Break Down: Athens City School Board approves five-year plan

The Athens City School Board has its next five years of finances planned out after the board approved a Five-Year Forecast plan at its meeting last Thursday.This forecast is very detailed with graphs and charts and is intended to assist the school district in the financial management of its resources. It will soon be available in full on the Athens City School Board’s Treasurer's website, but it is spelled out more simply here :State funding, which makes up more than 35 percent of the district’s operating budget, is projected to remain flat, while there is slight growth projected in local revenues.This is due to a new funding formula, its perceived property wealth and a stable but declining resident enrollment.The district’s revenues and expenditures were nearly completely balanced in Fiscal Year’s 2014 and 2015. In all the next five years, the board expects expenditures to trend a bit higher.Expenditures are projected to exceed revenue by about $3.2 million in 2019, including the assumed renewal of existing levies.All existing levies are modeled to be renewals and no new levies are expected during the forecast period, ending June 30, 2019.The cash balance will begin to cause cash flow problems by mid-2017 and will result in negative cash balances by 2019 if no action is taken.The board has a policy in place establishing a minimum month-end cash balance amount to be based on the Five-Year Forecast. The amount is set each July at the beginning the new fiscal year.The green bar on the graph below shows the amount $2,800,000 for fiscal year 2015. Its relationship to the projected month-end cash balance is shown for fiscal years 2015 and 2016.This graph will be presented each month to the Board in the Treasurer's Monthly Financial Report and will change each month to reflect the actual monthly revenue and expenditures.This chart shows district enrollment by grade over the past four years. Reading the chart diagonally follows students grade-to-grade.The next graph shows projected enrollment by grade for the next five years. The yellow highlighted cells are when class size drops by more than 20 students from the prior year. According to the plan, watching these drops or jumps from year to year will help manage teacher staff levels and keep both pupil/teacher ratios and cost in alignment.Here is the simplified financial statement: