QISD Goes With Deficit-Based Budget

Quinlan ISD School Board members unanimously approved a 2008-2009 budget that carries a deficit of more than $330,000.

It was an unusual move for the district to give the green light for a deficit-based budget, QISD Superintendent Larry Johnson said.

"Normally, we don’t approve a deficit budget and we haven’t had to do that in recent years," he said.

In his final school board meeting as district superintendent, Johnson said the proposed budget started out with a deficit of about $1 million.

"With some numbers we were able to move and taking a close look at things, we eventually got it down to around $600,000," he said.

An extra round of refinement brought the budget deficit to $331,639.

"There were items we felt were needed and we did not want to start cutting programs, so we felt like we needed to bite the bullet this year and use some money on hand (general fund)," Johnson said in defending the final proposal.

QISD Deputy Superintendent Debra Crosby told board members the budget was based on a "very conservative" projected tax rate and revenue. The district will set a tax rate sometime in August.

"We wanted to go with the most conservative side of things and hope we wind up doing better than that," Crosby said.

In presenting the numbers during a budget workshop session before Monday’s regular board meeting, district business office manager Billie Miller gave the total revenue at $22,682,500.

That includes state and local revenues, food service revenue and federal program and grant revenue, she said.

On the expenditures side — which came to a total of $23,014,139 — Miller said it was no surprise that transportation and fuel costs was one of the biggest increases in the budget.

"We have budgeted about $60,000-$65,000 extra on transportation for this year," she said.

"We have no idea what the price of fuel is going to do over the next school year," Johnson added. "Last year, we were able to stay ahead."

Toward the end of the budget workshop session, Crosby said she did not recommend the district go for a rollback election to increase the tax rate this year.

Johnson added that the district might have no choice about it the following year.

"If legislators don’t do something for the schools next session, I think you are going to see a majority of schools call for a rollback election in the next one to three years," he said.