April 16, 2024
Pocahontas County Board of Education Budget Information
Funding board of educations’ expenses comes from various sources of federal, state, and local grants, state and county property taxes, and sometimes charitable donations. State Aid allocations have a complicated formula and are managed by the WVDE state department accountants each year. These funding allocations can change based upon legislative changes each year and they can change throughout the year.
The funding dollars are based upon prior year’s student enrollment, transportation costs, and square footage of academic buildings (not included are transportation, maintenance, & central office structures). Detailed information of state aid formulas is in the handouts I provided around the first part of the year. Two of these documents are entitled, “State of West Virginia Executive Summary of the Public-School Support Program Based on the Preliminary Computations for the 2024-2025 Year” and “State of West Virginia Abbreviated Summary of the Public-School Support Program Based on the Preliminary Computations for the 2024-2025 Year”.
The 14-page document called “Final Computations Public School Support program for the 2024-2025 Year” has these computations. On page 12 of the document the counties are classified either by sparse, low, medium, and high student population density criteria. Pocahontas County, due to our sparse population and prior legislators support (including Senator Walter Helmick, now our county commissioner) saw the need to provide an increased allowance for the sparse population counties. The legislators knew the same fixed operational costs of larger populated counties were near the same expenses as our small sparse counties; but because state aid is based on student enrollment our small population counties were not adequately funded. They understood that we had to have the same services, so the formula was changed to the 1400 student rule for sparse counties. Pocahontas and Pendleton counties with the large land masses even created larger costs per pupil than other counties.
When I started in 2013, there were twelve counties classified as sparse density counties. In the 2025 budget, there are twenty-one counties classified as sparse. The other county designations include fourteen low population density, seven medium and thirteen with a high student population.
During the first years of this 1400 student rule legislation Pocahontas County was the only county to receive funds based on the 1400 number. Then the other sparse counties were based on a percentage of 1400 students. Pendleton and Summer Counties now receive the same 1400 funding. Then the eighteen counties receive a designated percentage of 1400 students.
Each year there is discussion by legislatures to either change or do away with this part of the state aid funding. This would have a negative impact on the twenty-one sparse counties. Pocahontas, the sparse county, and most rural county of West Virginia has the most to lose. Decisions would have to be made in school operations, personnel employment, student’s educational needs, how to maintain buildings, and transportation costs. Counties that do not have a positive balance in their accounts are taken over by the state. Boards will not have a voting privilege for school decisions. Closures of schools will occur, cuts will be made in staffing, and the county would have no voice in those decisions.
All boards of education are required to maintain a reserve for contingency account of at least 3%, and preferably 5% of the budget. While the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) recommends 2 months of operating balance which is approximlately16.7%. This information is on page 5, #25, “Reserve for Contingencies” of the handout, “Instructions for Preparing and Submitting the Proposed Budget for the 2024-2025 Year”.
Let us look at the “Final Computations Public School Support program for the 2024-2025 Year”.
State Aid is divided into ten steps:
Page 1:
Column 1 Step 1a – Professional Allowance for salary.
Column 2 Step 1b- Principal and Vice Principal salary increments for each county obligations.
Column 3 = sum of 1+2
Column 4 = is the additional professional supplement which is added to column 3 to equal Column 5. This total is the allocation for professional employees.
1/10 of 1% of column 5 goes to professional staff development. This is transfer from state aid.
Page 2:
Three columns for service personnel.
Column 1 - basic salary
Column 2 - service allowance
Column 3 - total allocation for the service staff.
1/10 of 1% of column 5 goes to service staff development. This is transfer from state aid.
Page 3:
Step 3 - the allocation for social security and workers compensation of 8.24% of wages.
Step 4 – transportation costs, this includes bus replacement and transportation expenses. We receive as a sparse county 95% of all academic transportation expenses of the prior full year (2025 is based on 2023 numbers. We are not fund for mileage costs associated with athletic trips. The fifth column is the total allocation. 1/10 of 1% of column 2 goes to school trip funds. This is transfer from state aid.
Page 4:
Step 5 - professional student support staff is made up of three columns.
Column 1 basic salaries.
Column 2 supplement for those professionals.
Column 3 is the total allotment for student support staff.
These staff include counselors, TSS, nurse, and a social worker. The state aid has a formula per student ratio to support funding for these positions. This formula allocates seven positions for student support as a sparse county. We have nine positions, so we use other grants to offset these positions.
Page 5:
Step 6a, 6b, 6c,6d = Step 6.
Step 6a – allowance for current expenses – maintenance and custodial expenses.
Step 6b – allowance for professional substitute costs.
Step 6c - allowance for service substitute costs.
Step 6d – faculty senate allocation.
Column 5 is the total of these allowances.
Page 6:
Step 7a, 7b, 7c,7d = Step 7.
Step 7a- instructional support- supplies, services, and salary.
Step 7b- technology support – technology supplies and TSS staffing.
Step 7c - advance placement for students. We use these funds for advanced placement (AP) testing.
Step 7d – mentoring funds – this pays for mentors for new staff and professional development costs based upon strategic plans. Step 7d came from the change in state aid formula with HB206.
Column 5 is the total of these allowances as Step 7.
