Northville School Board Approves Budget for 2012-13 School Year

Northville's school board has passed its budget for the 2012-13 school year.

The budget passed last week looks very similar to , said Mike Zopf, assistant superintendent of finance and operations.

Forecasted expenses will exceed revenue, creating a $1.2 million deficit. General fund revenues total $64.9 million and expenditures total about $66.1 million. Benefit costs, which are expected to increase by about $1.2 million, account for a big chunk of the expenditure changes from 2011-12 to 2012-13.

The board also approved a favorable end-of-year budget amendment for 2011-12 on Tuesday. The amendment shows a lesser hit from employee health insurance costs. This means the district paid about $1 million less than initially anticipated.

Here are some of the highlights from the passed 2012-13 budget, according to district documents:

• About $1.4 million will be spent on moving to full day kindergarten in the fall, including added staffing.
• The district will lose $80,200 on funding awarded per student for the class of about 20 who will enroll in a half-day kindergarten class.
• About $675,000 in capital expenditures are expected, mostly on the turf project for the Eight Mile stadium. About $600,000 will be paid back from the Northville Education Foundation for the project.

In order to cast a budget projection, the district has to make a few assumptions about expenditures.

The budget assumes the following about state aid:

• Enrollment will not increase or decrease from this year, thus affecting the amount awarded per student.
• All students, except those in the half-day kindergarten program, will earn the district $8,019 per student.
• That the district will receive $52 per pupil for meeting best practices stipulated by the state.
• That the Michigan Public School Employees Retirement System (MPSERS) cost offset will amount to $127 per student.