Manhasset Board of Education trustees on Thursday approved fund balance and reserve transfers to cover the cost of repairs to Munsey Park Elementary School’s main sewer line
Trustees okayed the transfer of $25,000 from the district’s unassigned fund balance toward its 2013-14 worker’s compensation reserve, authorized the transfer of $95,448.25 from its fund balance to its repair reserve and utilized $120,000 from that reserve for the sewer line.
The moves, accounted for as part of 2012-13 budget, were voted on at the conclusion of an hour-plus-long breakdown of the district’s financial situation by Assistant Superintendent for Business Rosemary Johnson, who presented a five-year, budget-to-budget spending increase of 1.41 percent and a tax levy increase of 1.75 percent in that time.
“How do you sustain a program like ours with numbers like this?” Johnson said.
Johnson said the district’s final 2012-13 budget was $89,156,544 after it was amended twice to account for a $416,243 expenditure to add four elementary school teachers due to unforeseen enrollment increases prior to the start of the year and $212,000 that was used to enhance security following the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., as well as transfers of $845,000 from its 2010 capital reserve and $279,269 from its unassigned fund balance toward the completion of its 2011 capital projects, which included the new track and football field turf replaced during the summer.
Johnson said with the completion of the track and field turf, the district’s 2007 bond referendum has been completed with $1,383,571 left in the fund.
The projects cost $1,300,174 in district funds, which Johnson said was accumulated through $1,750,789 in community endowments and other grants. The district set aside $1,095,000 from its capital fund toward the projects.
Johnson said the district’s available fund balance, the difference between the district’s year-to-year expenditures and revenues, was down from $8,590,508 in 2012 to $6,020,323 in 2013 due to the use of funds toward retirement contribution and workers compensation reserves, transfers from its 2010 capital reserve toward the football field and track as well as the emergency repair costs to the Munsey Park Elementary School sewer line.
Johnson analyzed the district’s use of reserves to offset tax levy increases in the last five years, saying the district continued to put funds toward worker’s compensation and employee retirement contributions to combat rising costs.
The district appropriated $823,170 in 2009 toward those two funds, according to Johnson’s audited review of the district’s financial statements, and the district applied more than $2.5 million toward those reserves in 2010 and more than $3 million in 2011.
Worker’s compensation and employee retirement contributions accounted for nearly half of the district’s applied reserve use in 2012 as increased costs drove up the tax levy.
Johnson said the district will end the year with close to $1 million in reserves, all to be put toward its capital reserve.
“We no longer will generate funds to be able to put into a worker’s compensation reserve or an [employees retirement reserve] to help us manage the tax levy,” Johnson said.
