School board building to be sold, board hears ‘undesirable’ revenue update

In what the district’s financial consultant called, “a perfect storm,” the newly reorganized Willow Springs school board heard last week that revenue will be less than expected this year and projected revenues for next year will be lower still. 

 

Expected revenue for this fiscal year is projected to be more than $450,000 lower. According to Kelly Lowe, consultant, the “real kicker,” explaining this year’s shortfall is the difference in a projected Student Adequacy Target (SAT) currently budgeted on the funding formula. This year’s budget planned for $7,145 per student. However, Lowe reported, “We received undesirable news from the Department of Education and the State at the annual Missouri Association of School Administrators (MASA) conference. The state is lagging in their projected revenues.”

 

“District payments will be closer to $6,960 which is yet another shortage of revenue for the district,” reads Lowe’s report to the board, which will be a projected shortfall of $237,249. Local collections are on pace to produce $167,000 less than projected, and if Prop C continues to pay at the current pace, the district will be $45,000 short of projections.

 

“The next three years are going to be brutal,” Lowe told the board last Monday night. State funding formula is projected to be even lower next year, paying only $6,742 per student. Declining enrollment continues to be financial hurdle for the district. 

 

Initial plans to build a budget that addresses low reserves have given way to a budget that balances with the much lower revenue. Lowe did not have a budget proposal for the board last week. It was not yet balanced. 

 

Next year’s budget will have extremely conservative revenue projections, Lowe said, because, “We don’t any surprises.”

 

Revenue is projected to be $2.24 million less than this year. 

 

After a closed session citing the real estate exception to Missouri’s Sunshine Law, the board returned to open session and voted to declare the Board building located at Main and Ferguson as surplus property, which means it can be sold. 

 

The exception reads, “Leasing, purchase or sale of real estate by a public governmental body where public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration therefor.”

 

In an email to Howell County News, Superintendent Dr. Marty Spence clarified, “Discussion on the value of the Board building took place in closed session and the vote to declare the building surplus property was made in open session.” Spence confirmed there is no transaction or offer at play Monday night, and the discussion was about a potential future transaction. 

 

RSMo. 610.022 3 & 4 read in part, “Public governmental bodies shall not discuss any business in a closed meeting, record or vote which does not directly relate to the specific reason announced to justify the closed meeting or vote,” and “Nothing in [the Sunshine Law] shall be construed as to require a public governmental body to hold a closed meeting.”