The Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp.’s spending plan for next year is approximately $153 million.
The school board voted on Monday to adopt the 2024 budget.
Per a presentation provided at the board’s Sept. 25 meeting, the budget totals $152,822,229, which is a 5.1% increase over 2023. The proposed advertised tax rate is $1.0203 for every $100 of assessed value.
“We always advertise at least a couple of cents higher than where we end up,” said assistant superintendent of financial services Chad Phillips. He added that their goal is to keep the rate around $1.00 to $1.01.
The adopted rate for 2023 is $0.9997.
One of the foremost pieces of this year’s budget discussion has been the question of how to cover curricular materials costs, due to recent legislative changes that prohibit public schools from charging fees for these materials.
While the state is reimbursing schools for the cost of materials, Phillips estimates that the allocation will leave a $250,000 gap for BCSC. He has proposed that the school corp. transfer $250,000 from the referendum fund to the education fund cover this expense.
However, local teachers and certain school board members have expressed concern about the proposal and suggested looking at other funding sources.
During Monday’s meeting, board member Logan Schulz asked if adoption of the 2024 budget included the proposed transfer from the referendum fund.
“Or is that a decision that we are making at a later point?” he asked.
“(The budget) does not include a specific transfer from one fund to the other,” Phillips replied. “It does have a line in the revenue on the education side and a line in the expenditure side, but no transfer and approval of where it comes from is part of this budget. That’ll come later.”
The referendum was approved in 2020, with 61.33% of voters answering “yes” to a ballot question that asked if they would be willing for BCSC to impose an additional property tax rate not exceeding $0.1560 on each $100 of assessed value “for the purpose of increasing compensation for teachers and support staff and maintaining student safety.”
The referendum lasts for a total of eight years, and officials have said in the past that the community would likely vote on its renewal in 2028.
This isn’t the first time that BCSC officials have proposed using the referendum operating fund for costs not included in the original question. Since 2022, the school corporation has also used the fund to help cover salaries and benefits for teachers in its K-12 STEM labs.
At the time, Phillips said that, due to an increase in assessed value, the referendum fund had gathered higher revenue than school officials had projected. He also said that the Department of Local Government Finance made a small error on the amount of miscellaneous revenues calculated on excise taxes, so these were left out of the budgeted amount.
The 2024 budget for the operating referendum fund, as presented in September, includes $6.16 million in teacher salary and benefit increases, $1.45 million for support staff salary and benefit increases, $412,776 for STEM lab teacher salaries and benefits and $1.16 million for expenses related to safety, security and mental health.
Where to learn more
Additional information on the budget was provided during the school board’s Sept. 11 and Sept. 25 meetings, which can be viewed on the BCSC YouTube channel.
