Mt. Vernon Register-News

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September 2, 2010

D-80 receives boost to education fund

By TESA CULLI tesa.culli@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — The District 80 Board of Education will be able to pass a budget with $269,000 in the Education Fund after receiving word this week of $197,000 in hold harmless special education funds to be received.

“The budget has changed for the better,” Superintendent Dr. Kevin Settle reported to the district fiscal committee on Wednesday. “I’m pleased with the budget we will present next week.”

The board was previously presented with budget numbers showing a deficit of $200,000 in the Education Fund, and Settle said the hold harmless money, as well as special education tuition received from other school districts make up the majority of the difference.

The district received tuition for providing specialized special education programs to students from other districts, which came in at $147,000.

Settle said in preparing the budget for the 2010-11 school year, late payments owed by the state from last year were included.

“It’s now a law that the state has to pay us what is owed from last year by Dec. 31,” Settle said. “But, we also only planned to get two of the four state payments we are scheduled to receive. We should get our categoricals this year, but we won’t know about the state aid payments until about March. ... I don’t think they will pay us what they owe this year.”

At this time the state owes the district more than $1 million from last year, and Settle said the Working Cash Fund has kept the district able to continue to make its monetary commitments.

“We’ve been using Working Cash to loan ourselves money to cover the late state payments,” Settle said. “We can transfer to the area lagging ... this summer we loaned ourselves almost all of the $2 million in Working Cash.”

The board is expected to approve the tentative budget during its regular meeting on Wednesday, and a public hearing and special board meeting to approve the budget is slated for Sept. 15.

“This budget will leave us with healthy end-of-year balances,” Settle said. “Of course, we don’t know what will happen after the November elections with the state. ... With the state not making payments, (the budget) is something we will have to stay up on every month.”

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