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Green presents 2010 budget to school board

Thursday, September 10, 2009
By JARED JERNAGAN, Assistant Editor

GREENCASTLE -- Greencastle Community Schools Superintendent Dr. Robert Green presented the 2010 budget at Wednesday's school board meeting. Like most schools and municipalities, the GCSC budget will remain tight in the coming year.

All funds will operate on minimal increases in the coming year. The general fund for 2009 is $12,395,000 and the proposed number for 2010 is $12,767,818.

The school system has projected tax rates to be much higher than previous years because of a projection of lower assessed values. In reality, though, Green said he expected most rates to be at or below their 2009 levels.

"That's our budget. Not great news, but, believe it or not, we're better than most," Green said.

In the monthly financial report, Green also reported the corporation received its June installment of the tax draw. The draw is for $3,431,142.31.

The collections were higher than expected, but his could be due to people paying both installments of their property taxes.

Green said that he and treasurer Nancy Marlow will be sitting down in the coming days to determine what debts the draws should be applied to.

Currently the corporation still owes money on three temporary loans: $1,852,000 for the debt service fund, $1,373,000 for the capital projects fund and $477,000 for the transportation fund.

Green reported, though, this is an improvement from last year.

"We were living on quite a bit less borrowed money than we were a year ago," he said.

More information on Wednesday meeting of the Greencastle Community School Board will be available in Friday's edition of the Banner Graphic.

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  • Let's open a can of worms, shall we?

    Doing a bit of math, we have a $12,767,818 Budget, less the $3,702,000 Debt, leaving us $9,065,818.

    According to the Greencastle Community School Corporation website, "Total Enrollment for the School District is 1,935."

    Taking the $9,065,818 and dividing that among the 1,935 students, we get 4,685.18 per student with the retirement of all debt.

    This places us within the range of private schools. If not for the debt this would come to $6,598.36 per student, placing us well within the range of private schools with a substantial amount for supplies, and other county necessities.

    At $5,000 per student annually, we get a total budget of $9,675,000 per year to send all students to a private school. Or, $3,092,818 less per year with no debt.

    Still, when compared to many other public schools, GCSC is a bargain at this price. GCSC has shown good management for keeping cost in line with the private sector, and controlling their debt.

    Of course this is purely from a financial perspective based on numbers from this article. There are many things, both tangible and intangible, that simply can't be measured in dollars.

    OK everyone, you can start throwing tomatoes at me now.

    -- Posted by VonMises on Thu, Sep 10, 2009, at 12:03 PM
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