Lee County School Board gets update on state budget impacts
The Lee County School Board got a budget update Tuesday which, at this time, only includes proposed budgets from the House and Senate.
Director of Budget Kelly Letcher began the presentation by sharing FTE (full time equivalent) projections. The district’s unweighted projected FTE was 111,917, growth of 3,374.
“Since then, the enrollment conference held its meeting on April 11 and statewide they were seeing some dropoffs in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) populations, so they made some adjustments to Lee County as well, and brought our FTE down to 111,725, projected growth of 3,182,” she said. “While that is a reduction of 193 FTE they actually reduced our ESOL population by 670 in total.”
Letcher said she had the district growing by 200 in the ESOL area.
“This year, we grew 2,400 even with the declines going on. So, I don’t think that is realistic. I had a conversation with them about that, but they made their decision, so we are going to move forward with their decision,” she said.
The presentation also highlighted legislative items, although the budget has not been finalized and special sessions are under way.
The base allocation for the House increased by $50.51, while the Senate increased theirs by $66.77.
“When you take the dollars — the weighted FTE times the BSA, times the comparable wage factor — for the House would generate $602.5 million. For the Senate it was $604.4 million,” Letcher said. “It is a decline for us for the House by $696,247 and in the Senate it is an increase of $1.1 million.
For the educational enrichment portion of the budget, the House is proposing a $40.7 million increase — a $1.1 million increase for Lee County, while the Senate is proposing a decrease of $3.7 million.
“It was about $2.6 million decrease in educational enrichment,” Letcher said.
The ESE guarantee outlook was a $1.6 million increase for the House and a $5.6 million decrease for the Senate.
“Overall when you put all the pieces together, the House budget was an increase of about $10.7 million for Lee County, while the Senate was only about a $1.6 million increase,” she said.
The FTE and unweighted FTE numbers were also discussed.
The dollars per unweighted FTE is a $13.25 increase on the House proposal and a $76.31 decrease in the Senate proposal.
Letcher also discussed the add on FTE, which are funds the district receives for students who pass some advanced test, received advanced diplomas, enrolled in dual enrollment programs and graduated early.
“So, when the House reduced the added on FTE, they reduced it by all programs across the board by half. That’s costing Lee County about $7.7 million. When you look at the Senate they reduced all the programs with the exception of industry certifications or, as you know it as CAPE,” Letcher said. “That one they left at 100%, so the loss for the Senate is about $6.3 million to Lee County.”
The impact of the Family Empowerment Scholarship for Lee County was also a topic of discussion.
“The House is proposing a $18.6 million increase for Family Empowerment Scholarships and their cost to students increased $10.52. For the Senate they are proposing a $19.3 million increase in the amount for FES and that is just for Lee County FES program. They are proposing an increase of $85.46 per student per unweighted FTE,” Letcher said.
The district will also absorb approximately a $2.4 million increase in expenses for next year with just their current staffing under Senate Bill 7072, Florida Retirement System increasing for regular class from 13.63 to 14.03.
There is a study on the elimination of property taxes by the Office of Economic and Demographic Research that is due by Oct. 1.
Letcher said the district also is looking at a slowdown regarding capital outlay millage, 1.5 mills, generated funds.
“We are not seeing the collection at rates we have anticipated,” she said.
The impact fees, over the last couple of years have been under collected, so based on what the district is seeing, they are looking at a 0% increase.
Sales tax revenue is also seeing a decline — this year alone there they are 6% under projection.
“Next year we will stand it at 0% increase just because we don’t know what is going on with everything right now,” Letcher said.
She said the district hopes to see the first calculation sometime in May. A preliminary budget will be provided in June.