Manatee school tax proponents get bump from new financial report

Manatee School Board member Charlie Kennedy is a proponent of the March 20 special election when voters will decide if the School District of Manatee should receive an estimated $33 million in new property tax revenue to increase the school day by 30 minutes and enhance teacher and other staff salaries.

Kennedy, however, is aware of opposition in the community to the one mill property tax increase.

“Forces against us keep beating the drum that we are financially incompetent,” Kennedy said Monday.

But Kennedy’s camp got a bump Monday with the release of the 2017 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report on the district partially prepared by the Tampa independent auditor, Moore Stephens Lovelace, P.A.

The auditor’s report, which can be reviewed by the public on the district’s website, gives the district passing grades as far as meeting its financial responsibilities.

Additional financial reporting provided by the district to supplement the auditor’s report states that assets and outflows of resources of the district exceeded its liabilities and inflows of resources as of June 30, 2017.

The report also states that the district ended the fiscal year on June 30, 2017, with a fund balance that exceeded the three percent reporting requirement.

The district’s general fund was $18.1 million or 4.92 percent of total general fund revenues, according to the report.

The report also dipped into the district’s emphasis on spending to improve school grades and reports that state during the 2016-17 fiscal year, 81 percent of all Manatee district schools received either an A, B, or C grade from the state, and no school received an F grade, the first time that has happened since 2009.

The number of schools receiving an A grade almost tripled in one year, from five in 2015 to 14 in 2016, the report states. A total of 22 schools improved their grades from 2015 to 2016, according to the report.

The report concludes: “The district has continued to improve academically and financially to bring back the prominence of the School District of Manatee County.”

“My general sense is that we are in good financial health,” Kennedy said of the report. “Our projections all along were that we would exceed three percent. This didn’t come as a surprise. I believe we closed the book well above three percent. I hope people are paying attention. The truth is that we continue to improve our financial health. We have righted the ship.”

The report will be up for discussion and approval during Tuesday’s school board meeting, which will be held at 5:45 p.m. in the Wagner Auditorium at Manatee Technical College, 6305 St. Road 70 E., Bradenton, due to renovations of the board chambers on Manatee Avenue West.

The board’s 3-5 p.m. workshop on Tuesday, where the issue of substitute teacher salaries will be discussed, will also be held at Manatee Technical College due to the renovations.

This story was originally published January 22, 2018 at 5:08 PM with the headline "Manatee school tax proponents get bump from new financial report."