Cape Girardeau school board approves 2024-25 proposed budget

The Cape Girardeau Public School District’s Board of Education approved the proposed 2024-25 budget during its Monday, June 21, meeting.

Southeast Missourian file

The Cape Girardeau Public School District’s Board of Education voted unanimously to approve the proposed 2024-25 budget, along with amendments to the 2023-24 budget, during its Monday, June 24, meeting.

The estimated budget of $28,079,916.69 is approximately $3,179,632.37 less than the budget for the 2023-24 school year, which ends Sunday, June 30. According to district chief financial officer Lindsey Dudek, the district received “almost 99%” of its projected revenue from the 2023-24 estimated budget and expenses were lower than what was budgeted.

“Our expenses were quite a bit lower than our budget, which was something we’re going to be watching going forward,” Dudek said. “... We’re leaving a lot of unspent budget on the table. Next year, we’re going to look at that a little differently when I meet with administrators and get more of an accurate estimate of what they really are going to spend.”

The assessed valuation of Cape Girardeau Schools increased just more than $8 million from $808,121,002 to $816,202,212.

The district anticipates an $8,980,305.02 decrease in estimated revenue with the total projected to be around $71,296,419.49, while the estimated expenditures total $74,476,051.86, down $4,859,557.57 from last school year. The decrease in revenue is largely because of the district receiving its final Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund — funds appropriated by the federal government to aid schools during the COVID-19 pandemic — payment of $5.1 million last year.

Property taxes make up the bulk of the district’s revenue, accounting for 46%, and the estimated budget assumes a 1% increase for 2024-25. State aid is the second-largest source of revenue in the district, and will provide an estimated $6,760 per student. Additionally, Cape Girardeau schools anticipate a $345,000 increase in state aid because of the passage of Senate Bill 727, which requires the district to exclude revenues from Financial Institution Taxes and Merchant’s and Manufacturer’s Taxes.

“There is a provision in (SB 727) for our local effort,” Dudek said. “When they do the basic formula calculation they take off an amount of local effort that the district gets. It’s two sources of revenue that the district was receiving, and they’ve been doing this since 04-05. This provision eliminates that, so it’s going to lower our local effort which is going to raise our basic formulas and we’re going to get an additional $345,000 now going forward.”

State sales tax revenue from Proposition C is the third-largest source of funding and is generated by a one-cent sales tax that is distributed to school districts based on the prior year’s Weighted Average Daily Attendance (WADA). The 2024-25 budget assumes a $1,513 payment per WADA.

District expenditures projected for the upcoming school year mostly come from salaries, which make up half of its expenses. The budget includes $808 to teachers’ base salary, increasing starting teacher pay an average of 2% to $41,165. Health care premiums will not change for staff, remaining steady at $500 per employee.

Additional expenditures include a projected increase in purchased services and supplies. The increase in services includes student transportation, liability insurance, special education and technology, while the increase in supplies includes utilities, student activities and technology.

Cape Girardeau Public Schools are looking at an estimated 28.31% unrestricted fund balance percentage — a measurement calculated by dividing the year-end balance by the total expenditures from the general and special revenue funds. The projected 2024-25 percentage is expected to decrease by 7.35%.

“DESE (Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) uses that to kind of determine how healthy your district is,” Dudek said. “You can’t say, oh, 35.6 is a good fund balance for Cape (Girardeau) so it must be a good fund balance for Jackson. It doesn’t work that way. … It’s different for every single district. For us, this is good.”