With $200,000 in surplus revenue, the Blaine County School District is in a solid financial situation and able to meet unexpected expenses, an accountant told the district's board of directors this week.
Morgan Hatt, a partner with the firm Jones, Yost, Hatt and Erickson, presented the district's 2005 financial statement during a board meeting Tuesday.
The district's fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
During the past year, the district took in $45.7 million, of which $30.8 million came from property taxes and $11.7 million from the state of Idaho. That is about opposite the funding pattern of most of the state's districts, Hatt said.
In an interview, district Business Manager Mike Chatterton said that by law, the district could have collected about $3.8 million more than it did.
"We bring in enough money to cover all the needs that we have in the school district for the year," he said. "We don't bring in any money to try and develop some kind of a program two or three years from now."
The district's budget includes $3 million carried over from the previous year, $100,000 more than had been carried over from 2003.
Hatt said the carryover would allow the district to operate for about 34 days if its revenue sources dried up. Superintendent Jim Lewis said that maintenance of that surplus, which is a common business practice, is misunderstood by the Legislature when it decides how much money to allocate to education.
"Since each school district has a fund balance, the state Legislature makes that out to mean you have plenty of money," he said. "As a good business, we ought to have 60 days, but they say if you have 34 days, that's too much. It's the ironic piece that just drives me crazy."
