The North Little Rock School District is currently in a healthy financial position, but a decline in student enrollment has school board members concerned.
The North Little Rock School Board approved on Thursday the 2020 fiscal year budget that includes a projected revenue of $99,597,814 and projected expenses of $94,691,420, Chief Financial Officer Brian Brown said.
"These numbers include the federal cuts," he said. "We lost around $1 million or less in federal funding."
Brown said the school district is considered to be in a healthy financial position after closing the 2019 fiscal year with $2.3 million in surplus.
"This has truly been a team effort," Superintendent Bobby Acklin said. "Last year we were projected to spend over a million. We were able to close with a surplus rather than a deficit of $1 million."
The superintendent said there are plans to use the surplus to eventually increase teacher salaries.
"We don't want the money to just pile up," Acklin said. "Hopefully next year we can put funds into salaries."
The school district is projected to pay out $54,050,337 in salary expenditures, and that number doesn't include a potential $3 million in bonuses, Brown said.
The school district also spent around $1.4 million on substitute teachers last year, a number they are hoping to cut down for 2020.
"I have budgeted $1.1 million for substitutes this year," Brown said.
Concerns about student enrollment was also discussed as the data showed a constant decline over the years.
Brown said the district is projected to have 8,000 students this year, which would be 86 students less than last year. The trend is concerning because of the importance of state funding, which is determined by enrollment, he said.
"Enrollment is very important to our funding," Brown said.
Acklin mentioned that there seemed to be a decline in enrollment specifically with fourth-graders.
"It's something we need to look at," he said.
Charter and private schools have given parents alternatives, School Board president Tracy Steele said.
"I remember when it was around 12,000," he said of the district's enrollment.
The board also heard an employee grievance against North Little Rock High School Principal Scott Jennings and his staff for a decision last spring not to hire Sheire Coleman for a summer school position. Coleman contends she was racially discriminated against because a white male was hired instead.
A crowd of people filled up the North Little Rock School District Administration in hopes of hearing the grievance argument, but the room was cleared while the board listened to both sides.
Several minutes after clearing the room, the board voted unanimously that the issue was not an actionable grievance, the school district's attorney Cody Kees said.
"That is the end of the issue at the district level," he said.
State Desk on 09/27/2019