Agenda - 04-30-2007-d - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

Orange County Schools 200 East King Street ffillsborough, NC 27278 Dr.* Shirley Carraway (919) 732-8126 Telephone Superintendent (919) 732-8120 Fax www.orange.k12.nc.us April 27, 2007 TO: Orange County Board of County Commissioners FROM: Shirley Carraway, Superintendent RE: Local Fund Balance As we prepare for the upcoming 2007-08 budget discussions, we thought it would be helpful to provide you with information about our district's fund balance. During the past few years when local appropriations have just covered budgetary mandates, we have had to use our fund balance for any new initiative we have been able to provide for our students. We've used fund balance for startup costs for Pathways Elementary School, Cedar Ridge High School, and most recently, for Gravelly IEII Middle School. We have used it to upgrade our existing middle schools in order to provide comparable facilities for all our middle school students. And though it is not the soundest of practices, we have used fund balance to pay for some recurring costs; in fact, this is how we staffed Gravelly Hill. Although the Board of County Commissioners set our district's maximum fund balance at 2.75% in 1986, we believe and our auditors . believe that this percentage now needs to be higher. The auditors have indicated that our enterprise funds, Child Nutrition and School-Community Relations, should have enough capital in their undesignatedfimd balance to last for three months. Since we have no other source of revenue to provide for emergencies, we think the district should follow this sound principle, as well. As one of the larger employers in the county, we must ensure that, in the event of an emergency, the work of the district can continue — and that we can continue to meet payroll. Our local expenditures, most of which are for personnel, are about $1.7 million per month; our current fund balance could sustain us for just one month. I am including a chart with our local fund balance history and our projection for the current year.