The Clymer Central School Board of Education formally approved next year's budget at a recent meeting. Pajama photo: Sara Holthouse
CLIMER — The Climber Central School Board of Education has officially approved the school budget for the 2024-2025 school year.
Businessman Jarrett Wiggers gave the board an overview of what next year's budget currently looks like at the most recent board meeting.
“Based on the three-part budget, administrative costs are down 3%,” Wiggers said. “Really, it's about removing the elementary school principal from the budget and then reallocating some of the high school principal's salary to special education to show some of her duties that she has there. .”
While capital expenditures have shown a significant decline, Wiggers said they are relatively flat. This decrease is based on lower debt service payments from last year to this year. Programming he increased by 7%.
“In fact, the main factors here are the anticipated increase in special education costs and the subsequent purchase of two new school buses,” Wiggers said. “So that's a big part of what the increase is showing.”
The school is in the process of purchasing two new school buses, which Wiggers said is a significant expense, but is still awaiting delivery. Normally, the bus would have arrived by now, he added, but it ended up being delayed because the company redesigned the vehicle. Things are going well and are starting to move forward, but the school is storing the bus it is replacing until a new bus arrives, which is normal procedure.
On the revenue side of the budget, the tax will be capped at $3.04 to continue serving current out-of-district students.
“Assuming interest income and reimbursement of past expenses remain fairly stable, state aid is also flat,” Wiggers said. “Also, the balance in the designated fund will be carried forward from this year's taxation.”
Additional factors from the last budget workshop include a new budget line for safety patrol officers and contingency reductions in special education. Other important things are her OT position, which the school is considering filling, and legal fees.
“We made some pretty significant legal adjustments based on trends,” Wiggers said. “Litigation costs have been steadily increasing in this district over the past few years, so we wanted to make sure we weren’t blindsided by that next year.”
Superintendent Beth Olson said she is satisfied with the budget presented so far.
“This is the best-case scenario,” Olson said. “If something crazy or something gets thrown at us in the final approved budget, we will adjust, but we have a backup plan so we’ll be fine.”
A budget hearing is scheduled for May 8 at 6 p.m. before the regular board meeting.
