Trinity finds fund balance declining
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A 2012-13 fiscal year audit shows the Trinity Area School District’s fund balance has fallen below the amount recommended by the accounting firm Cypher & Cypher.
Stephen Cypher, of Cypher & Cypher, presented the firm’s findings at Thursday’s school board meeting and said the district’s fund balance at the end of the 2013 fiscal year was $941,399, a little less than 2 percent of Trinity’s general fund budget.
Cypher recommends school districts maintain a general fund balance of somewhere between 3 and 6 percent of the general fund budget.
For the past six years, the district’s fund balance has remained at about 6 to 8 percent of the general fund budget, and topped $3.9 million in July 2012.
However, actual expenditures for 2012-13 were more than $2.9 million over budgeted expenditures. Cypher noted the largest over expenditures occurred in special education, instructional staff, transportation and administration, resulting in a net change of just over $3 million in the fund balance.
David Roussos, director of fiscal services, said the school district must be careful about spending over the course of the school year.
“We knew we were going to come in with a deficit higher than we had originally budgeted; unfortunately, it came in a good bit higher, and while we’ve had enough fund balance to absorb that, it depleted our fund balance to a level that will make the management of this year a little more challenging. It will also make the budget process for next year more challenging,” said Roussos. “But we will do it. We will get through it. We don’t have any wiggle room and we need to be creative.”
Also, on Thursday, the school board approved a separation agreement with former high school girls varsity volleyball coach Thomas Kurtz, who had been accused of verbal abuse and bullying players, among other complaints.
According to the agreement, approved by a 7-2 vote, Kurtz will be paid $10,182 for the final two years of his three-year contract. The volleyball team went 1-11 in Kurtz’s only year as head coach. Voting in favor of the settlement were directors Jennifer Morgan, Kerrin McIlvaine, Penny Caleffe, William Clemens, Thomas Durbin, Frances Eates and Edmund Trapuzzano. Opposed were Jenene Hupp and Joseph Labella.