The Northport Public School Board of Education (BOE) approved its proposed $6 million general fund budget for the 2024-25 year at its regular meeting/ budget hearing Monday night.
The projected budget, which will go into effect on July 1, is based on 13.3880 mills to be levied on the taxable value of nonhomestead and non-qualified agricultural property.
“This budget feels in line with the last few years. Revenues and expenditures have gone up, we’ve been able to maintain a fund balance that keeps the district in a good position, and we continue to appreciate the community support of the school,” Northport Superintendent Neil Wetherbee said. “We’re able to do great things for our students because of the tax revenue that we have.”
Local projected revenues totaled $4,982,764 for the 2024-25 budget, up more than $349,000 from the 2023-24 final budget. Wetherbee said the increase is due to property taxes increasing once again this year.
“Revenue for us is up because we’re out of formula, which means that we don’t get significant aid from the state due to our property taxes. That means that our revenue fluctuates more than an average district based on those local property taxes (for non-homestead)…” he said. “So Northport has had a boom of construction and home sales, which then causes our local tax base to go up… right now we’re in an era where being out of formula is nice, there’ll be a time in the future where I’m sure property taxes will be going down and it will be painful for us.”
Total projected instruction expenditures, $2,751,241, also increased from the previous academic year’s total of $2,539,094. For supporting services, the largest costs are found in categories like plant operation and maintenance ($683,827), general admin support services ($479,277), and central support services ($302,913). The projected total for supporting services is approximately $2,423,734.
“Primarily it’s just inflation. Food costs more, diesel fuel costs more. Everyone gets flat raises each year to maintain their income… ” he said. “It’s really just a continuation of last year’s budget with everything costing a little bit more.”
The district’s “ending unassigned fund balance,” otherwise known as the school’s savings account, has remained roughly the same at $3,503,512. Wetherbee said Northport’s school board has made an effort in the last several years to maintain a stable fund balance. If they have extra funds at the end of a school year, they’ve been putting it into a public improvement fund to maintain buildings.
“As an example, we’re going to do the boiler replacement this summer and we didn’t have to use any additional sinking fund or bond or even our primary savings account or fund balance to pay for that because we’ve set money aside for the last couple of years to cover that cost,” he said. “The roughly $400,000 that the boilers cost, it came out of that fund (public improvement) and didn’t affect taxpayers or the school directly.”
