Stephens Co. BOE Calls for Millage Decrease; Restoration of Four Calendar Reduction Days

The Stephens County Board of Education will lower its millage rate and is moving to put back some of its calendar reduction days.

Monday, the Board of Education voted 5-2 to approve a millage rate of 19.75 mills, down from this past year’s 20 mills.

Also, the Board voted 5-2 to approve a tentative budget for Fiscal Year 2016 that uses that 19.75 mill figure and also lowers the number of calendar reduction days by four, from 16 to 12.

Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey said the tentative Fiscal Year 2016 budget brings in $33,528,505 in projected revenues and spends $30,663,108 in projected expenditures.

That leaves an estimated fund balance of $2,862,390 as of the end of Fiscal Year 2016.

Dorsey said starting this fund balance is important to move the school system away from borrowing money and to give it some financial security.

“That is a lot of money to any of us individually, but when you are operating a $40-plus million budget, which is what we are operating here, having a ($2.8 million) buffer is not a whole lot of money,” said Dorsey, pointing to the combination of local, state and other federal funds.

He said not having a fund balance would be “irresponsible” in his opinion.

Dorsey said his eventual goal of a $5 million fund balance would eliminate the need for the school system to borrow money to fund operations until tax revenue came in.

Board members Rod Moore and Dr. Elizabeth Pinkerton voted against both the millage rate decrease and the tentative budget.

Moore said that with the school system making so many changes, cutting revenue based off of guesses on spending is not something he feels comfortable with.

“There are still a lot of unknown with how these efficiencies with the school closure are actually going to operate,” said Moore. “Would it be a wise decision to decrease the millage at this point? I feel like the taxpayers are burdened and I would like to give back. Certainly, my goal would be to give back next year when we had a round of actual expenses.”

Both Moore and Pinkerton said they would rather leave the millage rate alone for one more year and make a larger decrease next year once the school system had a better idea of the change in expenses.

Moore also questioned large decreases in some budget areas, such as maintenance and operations.

Dorsey said he is comfortable with the budget numbers presented.

“Why are some things lower?” asked Dorsey. “We are not operating another whole school. We are not paying the same kind of power bill at Eastanollee. We are not paying the same kind of paper supplies. It is just different operational costs. We have re-structured and there are benefits from the re-structuring.”

Dorsey also said this budget makes sure everything is in the right place for accounting purposes.

According to Dorsey, the goal was to give back a little to both the taxpayers and the staff in the budget.

Board member Jim Ledford agreed that is what the board should do.

“I feel like we promised the taxpayers we would lower the millage when we had the opportunity and we promised teachers we would lower the furlough days when we had the opportunity,” said Ledford. “We have the opportunity to do that today.”

A millage rate decrease of .25 mills will result in a decrease of about $10 on a tax bill for a homeowner in Stephens County with a $100,000 home.

While the millage rate is finalized, the school board will have to vote at a meeting on August 3 to approve the final Fiscal Year 2016 budget.