NEWARK– The Worcester County Board of Education last week approved a variety of budget transfers.
The school board voted 7-0 to approve budget transfers associated with overexpenditures in certain areas of the fiscal year 2023 budget.
“Each year at the August meeting the board is asked to approve budget transfers from the prior fiscal year,” said Vince Tolbert, the school system’s chief financial officer. “These budgetary transfers are part of our year end process and our required to amend our final prior year budget to align with actual expenditures.”
Tolbert presented the board last Tuesday with information regarding proposed inter-category and intra-category transfers. While intra-category transfers are within a particular category of the budget, inter-category transfers are between budget categories and have to be approved by both the school board and the Worcester County Commissioners.
As for inter-category transfers in fiscal year 2023, Tolbert said there were several being proposed.
“In FY23 we had five categories where actual expenditures exceeded the original budget,” he said. “To properly account for this variance the following transfers are being submitted to the board of education for approval.”
He said staff proposed reducing the instructional salaries category of the budget by $990,000 and the fixed charges section of the budget by $516,780.
“Also as the board is aware in FY23 the board voted to do a refresh of our current student and staff devices,” Tolbert said. “This refresh involved the sale of our current iPads to a third party.”
He said the proceeds from the sale were used to fund the final payment on the Apple lease as well as the first payment on the Apple lease for the new devices.
“We’re requesting the board to approve an increase in FY23 budget revenues of $1,348,387 to reflect the additional revenue from the sale and also to increase the FY23 expenditure level by the same amount,” Tolbert said.
The overexpenditures in the budget occurred in the categories of instructional support, textbooks and classroom supplies, student transportation, operation of plant and maintenance of plant. He said staff proposed transferring $71,000 to instructional support, where the overexpenditure related to holding commencement ceremonies.
“This transfer to this category is largely tied to the expense of holding our commencement ceremonies outside in our stadiums last year,” Tolbert said.
In the category of textbooks, Tolbert said a transfer of $1,348,387 was proposed.
“This transfer is the result of the refresh of our iPads,” he said. “Due to the favorable market for our iPads we were able to sell those devices and utilize the proceeds to fund the year four payment of the original lease and the year one payment of the new Apple lease.”
Tolbert said a $492,100 transfer was needed for student transportation, as there had been higher than expected costs related to the fuel supplement for bus drivers as well as additional time contractors had to be paid for related to cleaning under Covid-19 protocols. Costs were also higher than expected for after school program transportation and for the transportation of homeless students.
Tolbert said a transfer of $612,000 for operation of plant was recommended because of rising utility costs as well as increased costs for custodial supplies. Utility costs were 17% higher than they were the previous year.
Under maintenance of plant, a $322,680 transfer was proposed to cover rising HVAC and maintenance costs.
The board voted 7-0 to approve the proposed transfers.
