12/02/2013 – Financial Report


Dr. Michael Bell (Chief Financial Officer)
This is the financial report for FY 2014 for the month ending October 31, 2013.
Page 1 – Receipts
We have collected 40% ($302,148,084) of our anticipated revenue, which is very good.  We are 33% into the year.  Last year at this time we collected 36.9% ($270,392,435).  We are substantially ahead.  The county says are ad valorem collections are in much better shape than last year.  Is this additional revenue or are people paying their taxes more timely.  It’s impossible to say, but we are cautiously optimistic.  We should end the year with more revenue than anticipated.  This could be offset by some under collections in other areas as we go through the year.
Page 1 – Expenditures
We have expended 24.1% ($182,153,961) of general operating fund appropriations.  At the same point in ‘FY13 we had expended $171,954,765.  So we have expended about $11 million more than we did at this point in ’13.  Keep in mind FY’14 budget is $755 million while FY’13 was $732 million, so those additional expenditures make sense.
Page 3
Local revenue sources we are 11% ahead.  State revenue sources we are about 3% ahead of schedule.
Page 35
Variance report is at the end.
John Coleman
We seem to be exceeding our budget in a number of areas.  Next year we can discuss remediation tactics.  Workers Compensation, Legal Fees, and Transportation are over budget.  Can you give us your perspective on that?
Dr. Bell  [7:00]
There is a problem with workers compensation appropriations.  We changed 3rd party providers.  There are some expenses coming through the 3rd party administrator we have to pay.  That has caused expenditures to be above our budgeted amount.  We will have to make a mid year adjustment in workers compensation.
Legal fees, we were tracking along pretty close to expectations.  There is additional detail we have given you in relation to legal expenses.  Mr. Thurmond has some good news in that area, however we may have to make an adjustment.
Transportation was under budgeted the last few years, so we’ve added additional appropriations … drivers and mechanics.
Campbell
On page 4, taxes on beverages through October show $0.  Last year it was $405 thousand.
Dr Bell
I don’t know.
Campbell
On page 14 … you talked about School Nutrition in some emails.  You mentioned $4.8 million had to do with the break out between school funds separated from athletics.  So the School Nutrition fund balance of $4.9 million, if you do an adjustment for $4.8 million is that actually $9.7 million.
Dr. Bell
What is causing a month to date operating deficit of $4.8 million is a programming error.  The actual balance on a monthly basis should be a positive $361,931.

Marshall Orson
We’ll wait to see where we are on legal fees.  I’ve struggled with the classification of some of these expenses.  We have a category of legal fees and a category of internal affairs, some of which falls under workers comp.  It would help us to understand if we could get some data from GSBA and neighboring school systems.  When we compare our expenses to other systems I want to make sure we are looking at apples to apples.