The Wasatch County Board of Education has unanimously adopted next year’s school budget, and it looks very similar to the one of 2020.
According to online budget documents for fiscal year 2021 – which starts July 1 – revenues will drop by about a million dollars and expenditures will be cut by more than $4.6 million, mostly from the capital fund. But things could have been much worse, given the shutdown and attempted recovery of the state economy prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wasatch School District Business Administrator Keith Johansen budgeted for a 3% growth in student enrollment for the coming year in one of the fastest-growing districts of the state. The student population, he said, will exceed 7,300.
The bulk of the annual budget – 91% of next year’s plan – goes toward staff salaries and benefits. Johansen reported some good news, though: for the first time since he began his role as business administrator, there was a 3% decrease in the district’s health insurance premiums.
During the public hearing, a teacher asked about their contracts and salaries. Superintendent Paul Sweat said he couldn’t answer that just yet. In their special session last week, lawmakers approved a 1.8% increase in the weighted per pupil unit, which is the standard the state uses to determine schools' eligibility for funding.
At this point, Sweat said the board doesn't know what that means for local revenues.
“It looks like that that rather than any of those cuts that we've just been talking about - that there may be as was previously mentioned somewhere around a one-and-a-half percent increase, which is great news compared to any type of a cut,” Sweat said. “So, having been given that information just today, we will work with our contacts at the state and as we solidify that information, we may have to pull together in a special board meeting to talk about negotiation with our teachers and our classified folks and we'll get that, we’ll get that ball rolling as soon as we can. We're obviously late and we're late because we didn't know and today's the first hint that we've been given what that might look like.”
The district will see some cost savings from a hiring freeze that went into effect this fiscal year. However, Johansen also pointed out that the school district has a much smaller balance in the rainy-day fund than he would like to see as there are only four districts that have a smaller fund balance as a percent of their revenues than Wasatch. He said the time to build it up would be when the economy improves.
"I think that shows our teachers that were not stashing away tons of money and not using it to pay salaries,” he said. “It shows our patrons that we're being prudent but I would recommend that we work to - and that's been the goal of the school board for years now - to increase that fund balance - basically that $7.656 million that we had at the end of last year, would not, well, it wouldn't even cover two months’ worth of payroll ... so that's not a real secure position to be in.”
School Board president Blaik Baird said he was impressed with how the district made the jump to digital learning when COVID-19 closed schools in March.
“The perception out there, throughout the country, was that homeschooling was a failure,” Baird said. “And I'll tell you what - I don't agree with that at all in our district. I think we were a great success and I think it was the preparation that's gone for many years of digital learning and having opportunities for students to take their devices home and in our teachers being trained and I don't think in Wasatch School District it was a failure at all. In fact, I would give it an A-plus.”
Wasatch County students are scheduled to begin the 2020-2021 school year on Aug. 17.
