NORTH BRADDOCK – Nov. 9, 2023 – Woodland Hills School District business manager Jill Regan provided an overview of the district’s 2022-23 annual financial report during the November 8, 2023 school board meeting.
During her presentation, Ms. Regan highlighted several key areas in the district’s revenue and expenses, provided context to ESSER funding, and revealed that the district’s financial management led to a $4.5 million increase in fund balance to the general fund. Ms. Regan said that will enable the district’s assigned fund balance to be over $5 million, which will help the district absorb the end of federal ESSER funding that has been used to add supports and address other needs stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s always good to share good news, but this one was even better than we expected,” Woodland Hills Superintendent Dr. Daniel Castagna said. “Since Ms. Regan began, she and I have scrutinized every aspect of our organization to expose overspending and mislabeled funds. The outcome of that work is a stable financial future for all that lowered taxes districtwide.”
For the 2022-23 school year, the district had a local revenue of over $61.5 million, which was $738,715 more than what was initially projected. Ms. Regan explained that a large portion of that increase was due to the district investing wisely rather than just letting the money sit in a checking account.
Ms. Regan also noted that the district received more state funding than budgeted through the state’s Level Up program. The state provided the district with almost $2 million more than budgeted for the 2022-23 school year. The district will receive more from the state than initially projected once again in 2023-24. In all, the total revenue collected was over budget by $3.1 million.
From an expense standpoint, the district was under budget in salaries and benefits. It was over budget by a combined $1.2 million in professional services and property purchases, which Ms. Regan explained was due to spending from the federal ESSER funds. Those two categories include infrastructure, technology, special supports and other services used to combat learning loss as per the guidelines of the ESSER funding. In all, the district had expenditures of $109 million, which was still within its original budget for 2022-23, and which led to the unexpected additional revenue creating a surplus.
The district now has a total fund balance of $14,137,859. Ms. Regan said the district will keep $8 million of the unassigned fund balance in reserve for emergencies as recommended by the state, while the assigned fund balance of over $5 million will be held for future salaries and capital improvements. Ms. Regan said that will enable the district to continue paying for programs and staff as ESSER funds come to an end.
“You now have $5.2 million sitting there in assigned fund balance to pay your teachers, to pay for capital improvements, to make sure that everything these kids need and the programs that they need, they can still get,” she said. “Within reason, because you don’t want to spend that $5.2 million in one year. You drag it out and hopefully will spread it out over the next two-and-a-half years.”