MP School District's finances are laden with black ink

By BROOKS TAYLOR

Mt. Pleasant News

Mt. Pleasant Community School District?s financial picture continues to brighten, school directors were told Monday night during the board?s regular monthly meeting.

Ed Chabal, district director of finance, took board members on a financial tour, highlighting portions of the district?s annual comprehensive report, which will receive approval during the February meeting.

The district?s unassigned fund balances few by nearly $300,000 during the last fiscal year, showing a total balance of $2,231,538 on June 30, 2013.

However, the district?s spending authority included a slight drop from $6.82 million to $6.60 million. Spending authority is akin to a credit-card credit limit. It is not supported by cash and reflects the maximum dollars a district can spend during the fiscal year. The spending authority is set by the state through the budget formula.

School districts need permission from the Iowa School Budget Review Committee to exceed their spending authority.

Chabal said a number of factors influenced the slight drop in spending authority, the largest being the loss of a one-time $300,000 federal stimulus grant. ?There were also some other grants that we received the past year and didn?t this year and also the loss of students,? Chabal said.

Other highlights from the financial report included:

? Total district expenditures in fiscal 2013 were $23.7 million or an increase of $1.4 million over fiscal 2012. Chabal said the major reason for the increase was the refinancing of school bonds.

? Total district revenues were $23.48 million, a decrease of $331,779. State funding ($11.41 million) accounted for 49 percent of the revenue; local funding ($11.11 million), or largely property taxes, represented 47 percent of the revenue and Mt. Pleasant received 4 percent of its total funding, or $955,840, from the federal government.

? Net assets at the end of the fiscal year were $16.40 million, an increase of $1.16 million from fiscal 2012.

? District debt included $2.72 million in general obligation bonds, $5.47 million in sales tax revenue bonds and $452,764 in capital leases.

The director of finance said that overall he is pleased with district finances. ?I think we are in good shape, very stable. We have come a long ways and have done a good job of not asking for any (property) tax revenue that is not needed.?

Chabal also noted that the district?s solvency ratio, which is one of the benchmarks indicating the financial health of a school district, increased from just over 9 percent to 11 percent in fiscal 2013.

Directors approved a change in the graduation/class ranking system.

During the December board meeting, High School Principal Tood Liechty said he had organized a student committee and members wanted every class taken figured into the grade-point average. Currently, students can choose whether or not they want grades for college courses taken included in their high school grade-point average.

The administrator said under the present system students are awarded one extra grade point for each semester of AP (advanced placement i.e. college courses) coursework completed.

Under the current system, students who take the most courses get less reward on their grade point for taking the AP courses, Liechty said.

For example, student one earns eight extra AP points and 57 credits at MPCHS. The increase to student one?s GPA would be .140. Student two earns the same eight extra AP points but is earning 62 credits at the high school. The bump to that student?s GPA would be .129. Finally, student three earns eight AP points and 65 credits at MPCHS. The increase in this student?s GPA is .123.

What the high school proposed is including all of a student?s coursework (high school and college courses), figure a student?s GPA on a straight four-point scale. An addition of .021 to the cumulative grade point would be made for each semester of AP coursework completed. By giving each student the same increase, all would be treated fairly, the administrator said.

The .021 figure was chosen because if one point earned each semester is divided by 48 (the number of credits required for graduation at the high school), the answer is .0208 which the group rounded up to .021.

Committee members also suggested implementing the new system in the spring semester, starting with the junior class.

Regarding the selection of the valedictorian and salutatorian, the committee said the pair would be chosen using cumulative GPAs. If there is a tie, the student with the higher ACT score would be the valedictorian. If there is still a tie, there would be co-valedictorians.

The valedictorian and salutatorian would speak at graduation unless they have violated the good conduct policy while in high school. If that occurred, students in the top 10 percent of the class who want to speak would be given the opportunity to write a speech. A faculty committee would choose the best speech, which will be given at graduation.

Personnel items saw approval of contracts for Kelsey Fish, Lincoln Elementary second-grade instructor; Warren Larson, high school school-to-work coordinator; Alan Magnani, assistant high school boys? track coach; and Connie Engberg, Lincoln Elementary one-on-one para-professional.

Resignations were accepted from Philip Schroetter, high school vocal/drama instructor; Sally Olson, Van Allen third-grade instructor; and Betsabe Carstensen, Lincoln Elementary one-on-one para-professional.

In remaining agenda items, the board:

? Approved a middle-school trapshooting club.

? Approved high school economics curriculum changes.

? Appointed Lonny Morrow as the board?s representative on the Henry County Conference Board which approves the county assessor?s budget among other things. The board is comprised of school district and city representatives in the county.

Board members meet again Monday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. in the high school media center.