Amador County – The Amador County Unified School District this week received a report of the district and Office of Education’s financial status, and heard that staff is working to get $1.3 million from its tax district.
Interim Chief Business Officer Teresa Ryland discussed revisions in a report, saying the “major change to the budget is due to the Basic Aid status of the District,” reflected in “revenue and other designations of the budget revisions.” She said District staff has found that Amador Unified is a Basic Aid district. After the revisions, she said the district’s “unappropriated ending fund balance” would be $833,000.
Ryland in the report said staff has been working with Amador County and the California Department of Education “to determine if the District is an excess tax district or basic aid district,” and it was determined it is a Basic Aid district. She said per education code and revenue and taxation code, “the district is entitled to all of its property taxes, excluding” the Educational Revenue Augmentation Funds, “and that amount is greater than the district’s calculated revenue limit.”
She said: “Receiving this year’s proper entitlement should happen automatically as the year is still open. However, we have received resistance to the County reopening last year’s property tax distributions, even though the correct distribution would have been to increase the district’s allocation by $1.3 million.”
Ryland said: “We will continue to work with the County, CDE and whomever else is necessary to assure the district receives its fair share of funding.”
She planned to give the Board of Trustees a detailed explanation of the changes at its meeting Wednesday. Ryland said “revenue limit changes reflect the Governor’s ‘Plan B,’ or tax extensions not passing this summer. In the district’s case, however, the maximum loss of revenue limit funding is the amount by when the district is Basic Aid.” She said “at this time, that is almost $900,000, instead of over $2 million if the district were not Basic Aid.”
The Board also was to consider removing a “high school computer literacy requirement” for graduation and “replace it with industry relevant technology electives for career pathways.”
Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction, Elizabeth Chapin-Pinotti in a staff report said: “Computer literacy must move into this century and encompass all of technology.” She recommended the elimination of the computer literacy requirement. She said Amador County Unified is “one of the only districts in the region to have a computer literacy requirement for high school graduation.
Chapin-Pinotti said the change would “allow more room for all types of Career Technical elective” classes.
Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
