Bayless Budget Struggling Despite Deep Cuts

At a meeting Wednesday, the Bayless School Board passed the district’s 2011-2012 budget, leaving the schools with an operating deficit of more than $100,000 despite cutting expenses by more than $1 million throughout the last two years.

The budget projects total revenues of $14,259,208 and plans for total expenditures of $15,258,580. This leaves a total deficit of $999,372. However, the district has been spending down the last of its Proposition O funds collected from a bond issue in 2008, and these capital projects account for much of this total deficit.

The district’s operational budget deficit is $111,796. This leaves the schools with a projected operating balance of $2,668,609 at the end of next school year.

District Chief Financial Officer John Stewart said that to get to this point the district had to cut $350,000 from the budget for this coming school year. This past year it cut $750,000, including district bus transport.

“That’s 8.5 percent of our operating budget that we’ve cut over the last two years,” Stewart said. “We are making things work and affecting the classroom as little as possible.”

Bayless has lost significant revenue in the past several years as home values in the district have dropped and state funding has become more sparse. In a previous interview, Stewart said that if the state continues to fail to fully fund its school assistance formula, it could cost the district around $300,000 a year.

This year, the district has also been forced to replace the intermediate school’s roof early due to shoddy workmanship on the last renovation. Without a significant economic bounce-back, Stewart said the district might have to cut staff and increase class sizes.

“Any more decreases, it is going to be harder and harder to make those cuts without affecting the classroom,” Stewart said.

Unfortunately, there is little indication that Missouri will increase school funding or that Bayless home valuations are going to rise with this year’s assessment.

“There’s a balancing act, and not that it’s been easy the last two years, but it’s going to get more difficult,” Stewart said.

At the board’s May meeting, Bayless School Board President Jeff Preisack . Though Preisack had originally suggested the board work to put it on the ballot this coming November, Stewart said the school board was now shooting to put the levy to a vote in 2012. The extra time will be used to better inform district residents of the nature and necessity of the tax levy. Once passed, however, it would still be more than a year before the district saw increased revenue from the levy.