Page 7:
Step 8 is the total of Step 1-7.
Step 9 is the county local share (property taxes).
Step 10 – allocation of state aid (sum of step 8 less step 9).
Page 8- 14:
Enrollment information for staffing, professional and service.
Page 10, the last column is the number of service state aid funds.
Page 14, the last column is the number of professionals state aid funds.
Budget preparation consideration:
Loan payment of 12 years.
Special education and health related student requirements.
Repairs and maintenance of old buildings.
Increase costs of fuel, electricity, food, and parts.
Worker compensation costs.
10.5% increase in insurance.
Need for professional development and costs including required state professional development costs.
Technology updates and replacement.
Shortfalls of Secure Rual School (SRS), Medicaid, and other federal programs.
Staffing.
Review of Expenses from 2019-2024
We will look at 5 funds during this period.
Fund 11- General Funds come from state aid and property taxes.
Fund 51 – Capital Projects Fund – SBA and Energy performance contract
Fund 61- Special Revenue Fund – State, local and federal grants that have specific requirements for disbursements.
Fund 65 Fund – School Activity Funds, in 2021 school funds are required to be listed on our annual financial statement as a separate fund not as a fiduciary fund.
Fund 71 – Stimulus Stabilization Fund – money to assist in keeping employees, COVID measures, and assist with capital projects.
Budgeted annual revenues from 19-24.
Revenue steadily climbed in 11 and 61 funds. We had no funding in ESSERF funds in 2019 and 2020.
Budget expenses –
2023 budget expenses increased because we have the HVAC system coming out of those funds. 61 fund activity balances changed slightly.
You can see the use of 71 funds budgets during 2021-24.
Annual revenues -
Revenues for funds 51, 61 federal grants and 71 funds are not received until expensed and requested per detailed draw request system.
State funds can be paid monthly or when a grant is approved. This depends on the grant type. Property taxes are required to be paid to board somewhere around the 10th of the month for the prior month collections by sheriff.
Annual expenses by object codes for the full year. There are ten pages. I have also provided additional reports that separate some of these expenses. These are divided by fund level to give you a total of the expense for the fund. There is a description under each line for the expense.
Object codes from 111 to 299 are salary expenses.
Object codes in 300 to 399 are service expenses.
Object codes in 400-499 maintenance and repair expenses.
Object codes in 500-599 are general expenses such as insurance, telephone, advertising, and travel expenses.
Object codes in 600-699 are supplies for instructional, lunch program, technology, transportation, and maintenance expenses.
Object codes in 700-799 are capitalized expense are depreciable assets.
Object codes in 800-899 are miscellaneous expenses such as dues, reserves, debt, and judgements.
Object codes in 900-999 are transfers, bonding, and special items.
Breakdown of salaries with the fixed costs including insurance, OPEB, social security, retirement, and workers compensation.
This sheet contains expenses that have been paid to professional employees other than contract pay that are covered by state aid or the grant that is paying for salaries. Some of these expenses can be covered under professional development funds, mentorship funds, federal grants, and county funds.
This sheet contains expenses that have been paid to service employees other than contract pay that are covered by state aid or the grant that is paying for salaries. Some of these expenses can be covered under professional development funds, mentorship funds, federal grants, and county funds.
Page 8 is the professional substitute cost that has been paid throughout the years. This is a large expense that is not fully covered with state aid budgets or other grant funds. This expense hits our bottom line hard. We have tried ways to curb the expense but have not found a good way yet. This was discussed in legislation this past year; however, I do not think they came up with a solution.
In July 2015, the state discontinued the incentive to convert personal leave days for the employee’s retirement each year. The personal leave days accrue each year for personal leave days, but upon retirement the days cannot be accounted for additional days for retirement or insurance. Prior to 2015, employees in the Retirement I group could use the days to extend years of service or for insurance. Employees in Retirement IV and employed before July 2015, can you those days for service only.
Those 200-day classroom teachers, who miss 4 days or less for a do receive a $500 bonus each year from the state. Our board continued to do the same for all other employees. The additional funds are set aside from county funds.
Page 9 provides the same scenario for service staff as professional staff with the same criteria. Service incentive for the 4 days or less missed comes from the county funds.
Page 10 is the sum of all expenses other than the payroll accounts. You can compare sheet 5 to sheet 10 to see most of the expenses are payroll expenses.
Sheet 11 is the costs of milk and food supplies for our lunch program. Years 2020 – 2023 we fed more people outside of our school environment. This year will be close to meeting those costs because of rising food costs. We had federal grants as supply chain funding to assist with the costs. At this time, I am unsure if there will be additional funds to help with the costs in the 2025 school year.
Document 12 has the non-salary portion of expenses for custodial and maintenance costs.
We were able to purchase cleaning machines for the custodians with ESSERF fund in 2021.
In 61 fund, we can see additional grants that supported custodial side of the schools.
In 51 fund, the SBA emergency funds were used for the high school repairs created by the downpour of water that came in the vocational building.
Document 13 is the transportation costs for the six-year period in review. We tried not to code anything to the 71fund for transportation, because we knew that it would affect the revenue stream to come to the BOE in the following year. We receive 95% of all academic transportation expenses from the state aid formula of the prior year.
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