District details 2019-'20 budget
PONDERAY — It is a new year for the Lake Pend Oreille School District, as the 2019-2020 fiscal year started on Monday.
LPOSD board members adopted a $40.4 million budget during their June 4 meeting after a brief presentation by Lisa Hals, the district’s chief financial and operations officer. Much of the financials were discussed in detail earlier this year throughout the process of passing the two-year, $25.4 million supplemental levy.
“That portion of the property taxes we collect next year will be 35.1 percent of our budget,” Hals said. “We have separated out, in our accounting software, all of the expenses for our maintenance and operations supplemental levy. This is not required by law, and when we report to the state it is consolidated.”
The levy expenditures, along with an overall budget summary, were condensed from a 200-page report to the 25-page document Hals presented to the board. The summary is also available on the district’s website at lposd.org.
Hals hit a few of the highlights regarding the development of the budget, as far as revenue and expense projections.
“The biggest driving force at the state level was the federal tax cut act of December 2017, which the legislators had to contend with in terms of trying to project state revenues,” she said, referring to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
In the budget summary, Hals noted that, ultimately, the state’s Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee recommended a 6.1-percent increase to K-12 appropriation, which was adopted. For LPOSD, the state’s increase translated into an additional $1 million over last year’s appropriations.
This year’s budget is a nearly $6 million increase over last year’s $34.9 million budget, primarily due to salary increases. Approximately $10.2 million of the $12.7 million in supplemental levy funding for the 2019-2020 fiscal year is slated for staffing.
“We have been able to restructure our salary maintenances for the different categories of staff and there is an avid increase of between about 10.5 and 13.5 percent,” Hals said.
The district has approximately 500 full-time equivalent employees, she said. With about 3,850 students, LPOSD is the 22nd largest of 164 public school districts in Idaho.
Before digging into the budget during the June 4 meeting, Hals had a few words to say as it was the last official board meeting for former LPOSD superintendent Shawn Woodward, who started his new career with the Mead School District this week.
“I think the most important thing I want to say tonight is actually to thank our superintendent for the past seven years of his financial acumen,” Hals said. “The absence of that makes my job and the board’s job very difficult, and he should be recognized for that.”
Tom Albertson, who served as the Sandpoint High School principal for the past five years, with a total of 32 years in the district, took over as LPOSD superintendent on Monday.
Mary Malone can be reached by email at mmalone@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow her on Twitter @MaryDailyBee.