Gilmer County School Board faces a $1 million or more short-fall in next year’s budget, according to a presentation give to the board of education this week. During a BOE workshop Monday night, Finance Director Julie Cantrell presented three scenarios for next year’s budget, each showing a shortfall in the $1 million range. Similar scenarios were presented previously to the board. However, over the last few months, certain components of the system’s financial situation have changed, such as the amount of E-Rate money the system is expected to receive and the county’s tax digest numbers.

“We bumped that up to around $35, 000,”

Cantrell said about E-rate’s projected revenue. E-rate is a federal program to assist schools and libraries to obtain affordable telecommunications and internet access. Cantrell said during the workshop that the county received more of the E-rate funding than anticipated.

According to Cantrell’s presentation, the revenue to date in each scenario is the same, $32,998,955. Also, in each scenario, expenditures exceed revenues.

Total expenditures in Scenario A equal $33,907,195. Pitted against the above mentioned revenue this leaves a shortfall of nearly a million dollars, at, $908,204. This is the bare-bones minimum scenario with little or no changes from last year. Scenarios B and C, however, explore the cost of adding more days to the school calendar,

Georgia State Law requires each school district to operate 180 days of instruction. Currently, though, Gilmer County Schools operate 170 days of instruction. In an effort to reach the 180 requirement, Gilmer Superintendent Bryan Dorsey charged Cantrell with analyzing cost for an additional four days—Scenario B—and an additional ten days—Scenario C, which would bring Gilmer up to legal requirement.

As such, expenditures in Scenario B equal $34, 383,995, forcing a shortfall of over a million dollars, at $1,385,040. And, Scenario C, which includes the cost to operate schools in the district for an additional ten days, sets the expenditures at $35,126,195, with the shortfall skyrocketing to $2,130,240.

According to worksheets presented during Monday night’s meeting, though, shortfalls would be countered by transferring money from the fund balance( a type of reserve fund), in order to balance the bottom line for each, respective year.

For instance, in Scenario A the estimated FY14 fund balance is $14,591,760. The fund balance for the same fiscal year drops to $14,114,960. And the fund balance sinks further still in the final scenario to $13,369,760.

So, what’s eating the fund balance? Two primary things: 1) Cost of healthcare increases due to the Affordable Care Act Legislation (Obamacare), slated to be fully implemented in 2014. For instance, the state health benefit insurance program, a mandated program for the district, is projected for a $340,000 increase. 2) Austerity cuts. Cantrell’s worksheets show austerity cuts in state funding projected to hit $2,458,165 for next year. Neighboring school systems corroborate this number with similar estimates. State funding is based on a formula called QBE (Quality Basic Education). Fannin County Superintendent Mark Henson says his county has been underfunded in QBE money since the formula’s inception in the 1980s. The same amount of underfunding is likely true for other counties across the state and in the area as well, like Gilmer.

Additionally, Gilmer faces other, mandated increases. For instance, in 2015 step raise increases are expected to cost the county an additional $320,000 and the employer’s share of the teacher retirement system contributions will increase $215,000.

During Monday’s work session, Superintendent Dorsey did not comment on the budget plans, philosophical or otherwise, but said he will ask for approval for a July spending resolution at Thursday’s regular meeting, which allows the system to spend money for that month, since the board will not approve a final budget until later in the summer.

“We’re waiting for those final numbers,”

Dorsey said,

“looking for what we think the tax digest will be officially.”

The tax digest is expected to be complete by the first week of July. The board is expected to set a rollback rate of 17.25, a half mil difference from the current 17.75 rate.