ComMentor Summer 2022 Final - Flipbook - Page 4
A message from the Chief financial officer
Hello. Thank you for taking the time to read our ComMentor newsletter to be informed about the current financial state of Mentor Public
Schools. Recently, I had the opportunity to present our year-end financial information and an update to the May five-year fiscal projections
to the Mentor Board of Education, as well as share the information
with our Citizens Financial Advisory Committee. In this article, I will
share a few key takeaways, but would encourage you to to view the
documents or watch the video presentations if you are interested in
learning more by visiting www.mentorschools.net.
An important point to note about the five-year forecast is that we are
currently deficit spending and reducing our reserves and we are projecting that pattern to continue over the course of the entire forecast.
This is because costs naturally continue to go up, while our revenue
essentially stays flat. A highlight of the forecast is that we are projecting a positive cash balance through Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 if our notax increase renewal levy passes, which our community last approved
in 2013 for a term of ten years. One way we were able to cut costs in
the past was to reduce staffing numbers proportionately as student
enrollment declined, but enrollment is projected to remain steady in
our community in the coming years. We are currently operating at
healthy teacher-pupil ratios in order to provide the well-rounded, highquality education the children of our community need and deserve.
To help put our spending in context as we are one of the largest employers in Lake County, our district’s actual spending for the fiscal year
that just ended was $113,678,737 and our revenue was $106,047,531.
So, while we did need to deficit spend, our leadership team worked
over the course of the year to spend $4 million less than what was projected in the November forecast. This, coupled with other prudent fiscal management strategies, improved our ending cash balance in the
current five year forecast compared to November’s forecast by
$11,289,803. Attached are graphs showing our revenue sources and
expenses categories.
We are aggressively managing the budget and working to reduce
spending as much as possible, while also pursuing avenues of alternative revenue sources. The superintendent and I worked with district
leaders to reduce building and department budgets by 10% for the
coming school year. Another example, at its July meeting the Board
approved three new shared services agreements with Kirtland Local
Schools, which will bring in nearly $117,000 of additional funding to
Mentor Schools over the next fiscal year. The board continues to actively discuss the district’s spending using its five fiscal beliefs as guidance to ensure fiscal prudence, and this includes focusing on our largest expense areas of salaries, benefits, special education and facilities.
At the June Board of Education meeting we tentatively set the budget
for next school year at $126,968,419. A reason for the budget increase
is accounting for $9,187,589 to be allocated to needed capital projects,
which I will talk more about in the next paragraph. Also worth noting,
the Board and both of our employee unions reached three year agreements that result in savings over what had previously been projected.
This is due in large part to changes in our health care design plan.
Another topic I’d like to mention that was covered in the five-year forecast presentation and is currently drastically impacting our overall
spending is our Permanent Improvement (PI) funds. The community