MPCSD board considers legislative impact on FY 25 budget

MT. PLEASANT — Always looking ahead, the Mt. Pleasant Community School Board and committees have begun exploring numbers for next year’s budget, and Superintendent John Henriksen encourages board members to advocate for solid State Supplementary Aid increases after explaining possible new money calculations for the next fiscal year budget.

Henriksen gave an update on new money calculations in his most recent superintendent report.

According to Henriksen, he first went over this information with the district’s finance committee before presenting it to the whole school board.

“I just want to briefly go over how we develop and come up with a dollar figure or a number that we can essentially begin to use for our budgeting process for fiscal year 25,” Henriksen explained. “We’re currently in fiscal year 24, so, this will be for next school year.”

According to Henriksen, they come to these numbers by taking the October 2023 certified enrollment of 1,733.25 students and multiplying it by possible State Supplementary Aid (SSA) percentages.

“Now the guessing part here is what the fiscal year 25 per pupil dollar are going to be,” Henriksen said.

According to Henriksen, when he spoke with Rep. Jeff Shipley a few weeks ago, he mentioned a possible 3% increase.

For one example Henriksen showed the board he used that 3% SSA increase which estimates the per pupil amount to be $7,864 and gives a total of $13,630,278 for regular program dollars.

Comparatively, the school district’s regular program dollars for FY 24 of $13,681,157 is over $50,000 more than the estimate for next year.

“ … the reason for that is the drop in enrollment and the SSA increase,” Henriksen explained the difference in regular program dollars.

Because the decline in enrollment could cause the district to lose more percentage wise than they gain in state cost per-pupil, the district could use something called the 1% or 101% Guarantee.

This budget guarantee is a funding mechanism that uses property taxes to supplement the SSA in these instances.

If the district is only allotted a 3% increase from the SSA creating that deficit compared to last year’s regular program dollars, the budget guarantee will kick in.

Taking the 1% of FY 24’s regular program dollars, which equals $136,812, the district would then add that to the difference of $50,879 between the budgets and that would increase FY 25’s regular program dollars to $13,817,969.

This would introduce $116,521 of new money, “ … which is an increase of less than 1% actually, .85%,” Henriksen said.

“That is the budget guarantee amount,” Henriksen said. “We would have to levy property taxes for that, if the board chooses to do that when we certify the budget in April.”

Henriksen then walked the board through the figures for a 4% SSA increase which would still enact the budget guarantee, though at a lower amount.

According to Henriksen, the budget guarantee would fall away with a 5% increase in SSA, however, the new money for the FY 25 budget would increase from .85% to 1.42% or $194,017.

“So, obviously, advocate for state legislators for solid SSA as the session starts,” Henriksen encouraged.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com