North Pike officials project a small increase in tax millage for the district’s 2017-18 operating budget but are still awaiting calculation of the millage for debt service, which could be more significant as the district takes on a large-scale construction project.
The school district has completed the sale of more than $11 million in bonds for construction and renovation projects on each of the existing campuses plus a new upper elementary school.
While district officials and bond attorneys said during the bond election campaign that taxes could go up by as much as 13 mills to pay off the bonds, “We got a really good rate on our bond sale, and we hope the rate will be no more than 10 mills,” business manager Tina Griffin said, noting that bonds sold at a 2.9 percent interest rate.
The district will submit its official funding request to the county in August, and the final millage rate will be put in place when the board of supervisors adopts its budget for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The regular operating millage is projected at 47.55 mills, about 0.2 mills more than this year’s budget.
Officials proposed a budget of $27,591,209 in spending for the next fiscal year, about 50 percent more than the amount in this year’s budget.
Almost a quarter of the district’s spending, about $6.8 million, will go to projects being financed by the district’s successful bond issue in March — a new upper elementary school, a new classroom building at the high school and expansion of the band hall.
A bit more than half of the district’s spending, about $15.7 million, is in salaries and benefits.
That includes the cost for new staff, including a counselor and two teachers at the high school, an elementary teacher, a records clerk at the middle school and a bus driver.
The loss of a Mississippi Department of Education grant means the elementary school will lose a literacy coach.
The district will put about $1.1 million into supplies and software, and $910,000 into utilities and maintenance.
Other proposed spending includes professional education services, $412,208; student transportation, $13,888; insurance, $143,000; postal services, $4,400; advertising, $4,700; share of juvenile detention center expense, $7,000; travel, $153,250; other services, $369,364; transportation supplies, $107,214; fuel, $124,000; textbooks, $94,600; library periodicals, $9,700; property and equipment, $206,580; food service, $606,650; 3-mill note payment, $152,6118; bond issue payment, $572,729; 16th Section loan payment, $115,302; 16th Section allocation to other districts, $23,850; and scholarships, $750.
Revenue for the coming year is projected at $21,162,884, with the bulk of that, $13.1 million, coming from the state. About $12.4 million of that amount is the district’s Mississippi Adequate Education Program funding.
About $2.7 million in federal funding is expected, and the local tax effort is estimated to bring in $5.1 million.
Included in the local funding are ad valorem taxes of $3.3 million; the proceeds of a 3-mill note, $150,654; and the proceeds of a general obligation bond, $738,373.
Because the bonds were sold and the proceeds received in this fiscal year, they will not be considered revenue in 2017-18.
They will be accounted for in the final amended budget for 2016-17.
