Council to hold public hearing on school's budget followed by departmental budget presentations

posted on 3/14/2023

The City Council will hold a public hearing on the School Department's budget tomorrow, Wednesday, March 15, at 7 p.m. Following the public hearing, the Council will hold a budget workshop where it will receive budget presentations from the Police, Fire and Rescue, and Planning departments.

School Superintendent William Harbron and Business Administrator Michael Limanni presented the School Department's budget to the City Council at its March 8 budget workshop. The School Department's budget represents several divisions, including student support services, instructional programs, administrative services, facilities and operations and transportation.

The budget presentation and accompanying documents are available on the FY2024 Budget Revealed webpage.

The School Department adopted its revised budget on Jan. 31, 2023, following budget presentations and deliberations that began in November 2022.

The department's FY2024 proposed budget totals $78,307,351 across all funds, an increase of $530,093 or 0.7% over the current FY2023 budget.

The proposed budget includes the following expenditures:

• General Fund: $78,347,873, an increase of $4,119,293, or 5.5%. This figure includes debt service of $6,307,427;
• School Cafeteria Fund: $1,729,405, an increase of $79,405, or 4.8%;
• Department of Education federal grants: $4,100,000, a decrease of $3,666,000 or 47.2%;
• School Special Programs and Grants: $175,000, no change from the current year;
• Tuition Programs: $125,000, no change from the current year;
• Facilities Fund: $137,500, a decrease of $57,500, or 29.5%;

The revenue for the proposed budget would be raised from:

• Local School tax (property tax): $52,383,727
• State School tax: $7,120,665
• State adequacy aid: $10,191,730
• Non-tax revenue: $8,651,749

The Local School portion of the property tax levy for the proposed budget is $512,900 more than the amount reflected in the tax cap formula. The tax cap overage attributable to the school portion of the tax cap formula is partially offset by the estimated city property tax levy being $74,320 less than the amount reflected in the city portion of the tax cap formula. As a result, the proposed budget as assembled exceeds the tax cap requirements of the Dover City Charter by $438,580.

The School Department budget begins on page 761 of the Proposed Budget Book, which can be viewed here.