Loyal School District Starting New School Year on More Financially Sound Footing
Wednesday, September 11th, 2013 -- 9:11 AM
-The Loyal School District is starting out the 2013-14 school year on financially sound footing compared to last year.Last year, as the Loyal School District prepared for its Annual Meeting, their budget was over $130,000 in the red. This year Loyal will start out in the positive. Cale Jackson, District Administrator at Loyal, credited a lot of that saving to cutting some of the district expenses. Loyal was able to put close to $130,000 in their general fund; the total of that being $987,155 compared to last year?s $857,668. However, Mr. Jackson did say there is a slight downside to that. Having that extra money means the district will receive less state aid. Also, because of that extra money, Loyal no longer qualifies for the state's high poverty aid which was used to help with free and reduced lunches. That amount last year totaled over $40,000.
Another major contribution to Loyal?s saving is the substantial amount of money the district is saving on health care for their employees. Last year, Loyal paid out over $923,000 in health insurance, but due to lower bids received by the company that supplies the district with the insurance, they will pay out over $795,000 which saves the district over $127,000.
In the end, the citizens in attendance approved the proposed property tax levy of $1,535,860. That is a $162,000, or 11.82%, increase from last year. However, Loyal?s mill rate, which was 7.95% for last year and the lowest last year for our area, is only expected to increase roughly two percentage points sitting around 9-9.5% once all the final figures are calculated.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.