The Tooele County School District’s proposed budget for the 2018-19 school year will increase spending by $5 million.
The combined total expenses for all district funds for the next school year will reach $161 million, compared to an estimated $156 million for 2018, according to the proposed budget for the 2018-19 school year presented to the school board Tuesday night by Lark Reynolds, the school district’s business administrator.
The largest increases in expenses will be in salaries and employee benefits, including payroll taxes.
Total salary expenses increased by $7.8 million to $69 million, a 12.8-percent increase. Employee benefits went up $7.1 million, a 24-percent increase.
The school district announced in May that, as a result of contract negotiations, teachers would receive a minimum $5,000 raise and classified employees would receive a $2.04 per hour raise at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year.
The pay increases were part of an effort by the school board to recruit and retain staff by offering salaries competitive with other school districts in Utah, according to school district superintendent Scott Rogers.
Expenses for property acquisition and construction for the next school year dropped from 2018 by $12.1 million to $8.3 million, a decrease of 60 percent. The 2018 school year budget included the completion of two new elementary schools.
Expenses for instructional services in the proposed 2018-19 budget total $87.6 million, which is 54 percent of total expenses. Costs for administrative services, including district administration, school building administration, and central administrative services, total 9.6 million, or 6 percent of total expenses.
The remaining 40 percent of total expenses are distributed among student transportation, staff support services, facilities operations and maintenance, facilities acquisition and construction, debt service, and non-instructional services.
The proposed 2018-19 budget shows a $2.5 million increase in the school district’s fund balance. Reynolds recommended that the school board set those funds aside for future expenses related to opening a new high school and junior high school.
Based on the proposed budget, Reynolds estimated that the school district’s 2018 tax rate will be .010202.
The school district’s tax rate is a combined total of six levy amounts: a basic levy rate set by the state, the general obligation bond rate set to generate enough funds to pay for voter approved general obligation bonds, a local and capital levy set by the local school board, a voter approved local levy, and a levy that represents the portion of property tax collected that the state requires the school district to collect for charter schools.
Reynolds is waiting for the state to confirm the basic levy rate before he can confirm the district’s total property tax rate. His .010202 estimate includes the Legislature’s estimate for the basic levy rate.
The school district’s tax rate in 2017 was .009122.
In 2017 voters in Tooele County approved an increase in the voter approved local levy from .000600 to .001600. That increase will take effect with the 2018 property tax rate.
The school district dropped its property tax rate from .010045 to the certified rate of .009593 in 2013.
The district then held its tax rate at .009593 for 2014, 2015, and 2016. The district lowered its property tax rate to the certified rate of .009122 in 2017.
The school district will not need to hold a truth in taxation hearing for the rate increase for 2018 because the increase over the certified rate is due to the voter approved levy increase.
The certified property tax rate is the rate calculated that will allow the school district to collect the same amount of revenue in property tax for a new budget year as it did in the previous budget year, plus any additional revenue from new property added to the tax rolls.
The Tooele County School Board will hold a public hearing on the 2018-19 budget on June 19 at 7 p.m. in the board meeting room of the district office at 92 Lodestone Way in Tooele City.