Proposition 30 offers a bit of budget relief

The Corning school districts' 2012-13 budgets are looking a little better with the passage of Proposition 30, although both have a spending deficit.

On Thursday, Jane Youngman, chief business officer for the Corning High School District, said the passage of the proposition "meant reinstating approximately $412,000 in expected revenue limit funding" to this year's budget. She also anticipated property tax revenues to increase by approximately $98,481.

"But," she explained during the first interim report, "Prop. 30 is not new money, it is money that didn't get cut from schools."

With this adjusted increase on the books, Youngman said the 2012-13 expenditures are $9.7 million. Revenues are $9.5 million, leaving the district with a projected deficit of $215,077.

That leaves the ending balance for this fiscal year at $3.2 million, including board assigned restricted monies, said Youngman.

She projected the district's deficit to go up about $80,000 during each of the next fiscal years, but with reserves, the district's ending budgets will still be in the black.

Penny Whiting, chief business officer for Corning Elementary School District, said during Wednesday's board meeting that her first interim report provides revisions made to reflect passage of Prop. 30 by removing budget cuts to the current and subsequent school years.

She said Prop. 30 brought the district from revenues of $12.6 million to $13.7 million.

She said expenditures are $14,156,686, bringing deficit spending to $400,021, down $1 million from previously anticipated.

Whiting believes the district will be without deficit spending by 2014-15.

The district's 2012-13 fiscal year ending balance is projected to be $2.5 million.

Youngman predicts the high school district will not need a low interest cash flow loan to make it through the year, but the district has put the paperwork in place just in case Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes are necessary.

Whiting told her board the elementary school's cash flow is projected to go negative in May and June.

"Tax and Revenue Anticipation Notes to address short-term cash flow needs is available in the current year and cross-year," she said.

Both school boards certified their respective first interim budget reports.

During the Corning Union Elementary School District meeting, Helen Pitkin was unanimously voted in as board president for a second year.

Ken Vaughan was unanimously approved as president for the Corning Union High School District board of trustees.