The county budget committee met last Wednesday night and got a look at the 2020-21 proposed school budget, as well, as the county road department’s budget and request.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps reviewed with the committee highlights of the budget as adopted by the DeKalb County Board of Education last month.
Cripps said the budget includes a $2,000 pay raise, including the 2% state increase, per certified employee and a $1,000 increase, locally funded, for each non-certified support staff employee.
Funds are included in the school budget for the purchase of 24.5 acres of property on North Congress Boulevard near Northside Elementary School for construction of a new pre-K to 2nd grade elementary school. The price is $18,000 per acre for a total of $441,000. The purchase is subject to favorable core drilling and a TDOT traffic study. The school budget includes $500,000 from the BEP technology fund to cover the cost.
The school budget includes a 3.5% increase in funds to help absorb anticipated higher employee health care insurance.
“When we first started creating our budget the state said our insurance would go up possibly by as much as 8%. We budgeted for an increase of 3.5% but the great unknown is how many people are going to pick up insurance after all this COVID 19 stuff has happened. Since COVID 19 we have had some employees come in whose spouse had lost their job and benefits and needed to pick up insurance with us,” said Cripps.
To help hold down overall costs and the need for seeking new local tax revenue, Director Cripps said efforts have been made to move funds around among the budgetary line items. “We try our very best to move money around from one category to the next,” he said. For example technology funding will be used to help cover increased costs of textbooks needed to meet the state curriculum.
“In the past we have budgeted $350,000 for textbooks but in one year it’s jumped to $475,000. We’re looking at books costing us from $250 to $300 apiece. We moved money from our technology line and last year we were able to purchase 2 buses so we moved that money (for a bus this year) over to the budgetary line item for books as well,” said Cripps. Plans are to purchase one new school bus this year instead of two.
The state will also be continuing funding for ACT testing next school year.
“The state sent us money last year for ACT testing but due to COVID 19 we were unable to test our eleventh grade students. They asked us to roll that money over to our new budget to test both the eleventh graders and twelfth graders this year,” Cripps continued.
The DeKalb County Highway Department needs a new piece of equipment and Road Supervisor Danny Hale is asking for some help from the county to purchase it.
Hale addressed the county budget committee to request funds to buy a pneumatic roller in doing work on tar and chip roads. He said a pneumatic roller would be much more effective than the department’s existing steel wheel roller in packing down roads. The cost is expected to be around $95,000 which is the equivalent of two cents of the property tax rate.
Should the request be approved, the county could either increase its annual allocation of the property tax rate for the highway department by 2 cents or make a one- time expenditure from the capital projects fund. In the past the county has helped previous road supervisors fund equipment purchases. Hale said he would appreciate the county extending the same courtesy to him because the equipment is badly needed.
“I really need this piece of equipment pretty badly on some of our roads to make them right. A pneumatic roller is better for putting down these tar and chip roads. All we have ever had over there is a steel wheel roller which is fine for paving but not for tar and chip A pneumatic roller is better for packing all rock when you put them down,” he said.
Hale reviewed with the committee how that costs of materials continue to increase and the impact COVID 19 may have on his budget. “We know for a fact because of COVID we will be pulling in a lot less revenue because gas and diesel sales statewide are down by 20%”. He also shared with the committee how that some adjoining counties allocate more property tax rate pennies to their road departments than DeKalb.
While the vast majority of the budget for local roads is funded by state allocations from the fuel tax and the bridge and state aid programs, the state requires the county to fund basically a local match referred to as a 5 year average. The county currently provides 4 cents of the property tax rate to help fund roads along with collections from a mineral severance tax.
The budget committee took no action on the school budget Wednesday night.
The county budget committee is made up of members Jeff Barnes, Anita Puckett, Sabrina Farler, and Jerry Adcock. All were present for the Wednesday night meeting. During Wednesday night’s meeting, the budget committee appointed Barnes to serve as temporary chairman until one can be voted in during an upcoming special called meeting.
