The Jefferson City school district's Board of Education unanimously approved the annual budget for the 2017-18 fiscal year presented by the district's chief financial and operating officer Jason Hoffman on Tuesday night.
"The main thing that we're getting now is supports for staff to do great things in classrooms," Hoffman said of what the budget's main takeaway is for parents of students in the district.
To that end of supporting staff, one of the key points of the 2017-18 budget is $500 added to each step of the district's salary schedule. The raise moves the district's base salary to $36,000 and means teachers' average raise will equate to a 2.9 percent increase in pay.
All other categories of employees will also receive similar 2.9 percent pay raises, except for central office administrators, who will only receive a $500 flat increase as opposed to a percentage.
Classroom teachers will receive additional support in other ways through the approved budget. It provides for 17 additional full-time classroom support positions, including an instructional coordinator, behavior interventionists, instructional coaches and classroom teachers at various grade levels.
Overall, the budget for next year estimates a surplus of $487,983 in the reserves to fund the district's day-to-day operations. At 20.9 percent, this means this district would still be at its goal of keeping 20 percent of its annual operating expenditures and transfers to capital projects on hand.
The capital projects budget for 2017-18 totals about $30 million, and that includes about $27.6 million for construction costs at the current and new high school in the coming year.
Sales opened Tuesday on $85 million worth of bonds issued by the district to fund the two high school projects, and at the budget meeting, the board unanimously approved sales to close July 6 and have the receipts transferred to the district upon closing.
Lorenzo Boyd, of Stifel, presented the board with the results of their opening day of bond sales. Boyd is the managing director of Stifel, a St. Louis-based brokerage and investment banking firm.
"So with $85 million in bonds that we placed into the marketplace today, we actually received $122 million in orders," he said. That meant interest rates on the bonds were lowered, which will save the district some money. "We were originally projecting a true interest cost of 3.37 percent, and we wound up with 3.35 percent on 20-year financing for the school district.
"Any one basis point improvement that we're able to lower, that's about $67,000 in interest savings for the school district," he said. That means the .02 percent that interest rates were lowered on the opening day of sales equates to $134,000 in savings for the district.
The board also unanimously approved the second phase of the architectural engineering contract for the two high school projects. The board approved the first phase of the architectural contract in January, and that portion provided a cost range for phase two of $6.5 million to just more than $7 million, Hoffman explained. The final cost for phase two came to $6,860,533.
Some other items of note from the 2017-18 budget:
The budget includes 20 cents of the 45-cent operating levy approved by voters in April. The 20 cents covers specific K-12 instructional needs: 10 cents for new textbook series and accompanying teacher planning resources; 5 cents for classroom technology improvements; 4 cents for expanded behavioral and mental health support for students; and 1 cent for a preschool room at Callaway Hills Elementary School to serve 15 students.
The other 25 cents will not be included until there are operational needs for the second high school.
The district's property tax levy will rise from $3.6928 to $4.5428, taking into account 85 cents of the eventual $1.10 increase approved by voters in April.
Hoffman explained that budget assumes full funding of the state's educational foundation formula, as approved by the legislature. However, he said it remains to be seen if the state's revenue projections prove to be as aggressively optimistic as listed. Without statewide revenue growth of 4.6 percent - taking into account tax cuts - withholds may still be on the horizon.