MILTON — Susan McCole, assistant superintendent for finance with the Santa Rosa County School District, and her staff are finalizing a fiscal budget for the upcoming school year.
McCole and her department are working with a budget worth more than $300 million and more than $217 million in operating funds.
The school district’s financial status is climbing following a hard-hitting recession a few years ago, when the school district reported having a low financial condition ratio, or FCR, of 2.17.
The Florida Department of Education intervenes if a school district reports an FCR below 2.0; SRC schools have yet to reach below a 2.17.
McCole said she and the department aim to continue the school board’s and the superintendent’s wishes of maintaining an acceptable FCR.
“Their goal is to maintain a financial condition ratio of between 5 and 7 percent. That is what they would like to keep it at,” she said.
McCole anticipates ending the 2016-17 school year with an FCR of 7.29.
As for the increase, the school district has received a financial boost in various forms including increased funding from state to tax revenues.
One example includes revenue from the half-cent sales tax.
“This past year, with the half-cent sales tax, $7.8 million dollars, they use that on all kinds of projects out at each of the schools, for additional classrooms, adding carpet or adding more technology at various schools,” McCole said.
The school district should receive a 1 percent increase from the state. However, “We can’t use that whole $2.4 million on whatever we need in the operating side,” McCole said.
She said most of the $2.4 million would be restricted to areas such as instructional materials, technology or dual enrollment.
Other factors of expenditures for the entire budget include rising utility costs, increasing insurance rates, retirement contributions for employees and contract services, among other costs.
“It’s a very conservative, straight-forward budget,” Superintendent of Schools Tim Wyrosdick said. “We feel confident that it meets our needs, not our wants; but we will move forward and still do due diligence in saving tax dollars where we can.”
The proposed budget will be presented in two public meetings. The first is Thursday night. The second public hearing is 6:30 p.m. Sept. 8 at the school district’s administrative building on Canal Street in Milton.
The fiscal year is from July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017. Florida Statute sets time frames for the budget.
ONLINE
See www.santarosa.k12.fl.us for more information on the Santa Rosa County School District’s proposed fiscal 2016-17 budget
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: School district sets public hearings on budget