Bentonville board approves 2015-'16 budget

BENTONVILLE -- The School District plans to spend $146.7 million this school year, nearly a 3 percent increase from what it spent last year.

The School Board unanimously approved the budget for the 2015-16 school year at its meeting Monday. Nathalie Brunell, director of finance, said she anticipates revenues will top expenses by about $175,000, and the district will finish the fiscal year in June with a fund balance of $26.3 million.

Fund balance

Finance director Nathalie Brunell projects the Bentonville School District will finish this school year with a fund balance of $26.3 million. Here’s a look at what the fund balance has been on July 1 each of the past five years.

2011: $17.4 million

2012: $26.9 million

2013: $24.6 million

2014: $24.4 million

2015: $26.1 million

Source: Bentonville School District

Those figures take into account $800,000 the district has set aside as a partial payment for its 11th elementary school, scheduled to open in 2017.

Brunell said she took a very conservative approach to this year's budget. State funding is based on a school district's third quarter average enrollment, which she projected would be 15,750, even though current enrollment is nearly 400 students above that.

Brunell also based her budget on an expected property assessment increase of 2 percent, even though assessment growth in the district has been closer to 3 percent or more over the past three years.

Brent Leas, a board member, said he appreciated the conservative approach, but wondered whether Brunell's projections might be too conservative. Michael Poore, superintendent, jumped in to answer him.

"This is her first budget," Poore said, referring to the fact Brunell was hired as finance director in April. "And we don't want to have something at the end of the year that says (the budget) is tight."

The opening of West High School next year -- expected to add at least $4 million to the operating budget -- has to be considered too, Poore said. The district has other new facilities on the horizon as well, including the 11th elementary school.

The board will have a better idea of how much financial flexibility it has in November when the district receives its first big influx of property taxes, Brunell said.

"The board always has the option to modify the budget," she said.

Raises for employees were not included in the budget, though they could be added, Brunell said. That's what the board did last October when it approved raises for all employees retroactive to the beginning of last fiscal year.

"You gave employees a raise last year, and I hope you're feeling good about that raise right now," Poore said. "I don't think there's another district in the region last year that pulled off a percent increase."

A little more than 86 percent of the district's expenses this year will go toward salaries, benefits, utilities and debt payments. That percentage is in line with peer districts, Brunell said.

The district's extra expenses this year will come largely from an additional $949,000 for textbooks, an extra $828,000 for salaries and benefits, and an increase of $1.7 million in debt payments.

In other business Monday, the board approved the first assistant principal for West High School. Jeremy Yates, now in his second year as an assistant principal at Bentonville High School, will begin the new job in January, according to Jonathon Guthrie, West High's principal. Yates was one of five people interviewed for the job, Guthrie said.

The hiring brings West High's staff to three, including Guthrie, Yates and registrar Emily Colston. Two assistant principals and two deans will be added to the school's administrative team next year.

NW News on 09/15/2015

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