The Plymouth Community School Board began its budget process for 2025 as Treasurer and Business Manager for the corporation Steven Boyer made a presentation to the board on the process.
The current school budget will still be in effect until 2025, but the process of public meetings and approvals will take up the six-month time until the new fiscal year. Part one of the process was Boyer seeking approval of the board to publish a notice to the county’s taxpayers of the budget in preparation for the public hearing that will be held in September.
Along the way, the board will also put together a capital asset plan as well as a bus replacement plan that will be published with the budget. Boyer said that the current cost for a single bus replacement is approximately $125,000.
Boyer ran numbers and comparisons for the board with the proposed 2025 budget that includes the education fund or money used for the education process such as teachers’ salaries for the corporation, an operations budget that is allocated for maintenance expenses, debt service, or bond obligations and finally the rainy day fund which Boyer told the board currently held $1,487,851 or nearly four percent of the current budget which is a standard balance for a school corporation rainy day fund.
The current financials for the corporation have a 2024 total approved appropriations of $42,443,891, with disbursements to date of $20,595,909, leaving a current balance of $21,847,982 and estimated expenditures for the remainder of the year of $21,596,061.
The main funding source for the education fund is payment by the state to the school corporation of $6,681 per student based on enrollment. It’s estimated that the corporation will receive $25,288,687 for the education fund.
Operations fund money is provided mainly by the property tax levy and Boyer projects that the money that will be received by the school will be $5,807,542.
The corporation will see one of its outstanding bonds paid off but will pay a second at a higher rate to keep the debt service of the corporation even at $5,893,950.
Without any solid numbers to draw on, Boyer estimated that the next year’s school budget would be around $43 million estimating for slight inflation from this year.
State and local agencies will approve local funding formulas. Student population will be counted and then budgets will have to be approved by the Department of Local Government Finance.
The board gave Boyer the go-ahead to publish the notice to taxpayers for the 2025 budget.
