Beatrice School Board passes new budget, welcomes new student board member

BEATRICE – The new budget for the Beatrice Public School District has been approved by the District 15 Board. The roughly $43 million plan carries a general fund budget of about $32.77 million…and an overall tax rate that has decreased.

Under the state aid funding formula, Superintendent Jason Alexander says the district will see increased state aid over the next couple of years.
"The reason that state aid is a little higher is we built a new school and we applied for a two-year new school adjustment factor in the formula. So, that's about a 40-percent bump for year one and it's about a 20-percent bump for year two. We'll see that for two years and then state aid will probably drop accordingly after that time period has passed."  The basic formula is needs minus resources, equals state aid.

"It's a way to find balance among all 244 schools in the state. So, as much as we hear politicians say the TEEOSA formula is broken...it needs revamped...maybe it's time for some changes, but it's not broken. It does what it's supposed to do."

A few years back, legislators moved to increase the local effort rate for districts.  "State aid started to drop and valuations started to increase. It was a tax shift and has been, since about 2010-11. No different in Beatrice than many other schools across the state."

School district budgets are heavily tilted toward personnel expenses…the need for hiring teachers and staff. The Beatrice Public Schools budget this year contains an overall tax rate of about 99.7 cents per hundred dollars of property valuation…..a decrease from a dollar-four-and-a-half cents the past year. The highest in recent history was about a dollar-17 cents. Valuation that has increased more than eight percent in the school district results in increased revenue to the district.

"The building fund has gone up. We're not trying to hide that from anybody. It's gone up because we we're either going to have to address the old buildings through renovation and reconstruction...or we were going to build new. We chose the latter of those two options. This year, we'll even be able to drop that building fund a little bit because of the increase in valuation."

The special building fund tax rate decreases from 13.9 cents to 12.7 cents. The cost to educate a student in Beatrice Public Schools the past year was $14,295…..under the state average of $16,213.

The school board conducted separate public hearings Monday night on the budget plan and the tax rate. Both received approval by the board on 6-0 votes, with one board member absent from Monday night’s meeting.

A new student member of the Beatrice School Board was sworn in, Monday night. Annie Gleason will serve in the non-voting position this school year.