Lisbon Schools held a budget hearing for the coming fiscal year.
Business manager Laurie Maher said the proposed levy rate for the district is currently $17.27 per $1,000 and she is hopeful that the rate will end up closer to the $17.17 per $1,000 rate, similar to this year.
“We were instructed by the Department of Management to estimate higher for the levy this year to address the impact of the rollback,” Maher said. “It’s been very difficult to do a budget without as many numbers filled in.”
The school will see a 3 percent growth in funding from the state, which Maher notes is higher than it has been in previous years, but not as high as school districts would have liked. That rate also impacts teacher supplement levy and professional development funds.
It also impacts modified allowable growth for drop out prevention funding.
Lisbon also has a 1 percent instructional support levy.
The district will carry a $219,000 to $220,000 cash reserve levy into next year, which is roughly the special education deficit for this school year. An additional $25,000 in the cash reserve levy is drawn to give a little cushion to the general fund budget. The maximum levy for that fund for the district is $251,684, and Maher said she will not draw to the cap.
The management levy is currently set for $244,000, and Maher said they have been padding that amount to address insurance rates and early retirement. There will be no increase to the management levy this year.
When it comes to debt service levy, the district has $641,015 slated to make payments on the $9.2 million general obligation bond, and an additional $220,000 saved to prepay when those bonds become callable, reducing the amount of interest paid for the bond.
The district also has funds in revenue bonds for the Career and technical education project covered by revenues from the SILO/SAVE monies, with $584,689 slated to be paid on those in that fund.
There will also be a few amendments to the current fiscal year, as nutrition and childcare funds received more revenues than were budgeted. When the district took out bonds for the CTE construction, they paid off their past LECC bonds, and that wasn’t reflected in the current budget.