BROWNSTOWN
Indiana school districts saw the budgeting process change for 2019.
All expenses are now categorized into just two funds — education and operations.
Jade Peters, the business manager and interim superintendent for Brownstown Central Community School Corp., said he and former business manager Harry Rochner chose to do the budget the new way and also the old way to see how it balanced out.
In the end, the budget totaled $15,582,052. Peters said it has stayed in that range in recent years.
One advantage to the funds now being together is flexibility, he said.
“If you want to maybe spend money on a parking lot or spend more on buses one year, you can do that, whereas in the past, you’re limited to whatever that fund had,” Peters said. “Now, you’ve got a little more flexibility. That’s probably one of the biggest advantages.”
Also, the growth quotient is applied to everything in the capital projects fund. In the past, it was just applied to the bus replacement and transportation funds.
“So that was additional money,” Peters said. “We got 3.4 percent on our old CPF plan on the levy that we didn’t have before.”
The state still requires corporations to do capital projects plans and bus replacement plans, but they are now only three and five years, respectively. In the past, those were done for 10 and 12 years, respectively.
Brownstown, however, is still following the previous format. Peters and Rochner did two budgets — one the old way so they could have a breakout of funds and the new way so they could compare numbers and make sure they understood what was happening.
“We try to do a lot of long-range planning to make sure the debt is balanced out,” Rochner said.
“We feel like the bus replacement, we’ve got to stay on,” Peters said. “We’re still going to run the 12-year plan because you keep buses for 12 years, and it just makes sense to go ahead and run it that way.”
During the Sept. 11 board of trustees meeting, Peters shared the corporation’s capital projects and bus replacement plans and said both had been advertised in the newspaper.
Then Sept. 19, the corporation’s budget was part of a public hearing at the Jackson County Council meeting. It’s done through that process because Brownstown has an appointed school board.
During October meetings, the county council will adopt the budget, and the capital projects and bus replacement plans will be adopted by the school board.
In 2019, the education fund is dedicated to paying for student instruction and includes expenses related to academic achievement and instructional support, such as teacher salaries, school supplies and technology. That used to be known as the general fund.
For Brownstown, the fund is budgeted at $9,106,278. No local property tax dollars go to the education fund, as it is funded by the state based on student enrollment.
Capital projects, transportation and bus replacement now fall under the operations fund. That includes expenses related to the school board, superintendent and central office and other overhead.
For Brownstown, it’s budgeted at $4,620,933 for 2019. The fund receives both state and local tax support.
After several large projects at the schools in recent years, Peters said there won’t be any of that magnitude next year because the corporation doesn’t have any bond issues. But there will be smaller projects.
The biggest one, costing around $56,000, will be a new building at the baseball field for a press box, a concession stand and restrooms.
It will be placed behind the fence at home plate and have new seating connected to it that goes along a low brick wall. The seating is being funded by the baseball parents club.
Improvements have been made at other athletic facilities at the high school in recent years, including the baseball field.
“We’ve got the new brick wall done and new dugouts,” Peters said. “(The new building) is kind of the final piece to it. This kind of finishes it up over a three-year plan of where it needs to be.”
If weather permits, Peters said Randy Ude, the corporation’s maintenance director, will get started on the project this fall. Payments, however, can’t start until Jan. 1.
There also will be a project at the high school auditorium to replace the carpet and buy microphones, headsets and equipment carts.
Plus, the phone system at the middle school will be updated.
“The elementary and high school and here at the administration office, we all have the same phone system,” Peters said. “That system (at the middle school) is ancient. It’s really old. We’re getting it updated so then we’ll all have the same system.”
There’s also $331,000 budgeted for the purchase of two school buses and two mini buses.
For transportation, $1,040,721 is budgeted to pay bus drivers and the transportation director and cover the costs of fuel, repairs and insurance for the buses.
The other two funds in the budget are debt service ($1,322,179) and rainy day ($532,662).
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Proposed 2019 budget for Brownstown Central Community School Corp.
Fund;Proposed amount
Operations;$4,620,933
Education;$9,106,278
Debt service;$1,322,179
Rainy day;$532,662
Total;$15,582,052
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