ACS approves $68 million budget

Published 10:27 am Wednesday, September 13, 2017

 

By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster City School System is projecting more than $68 million in revenues during the 2018 fiscal year, which will begin next month, according to the 2018 budget passed by the city’s Board of Education during a Sept. 11 meeting.

School Board members voted unanimously during the meeting to approve the budget after holding their second public hearing on the document before the Sept. 11 meeting. The first budget hearing was on Sept. 7.

“I just want to thank (ACS Chief School Financial Officer) Miss (Linda) Agee and her staff for all their hard work on this budget,” said ACS Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers.

Agee said she and her staff began working on the 2018 budget in April, and worked to finalize it throughout the summer before presenting it to ACS leaders and the public in early September.

The school system’s 2017 fiscal year will run from Oct. 1 of this year to Sept. 30, 2018.

The 2018 budget’s projection of about $68.1 million in revenues is a 1.65 percent increase from last year’s revenue total of slightly more than $67 million.

Of the projected 2018 revenues, about $35.7 million will come from state sources, about $4.4 million will come from federal sources, about $27.6 million will come from local sources and $490,795 will come from other sources.

The 2018 budget projects about $95.7 million in expenditures, which is skewed by the inclusion of the school system’s $27.3 million in capital project expenses, such as construction work on the new high school and renovations to the existing school buildings. The capital projects are being funded by $120 million in bonds the system issued in 2014.

In addition to the capital projects, the 2018 budget also includes a little more than $6 million in debt service and $34.8 million in instructional services.

ACS is also allocating $421,405 for school resource officers at each school campus, which is up from $225,000 during the 2017 fiscal year.