Sonoma school board eyes budget vote

Salaries, benefits responsible for 80-plus percent of expenses|

The Sonoma Valley Unified School District board will be asked to approve a $50-million budget Tuesday night.

The budget would be for the 2018-19 fiscal year that starts July 1.

The board got the budget prior to the June 5 meeting, but Bruce Abbott, the district’s associate superintendent of business services, has fine-tuned the original draft. The budget calls for spending $49.84 million on revenues of $49.95 million.

The district is projected to receive $38.9 million in LCFF (local control funding formula), a little over $2 million in federal money, $4.5 million in other state revenue and almost $4.4 million in other local revenues.

The lion’s share of expenses go to certificated salaries ($19.5 million), classified salaries ($7.66 million) and benefits ($14.76 million) – or 84.2 percent.

In a memo to Superintendent Socorro Shiels and the board, Abbott says that property taxes are expected to grow by 4 percent, federal revenues will be down because of reductions in Title 1 funding but state revenues will be up including expected one-time funds.

“Other local revenues are down,” Abbott says in the memo. “For this initial budget not all grants of donations are known or booked.”

On the expense side, Abbott points out that certificated salaries were reduced by the reductions approved by the board earlier this year.

“Retirement benefits were increased by state-approved STRS and PERS increases,” he said. “Medical insurance rates do not increase until January 2019 and are expected to increase by 3 percent.”

In a five-year projection for Fund 01, he’s not including any program nor staffing changes. He sees a continued 4 percent property tax gain. In expenses, the forecast doesn’t include salary schedule increases, retirement plan costs will continue to rise and he’s budgeted medical insurance with a 6 percent increase.

At the June 5 meeting, he said the economy is strong and Gov. Brown proposed full funding of LCFF. But the LCFF funding won’t affect the district as it’s in basic aid, which means it receives more in property taxes than it would from the state.

And he told the board that the incoming governor, whomever it may be, could make changes. “We could see categoricals coming back,” he said. A categorical is funding that targets a specific group of students or specific programs.

In addition to the budget, the board is expected to take action on the Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), and on an annual resolution requesting a fund transfer.

The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. today, Tuesday, June 19, at 17850 Railroad Ave., in the district offices.

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