Columbia Public Schools Finance Committee discussing revenue for next school year

The Columbia Public Schools Finance Committee has started discussing its revenue assumptions for the 2017 -2018 school year.

The committee has 90 days before it has to approve the next school year’s budget, making Wednesday’s meeting just the beginning of discussions between the committee and school board.

In order to make a budget proposal in the coming months, the Finance Committee has to draw up revenue assumptions, which is the first step.

Chief Financial Officer Linda Quinley presented to the Finance Committee some of the revenue assumptions based on the historical trend of revenue.

One of the first things discussed was the trend of assessed valuation and new construction over the past 10 years. Assessed valuation means the dollar value assigned to a property to measure applicable taxes. The assessed valuation determines the value of a residence for tax purposes and takes comparable home sales and inspections into consideration. Currently the assessed valuation for Columbia is 3.07 percent compared to last year’s 2.84 percent. Meaning for the 2015-2016 school year the assessed valuation for all homes in the district was $62,199,490 and currently the valuation is at $69,192,944.

New construction saw a significant increase over the last school year compared to the current school year. For the 2015-2016 school year, new construction brought in $45,899,973; for the 2016-2017 school year, new construction brought in $58,108,633.

Quinley says seeing an increase in new construction and continued growth in Columbia is positive for the district because property taxes are more than 60 percent of the school district’s funding.

Another determining factor of revenue assumption the Finance Committee is taking into consideration is the tax levy, which will be reassessed this year.

“It’s a component of two things: Have the values gone up in existing homes and buildings of all kinds and has new construction happened,” Quinley said.

All of the data presented at Wednesday night’s meeting will be brought up again at Monday night’s school board meeting.

Columbia Public Schools is also keeping a close eye on proposed legislation regarding charter schools. Quinley says if the proposed legislation were to pass, it wouldn’t make a direct impact on CPS until a couple of years but the financial impact could cost more than $8,000 per student who left the district to go to a charter school.