in this district.”
STATE CONTINUES USE OF GAP ELIMINATION ADJUSTMENT
Mains says what’s even more frustrating is that the state is still using a Gap Elimination Adjustment (GEA) that was instituted six years ago, when it was running a multi-billion dollar deficit and needed to real in spending. However, that is no longer the case, yet Albany still uses the GEA to determine school funding. As a result, Jamestown is missing out on more than $1,400,000 in additional funding for next year. Mains also says that the district has lost more than $13,400,000 in state aid since the GEA was first instituted in 2008.
“The state no longer has a deficit. They’ve closed the budget deficit for the state and they have a balanced budget and they’re in good shape,” Main explained. ” If they are in good shape, in my mind, there isn’t any reason to continue the Gap Elimination Adjustment. The GEA should be eliminated completely for Jamestown and all the other districts in the state.”
TAX CAP SITUATION
Because of the financial problems facing Jamestown and the way the state tax cap formula works, the school district would have to actually cut spending by $2.34 million from the current year’s budget, just to stay within the tax cap. Part of that reason is because the district paid off the final part of a multi-million dollar bond it had taken out several years ago. School officials say its not fair that they be punished for no longer having to make that bond payment.
Tim Mains, superintendent of Jamestown Public Schools.
“The strange way that the tax cap law was written has created this enormous problem for us,” Mains said. “It doesn’t make sense to me and it doesn’t make sense to me and I don’t think it makes sense to anybody else, that we should have to have a super majority just to raise the same amount of money that we did for [this school year].”
This year’s school budget is $73,370,000, with over $46,000,000 covered by state aid. This year, state aid will increase 2.17 percent under the governor’s proposed budget. But if no additional state aid were to be added, the district would need to present a spending plan of just over $71,000,000 in order to stay within the mandated tax cap.
Mains says he and other school officials will begin working on recommendations on how to close the budget gap. In the meantime, he will also be in contact with representatives in Albany to try and see if the district can receive more state aid that what was initially projected in the Governor’s spending plan.
The next school board meeting is March 25 and more details about the budget – including possible cuts – will be presented at that time.
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