(2) Preliminary Budget: RESOLVED, That the Board approves the preparation of a Preliminary Budget for the 2013-2014 school year, in the amount of $84,469,784. Such budget is to be made available for public view and presented for approval at the February 18, 2013, Board meeting. The Board directs the administration to apply for exceptions to the Index limit under Act 1 of 2006 as further refined under Act 25 of 2011 as may be permitted.Is it real? Is it fake? Will we ever know? Notice how "as further refined under Act 25 of 2011" was added to the resolution? I linked Act 25 of 2011 for all to read.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Nailed it!
In my post, Fake budget will be posted soon I predicted that "soon" is District Speak for one month's time. Monday's School Board Agenda dated January 21, 2013, which was posted today,
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9 comments:
Looks REAL to me, that a 5% school tax increase is on the WAY! Can someone please help the residents here in the kingdom of tax and spend??
sneaky
What do you mean, the school board is being sneaky? It looks that way...
The School Board is navigating the waters of referendum avoidance with a financial shell game, pulling money from "capital funds" that are actually renovations costs. Applying for a tax increase exemption and the other manipulations are truly sneaky.
Isn't the State about 18 months behind in reimbursements? Doesn't that complicate things for Jan Klein's budget?
I found this on the planCon website.
http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=18&objID=1245607&mode=2
Elaine
As a great many people can attest, government budgets are almost meaningless.
Anyone who has ever run a business - or, indeed, a family - knows that there is sometimes a discrepancy between a spending plan and actual cash flow. But here are the facts: 1)Most businesses can only guess at how much money they will make at any given time because they are dependent upon sales in the free market, and thus there is a powerful incentive to minimize expenses; 2)a family on salary knows how much money to expect as income, but it must plan its expenses accordingly; 3)a government (a school district, for example), however, focuses on spending, and takes the money it needs from its residents in the form of taxes. If spending increases beyond the "plan" - no problem; the residents must pay. Items 1 and 2 follow the immutable laws of economics because income, or projected income, governs and limits expenses. Item 3 turns the laws of economics upside down. Laying aside the arguments of "the greater good" and "taxes are the price we pay for civilization," the common name for such an activity is theft.
Unfortunately, as long as a simple majority of voting residents suffer from an economic inferiority complex and believe that their local governments (municipality and school district) know best how to spend their money you may expect more "tax and spend" from our elected officials.
No preliminary budget to share with the Community, but we do know it will total $84,469,784.
Math is so much easier when one starts with the answer ...
Maybe it will be explained during Dr. Allen's math presentation on Monday, Bill. I understand it is going to be a packed house.
If it is a 5% increase, what happened to the part about lowering the millage because of the reassessment? I am so confused!
Elaine
It is too early to know what the implications are for taxes next year. The $84,469,784 number at this point reflects approximately a 5% increase in spending (budget to budget).
And while the 5% increase in spending does require a matching 5% increase in revenue over last year's budget, there are many facts known only to a select few.
For example ...
- How is the spend going year to date against budget?
- What is the forecasted total spend for the year?
- What about actual and forecasted revenues?
Answers to these question (and others) are critical to understanding the foundation for next year's budget -- be it preliminary, proposed or final.
It is possible we could be forecasting a meaningful surplus in the current fiscal year from the expenditure or revenue side (or both).
This perfect alignment of the stars is something that seems to occur every so often in non-election years, thereby enabling the Board to limit tax increases for the upcoming election year.
Nevertheless, the spending continues, with the Board taking credit for holding down taxes. I think this is the MO that Ed Kubit described as being "frugal" in a Community wide newsletter.
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When contemplating the School District finances -- it is best to keep in mind how a magician makes an elephant disappear -- illusion and distraction.
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