The St. Vrain Valley School District introduced the superintendent’s proposed budget for the upcoming school year on Wednesday.
By state statute, the district is required to introduce its budget by the end of May to open the public comment period. The board will hold a public hearing on June 8 with formal adoption of the budget expected June 22.
Executive Director of Budget and Finance Tony Whiteley told the school board that the compensation agreement with the St. Vrain Valley Education Association was “substantially complete and awaiting ratification.” Personnel make up a major part of the district’s spending, roughly 85% of expenses.
According to the proposed budget, salary expenses for the district will increase by an average of 7.69%.
Whiteley emphasized that the budget as proposed was done with a conservative approach using preliminary estimates and a zero growth strategy, which does not increase funding based on projected growth and allows the district to make adjustments once the school year begins.
The proposed budget includes a “spend down” of $27.4 million from the general fund, compared to the budgeted spend down for the current school year of $21.4 million.
The district will start the 2022-23 school year with a projected $152.6 million. Whiteley expects district revenue to go up by $7.5 million, while expenses will go up by $13.6 million.
Because of the district’s conservative funding, St. Vrain usually ends up with more funds than it budgets for. For example, the 2021-22 school year is projected to end with $19 million more than budgeted.
If that doesn’t happen this year and the district does spend down the $27.4 million, Whiteley said that with its sizable reserves St. Vrain would still have adequate funds to fix things.
“We have adequate time to course correct and adjust for that to ensure we don’t put ourselves in an uncomfortable situation or have too much of a spend down for our fund balance,” he said.
The district also always amends its budget in January of the school year with adjustments based on solidified numbers that aren’t available when the budget is approved in June. The proposed budget is available to the public at svvsd.org.
