Based upon the replies we received from Franklin Public School Board Members on June 17 and June 20, especially related to the District’s stated $5.6 million total deficit published on page four of its 2011-12 Budget Draft, we contacted the District’s Director of Business Services, Jim Milzer for an explanation of the multi-million dollar deficit question and how it appears in the budget. In a telephone conversation Mr. Milzer said the school district does not have a $5.6 million total deficit as indicated on page four of the budget. Here is how he explained page four and the accompanying bar graph in a subsequent email to us.
The graph on page 4 of the 2011-12 budget presentation shows the deficits that the District eliminated by reducing expenditures and increasing non-tax revenue. For example, if the District continued all of the programs and services that were offered in the 2002-03 school year again in the 2003-04 school year, this would have resulted in a $1.1 million deficit. This deficit would have occurred because the District’s costs were rising faster than the allowable increase in revenue. The District’s tax and general aid revenue is limited by State statutes. In creating the 2003-04 budget, the District cut $1.1 million in expenditures to balance the budget. On pages 5, 6, and 7, there is a list of the expenditures that were cut and the sources of extra revenue that were used to balance the budgets in those years. The District has had a balanced budget each year.
NOTE: In some years the District had expenditures carried over from the previous year when the revenue was collected in one year and the expenditure did not occur until the following year. These adjustments were made to the balanced budget in that year which may make it appear incorrectly that the budget was slightly out of balance.
When asked how the average citizen would know this, Mr. Milzer said that this was explained to those who attended the budget presentation. When asked why there wasn’t a note on page four explaining this for those looking at the budget without the benefit of attending the presentation meeting, he indicated changes would be made in the future budgets to avoid this sort of confusion.
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