At our State of the Schools meeting held on May 13th it was shown that the
majority of community members who attended the coffee klatches and answered
the survey felt that the district should pursue funding for operations prior to
looking at funding for new construction. The question was then raised as to
“what are the operating costs of the district?”.

The revenues and expenditures of a school district are divided into many
different funds such as; general fund, permanent improvement fund, lunch fund,
bond retirement fund and many individual funds for specific state and federal
grants. The general fund or “operating fund” is the largest and most important
fund of the district.

So what are the districts operating costs? A school district is basically a service
organization. We are here to educate the leaders of tomorrow. In order to do
that, most of our operating costs are for salaries and benefits to pay the people
who perform the services. Teachers of course are the largest portion of this cost,
but also needed are the bus drivers to transport the students, the custodians to
clean the buildings, administrators and others.

A typical school district spends between 80% and 85% of their operating funds
on these salaries and benefits. In the 5 Year Forecast approved by the Board on
May 10th, we have budgeted 79% of our operating costs for the 2010-2011
school year for wages and benefits. According to the Ohio School Finance Blue
Book, a district is in good fiscal health if the spending on wages and benefits is
near 80%. This has been achieved in our district by reducing staff as we have
had a decrease in students and by negotiating fair wage and benefit packages
for all employees.

The remaining 21% of our operating costs includes the heating, lighting, phone
service, trash disposal and water for all of our buildings; fuel, tires and
maintenance of our 28 buses; the purchase of two new buses each year; soap,
toilet paper and cleaning supplies for all of the buildings; textbooks, copy paper
and other educational supplies; library books and computer software; annual
audit costs for the district; fees to the county auditor for collecting our tax money;
and liability and property insurance.

Please feel free to email (bbechtel@firelandsschools.org) or call (440-965-5701)
me with your questions on our district finances.
Barb Bechtel
Treasurer