Local School Districts Prepare Budgets

RISON - Both the Cleveland County and Woodlawn School Board meetings have been postponed this week to allow their respective superintendents and staff more time to finalize their 2023-24 school budgets, the first such budgets under the new LEARNS education plan. Both school boards typically meet on the second Monday night of each month, but both meetings were postponed this month to allow more time to present their respective budgets for the current school year. While the fiscal year for schools in Arkansas runs from July 1 to June 30 of the next year, school districts are allowed about two months after the new fiscal year begins to finalize the books. Cleveland County Superintendent Jerrod Williams explained the extra time allows the districts to make sure all the expenses from the previous fiscal year have been paid. For exam-ple, he said his district has still been paying off bills from the 2022-23 school year since the new fiscal year began July 1. While both districts are expected to finally close their books on the 2022-23 school year this week, Williams said the Cleveland County School District will not have a surplus this year. Woodlawn Superintendent Dr. Kevin Hancock said his district was able to transfer about $135,000 from the general fund to the building fund. Williams told the Cleveland County School Board during his first meeting as superintendent in July that the district could see a shortfall of as much as $200,000 for fiscal yeare 202223. Woodlawn's move to transfer funds from the general fund into a building funding is a common practice for school districts that have a closing general fund balance that is higher than the year before. It is done to help districts maintain a closing balance that is as close as possible to the closing balance from the previous year. Money that is in the building fund can be transferred back into the general fund, if needed. The state monitors the closing balance for each district's general fund to gauge the…