Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Emmet, Blevins board told of expected finances

It was all about the money.

At a joint meeting of the Emmet and Blevins school boards, Ray and Buster Beardsley, from the firm of Rainey and Beardsley, told how much the new district could expect.

Property assessments, Ray said, are $24,126,391, so one mill would be equal to $24,126 with the last assessment was done in 2003.

Blevins has one bond issue it must pay for. This occurred when the district restructured its bonded indebtedness. Now, the district has a bond for $1,220,000 it will be paying on until 2024 with the payments being between $80-$90,000 per year. Emmet has no bonded indebtedness to deal with.

Blevins also has two loans under the revolving loan program for school buses. This, Ray said, is non-bonded debt the district must pay. The amount involved is $80,708 which will be paid off by 2009.

According to Ray, for each $1 in bonded indebtedness a district has, it will receive $1.82 from the state through 2009.

The anticipated population of the combined districts will be 750. Blevins's millage is 31.3, while Emmet's is 29.7. The boards must decide if patrons of the Emmet district will be asked to raise the millage accordingly. However, Ray said, this doesn't have to be done. The millage can be left as they are, which would mean less money coming in for the 2004-2005 school year overall.

Under HB 1071, he said, the district could choose to receive $34,934, or facility improvement funds in the amount of $18,000, or go for the supplemental millage of $126,000. The latter, he said, is the direction the district would want to go as it gives it the most money.

Professional development funds, he said, are earmarked and can't be used for any other purpose. There are rules and regulations on how this money can be spent.

One thing the district would need to take into consideration, he said, is the funds for English as a Second Language (ESL) students and the lunch budget can't be counted with the normal maintenance and operation funds.

Buster said the district would receive about $85,000 in isolated funds for the 04-05 year, but it's not known if these funds will be available after this coming academic year.

The $85,000, Ray said, would be for the Emmet campus only, and could not be used for Blevins in any way, shape or form. Overall, though, he said, the combined district should receive $907,900 in incentive funds. But, he added, it is not known what the rules and regulations on how this money can be used are.

The incentive monies will be for district-wide use, with the combined board to decide how best to use them. The combined board will exist because the two districts are holding off on becoming a single board until after new boundaries and zones are drawn. The current board will act as the interim board until a new board is elected in 2005.

The board was told both districts must have a school election this September by law. In addition, the millage issue must be included on the ballot. However, the millage issue can be the only item on the ballot. Eventually, though, the millage situation will have to be decided upon by the voters.

Donnie Davis, Blevins superintendent, said the board need to take the financial numbers and plug them into the salary schedule and see what they can do. He added a preliminary number crunch has been done, but both schools need to get the contracts written, signed and returned.