By Dave Fidlin
Correspondent
Whitewater Unified School District officials have taken a cautious approach in crafting the 2020-21 budget because of a series of unknowns, related to COVID-19.
In his most recent presentation of the draft budget for the district’s next fiscal year, Business Manager Matthew Sylvester-Knudtson said he was preparing for multiple possible scenarios, each dependent on state-level actions.
“I’m recommending that you plan for three different models,” Sylvester-Knudtson said to the School Board at its most recent regular meeting, held April 27.
Sylvester-Knudtson recently informed the WWUSD School Board he was creating three models — one with a surplus, one with equal revenues and expenditures and one with a deficit.
The state’s revenue limit formula, he said, would hinge on which of the scenarios ultimately comes closest to coalescing.
In a best-case scenario, Sylvester-Knudtson said Whitewater Unified could be poised for a $1.05 million surplus, with $28.68 million in revenues outpacing the earmarked $27.63 million in expenses in the budget.
But in a worst-case scenario, he said the district could contend with a $216,000 deficit once all the dust settles, with $28.05 million in expenses exceeding $27.84 million in revenue.
Beyond the looming question surrounding the revenue limit formula, Sylvester-Knudtson said a number of other unknowns are in play on the other side of the operating ledger.
Transportation costs, for example, could cost anywhere from $29,000 to $41,000, depending on the outcome of next year’s contractual arrangement and how the school year plays out.
Also unknown is how much the district will need to allocate toward Title I staffing in the upcoming school year. On the low-end, Sylvester-Knudtson is projecting a $30,000 expense, while a $50,000 expense is anticipated on the high end.
In a big-picture sense, Sylvester-Knudtson and other WUSD administrators are anticipating stable enrollment in the 2020-21 school year — a figure that will play into the district’s taxing authority and, over time, how much funding comes in from the state Department of Public Instruction.
As with all public school districts, Whitewater Unified’s next fiscal period officially begins July 1, but the official spending plan will not be solidified until early in the fall when a number of concrete figures — including official enrollment counts — are reported to the state Department of Public Instruction.
Sylvester-Knudtson said he anticipates presenting the School Board with a final budget in mid-October.
“We won’t know until then, definitively, what the (revenue limit) impact will be for school districts,” he said.
This spring, school officials have repeatedly stated they are taking the district’s core needs into consideration with the upcoming budget planning exercise.
Some of the spending proposals that had initially been in the mix for the upcoming school year, such as athletic field improvements and new camera equipment to record School Board proceedings, ultimately took a backseat.
“What we wound up concentrating on is the learning needs of our students,” District Administrator Jim Shaw said. “We want our kids to learn, and that’s how we whittled down our budget.”
Further discussion of the draft 2020-21 school year budget will take place at upcoming School Board meetings.
