School District Sees Nearly $395,000 More Collected in Property Taxes This Year
RISON - The Cleveland County School Board voted Monday night to move $906,000 from the general fund to the building fund after the district finished the fiscal year with a record surplus.
Superintendent Davy King told the school board during its regular monthly meeting that much of the large surplus could be attributed to an additional $394,556 collected in property taxes this year.
King said he and district business manager Joanie Barnes suspected the property tax increase was due to the millage increase, but the county pointed out that was not the case since the property taxes were collected through October and voters did not approve the 6-mill tax increase until November.
It is a common practice among school districts to shift money from the general fund to the building fund at the end of the fiscal year in order to maintain a closing balance that is close the what the district started the year with. The fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.
The state monitors the general fund closing balance for each public school district in the state at the end of the fiscal year. Should a district close the year with a balance lower than it started with, that district will be put on a fiscal distress watch list. Should there be a decline for two consecutive years, the state can then begin to intervene into the district’s financial affairs.
To avoid having a larger opening balance in the general fund at the start of a new fiscal year, districts move any surplus into the building. Should the district see its closing balance in the general fund fall below where it started, it can still transfer money from the building fund back into the general fund to shore up that balance.
King said the district started the year with about a $905,000 balance in the general fund before ending it with about $1.8 million.
This was the third consecutive year that the Cleveland County School District has shifted a significant surplus from the general fund to the building fund at the end of the fiscal y…