Cheney School Board adopts general fund levy for 2016

At its Nov. 18 meeting, the Cheney School Board passed a resolution that sets the general fund special levy amount at $9.3 million for 2016, and the debt service fund levy at $5.3 million. The $9.3 million levy was approved by voters in February.

Kassidy Probert, the district’s executive director of finance, said the tax rate for the general fund levy will be $3.06 while the debt service fund levy will be $1.76.

In enrollment, Probert said the district is at 4,337 full-time equivalent students, 20 less than the October count. Probert said there was a similar drop in students last year.

“It’s kind of our normal trend,” Probert said. “The drop was dispersed throughout the district, though we had a small bump of five middle school students.”

Probert also presented the F-196 financial report for the 2014-15 fiscal year. Some of the notable changes included the general fund balance increasing by $527,465.88 for an ending fund balance of more than $3.37 million.

The Associated Student Body fund increased by $52,798.85 for an ending balance of $322,352.97. The transportation vehicle fund had a slight increase of $7,132.35 for a balance of $758,525.89.

The capital project fund decreased by $332,179.09 to bring it to just over $1.96 million. Probert said this was because there is no current funding source for the account.

Of the district’s total revenue, under 22 percent came from local funding. State funding was at 70.5 percent while federal funding was at 7.1 percent. Probert explained that local funding went down about 2 percent while state funding increased by the same percentage.

“We can see the state is funding a little bit more for the school district,” Probert said. “Overall we saw an increase in funding of about 5.6 percent from 2013-14 to 2014-15 and that’s a combination of increased enrollment as well as additional funding from the state.”

The board also recognized directors Rick Mount and James Whiteley for their years of service. Whiteley, representing District 5 since 2010, was defeated by Mitch Swenson in the November election. Mount, who represented District 4 and served on the board for 18 years, originally filed for election but later withdrew his name. Stacy Nicol, who taught in the Cheney School District from 1999-2006, ran unopposed in the election and will take over Mount’s seat on the board.

Al Stover can be reached at [email protected].