At the Unified School District 428 School Board annual budget hearing for the 2012-2013 school year on Monday, Aug. 13, the absence of comments made for quick work. The board voted to approve it as published without discussion.
Assistant Superintendent Dan Brungardt said he had not received any comment from patrons concerning the budget as it was published in the Great Bend Tribune prior to the hearing. Board members had not received any comments either, and there were no patrons present to comment on the budget.
It will be another month before the district will be able to report accurate enrollment figures, said Superintendent Dr. Tom Vernon in telephone interview. The official cut-off for reporting enrollment throughout the state is Sept. 20.
“Enrollment looks promising,” Vernon said. “We haven’t seen any major declines, and since the district can choose to base funding off the enrollment figures for either the current year, last year, or a three-year average, whatever the figure is will not affect our budget short term.”
The State of Kansas has increased its Base State Aid Per Pupil (BSAPP) by $58 from $3,780 to $3,838, increasing USD 428s general and supplemental general funds slightly over last year. This gives the district a total of $25,070,856 to work with. Other line items for things like special education and the special education co-op, less transfers, increase this to a total of $50,806,856.
The mill levy for taxpayers in Great Bend will see a slight decrease, from 45.029 to 44.936. The mill levy is the amount of property taxes collected each year that go to fund a government entity, the school system in this case.
A mill is equal to 1/1,000 of a dollar and it’s charged on the value of property. The tax would be $1 for every $1,000 of valuation.
Even though the mill levy for the schools will be less this year, that doesn’t mean taxpayers will be paying less out of pocket, however. The assessed valuation for Great Bend has increased slightly, from $146,676,658 to $149,589,429 over all. Some property owners whose property has not increased in value may see a slight decrease, while others whose values have gone up may pay slightly more.