For the first time in nearly a decade, it looks like the Fox C-6 School District will bring in more operating funds than it spends next fiscal year, according its newly adopted budget.
Board of Education members voted unanimously on June 18 to approve the 2024-2025 budget, which shows the district collecting $2,764 more in operating funds than it spends. The next fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30, 2025.
According to the budget, the Fox district is projected to collect $133,767,504 in operating revenue and to spend $133,764,740 in operating funds.
The district’s overall budget also includes funds for debt service, capital improvement projects and final payments for the completion of projects covered by Prop P, a $40 million bond issue voters approved in June 2020.
The last time Fox officials anticipated the district having more operating revenue than operating expenditures was during the 2015-2016 fiscal year, when it projected collecting $235 more than it planned to spend that year.
“We are happy that things are tracking better,” Superintendent Paul Fregeau said. “It is still a challenge to figure out the compensation package for our employees to fill positions. It is going to be a constant battle of expenditures balancing with revenues to try to be competitive to make sure our people don’t leave.”
While Fox district officials don’t expect a deficit in next school year’s operating funds, which covers employee salaries and benefits and the cost for services and supplies, the district is projected to spend more money than it brings in overall.
The budget shows Fox spending $5,029,400.35 more than it collects, with total expenditures estimated at $151,332,332.35 and total revenue projected at $146,302,932.
That deficit is expected because the district will spend $3,681,935 more than it will collect in revenue in its capital projects fund and will spend the remaining $2,428,736 in Prop P funds to complete bond-funded projects, including additions to Fox High School, Seckman Middle School and Antonia and Meramec Heights elementary schools.
That deficit is offset by the district spending $1,081,271 less than it will collect in its debt service fund.
“Our overall deficit is partially due to the timing difference between when we collect the income and spend for the Prop P projects; we received the revenue when we issued the bonds in 2020,” CFO Amy Vandevender told the board. “When you exclude the Prop P spending, the remaining deficit comes from the capital project fund. Historically, we weren’t spending all the money allocated to capital projects funds, so we had built up a little bit of a fund balance. We will use some of that fund balance to care for some of the district’s needs.”
The budget shows the Fox district spending $10,737,914 from its capital projects fund during the 2024-2025 fiscal year.
Some but not all of the improvement projects include $863,966 to replace the Seckman Middle School HVAC system; $170,476 to install an HVAC control system at Lone Dell; $832,000 for asphalt replacement at the Seckman campus and Rickman Auditorium; $600,767 for roof replacements at Clyde Hamrick and Meramec Heights; and $284,158 to replace the boilers at Seckman High School, according to board documents.
Employees
The district’s most expensive budget item is employee salaries and benefits, which are covered by funds from the operating budget.
Fox officials expect to spend a total of $112,940,875 on salaries and benefits, if all positions are filled during the 2024-2025 fiscal year. Employee salaries and benefits makes up about 84 percent of Fox’s operating budget with the district spending $87,204,297 for salaries and $25,736,578 for benefits.
For the 2023-2024 fiscal year, the district spent $115,472,539 on salaries and benefits, with $88,788,054 on salaries and $26,684,485 on benefits, Vandevender said.
She told the board the district had some positions that were never filled during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, so the district ended up with an approximately $6 million surplus.
“The only professional position that was posted all year that we didn’t fill was a School Psych Examiner position,” said Kelly Bracht, assistant superintendent for human resources. “There were others that we were struggling to fill, but as we got closer to the start of last school year, we made other adjustments so we could ensure that we could meet the needs of our students without having long-term subs in those vacant positions.
“The number of (support staff) positions that weren’t filled all year is much more difficult to pin down since staffing in those areas constantly changes, but it would be safe to say that on average between bus drivers, custodians, food service and paraprofessionals, that number hovered between 15 and 25.”
Vandevender said after the current fiscal year closes on June 30, those funds will be added to the operating budget’s beginning fund balance.
The new budget shows the district starting the upcoming fiscal year with a $28,679,167 fund balance, but that balance will likely grow to about $34,679,167 when the unspent funds for salaries and benefits are added into the budget, she said.
Vandevender said the beginning fund balance will be about 26 percent of the operating budget.
She said the district plans to more closely track how many unfilled positions it has during the 2024-2025 fiscal year, and in March or April, determine how much money has not been spent on employees’ salaries and benefits and then possibly reallocating that money to other district needs.
“With the current job market, a lot of positions have been very difficult to fill,” Vandevender told the board. “So rather than having that placeholder in the budget, we can have that conversation. Can we do a budget adjustment, and can we lower the salary and expenses? We’ll still have a balanced budget at the end of the year, but we can allocate that to where there’s a need.”
Bracht said the Fox district currently has about 45 unfilled support staff positions and 30 open teaching positions for the 2024-2025 school year.
She said district officials believe they will fill the open teaching positions but have trouble filling the support staff positions.
Fregeau said he doesn’t expect the district will continue having budget surplus each year due to unfilled positions.
“If you do get to the point where you are fully staffed, you are not going to have that surplus,” he said. “That (filling all positions) is always the goal.”
Cost cutting
District officials have been looking for ways to save money because it no longer receives additional funding because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the district’s enrollment is declining.
Fregeau held a series of community meetings earlier this year to discuss the possibility of moving to a four-day schedule as a cost-savings measure.
Since then, however, a state law was passed that requires districts to get voter approval before moving from a five-day to a four-day school week, so that decision will be delayed.
“I am not saying (a four-day week) is off the table, but it has been pushed down the timeline because of the election factor,” Fregeau said.
However, Fregeau said he still plans to discuss the possibility of closing one of its elementary schools because of projected declining enrollment numbers.
“The enrollment will dictate that conversation,” he said. “If the enrollment trend continues, that is a conversation we are going to have. You have heard (people) come up (during school board meetings) and say, ‘You are losing students. Why are you not doing something about the number of buildings you have in your inventory?’”
The district has 11 elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools, as well as the Don Earl Early Childhood Center and the Bridges alternative school.