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AISD trustees adopt $6.6M budget

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Albany News

By Melinda L. Lucas

Albany ISD trustees passed a budget for the 2022-2023 school year during a special early morning session on Wednesday, Aug. 31, meeting the required state deadline.

They also okayed the proposed tax rate of 94.41 cents per $100 valuation

After last year’s reprieve in deficit budgeting due to federal COVID relief funding, the district is again dipping into its fund balance, at least on paper, with projected expenses expected to exceed revenues.

Total expenditures in the approved budget are projected at $6,616,452, while revenues are listed at $6,170,579, a difference of $445,873.

Prior to last fall, there had been five straight years of deficit budgeting for Albany ISD.

AISD superintendent Jonathan Scott said that the deficit budget is largely due to an increase in school safety measure, including a new position for a safety officer, additional door access control system, and a needed update to the school’s telephones and PA systems in order to have more effective communication with the staff and students.

Scott has commented at several recent board meetings that although the state is mandating the safety measures and the governor has implied that funding will be made available to cover those needed improvements, nothing has been approved by the legislature and therefore can’t be included in the revenue part of the budget.

“We haven’t seen any evidence of that funding yet,” said Scott.

In addition, the district ordered a new school bus last September, which was included in the 2021-2022 approved budget. However, due to supply chain issues, the bus has yet not been delivered.

Payment for the bus, with a price tage of about $105,000, must be made after its arrival to the district.

“Therefore, the district had to include the cost of that same bus on the 2022-2023 budget, with an anticipated delivery of October,” said the superintendent.

The motion to approve the budget was made by Ginny Ivy, seconded by Matt Bellah, with all five trustees present in agreement.

Bellah then voiced the motion to approve the 2022-2023 tax rate of 94.41 cents, with a second from Kim Fuenetes. That motion also passed unanimously.

The approved rate is the “maximum compressed rate” (MCR) of 89.41 cents with the “five golden pennies” added that the state allows with no election. It is almost two cents less than last year’s tax rate of 96.34 cents.

The rate has been decreased in increments from $1.04 assessed during the 2018-2019 school year.