JACKSON, MI — The 2024-25 fiscal period will be the first time in several years that Michigan schools will not benefit from COVID-19 relief funding, but the Jackson district is planning for it.
During a Jackson School Board meeting in June, Assistant Superintendent of Finance and Operations Marcus Lyon said that with the reduction of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program funding, Jackson Public Schools’ federal revenue will return to pre-COVID levels.
Board members reviewed and unanimously passed the district’s 2024-25 budget on Tuesday, June 18. Current district projections call for total general fund revenue for 2024-25 to be approximately $71.9 million and expenditures to be approximately $77.3 million.
To cover the potential shortfall, JPS may draw from its fund balance in the amount of an estimated $4,119,278.
“We're hopeful that with some more work this year we'll be able to get that number into the $3 million to $3.5 million range by the end of next year,” Lyon said. “There's a lot of unknowns in this, especially on the revenue side, so that's a worst-case scenario.”
District officials anticipate a fund balance of about $18.25 million by July 1, the start of the next fiscal year, which could drop to about $14.36 million by June 2025 — or about 19.3% of the district’s projected revenue for the year. Superintendent Jeff Beal said the “worst-case scenario” predictions still leave JPS in a position with multiple paths to recovery.
The board also unanimously approved a final amendment to last year’s budget, which will add about $1.1 million in revenue to the district’s fund balance.
Lyon said during the budget hearing that over the next year, JPS will receive about $4.3 million in federal funding, compared to the roughly $15.1 million it received last year through ESSER.
Beal attributed the decrease to a loss of about $11 million in ESSER funding and rising costs of health insurance and employee salaries.
One reason Beal is confident the district will be in a better position next June is that the budget adopted by the board failed to take into account potential growth in enrollment and state per-pupil funding because the state budget hasn’t been completed yet.
JPS could also greatly benefit from House Bill 5803 and Senate Bill 911, which are currently being considered by the Michigan Legislature. Beal said if the bills are passed, the amount the district owes for retirement expenses could be reduced, which could reduce the district’s annual expenses by about $2 million.
“If we could get some help from the state with the state budget, and some help with the retirement law, we could be very close to a balanced budget right now and not have to do much,” Beall said.
Beal also predicted the district will cut its staffing numbers over the next three years.
“This allows us to do this over time, rather than having to come in and dive into programming,” Beal said. “We've laid the groundwork for this. We've built a fund balance with the intention of increasing the money we're giving out for COVID, and with the intention of being able to spend those dollars in the future, rather than having to deal with the kind of cutoffs that some other districts in the state have.”
Connected: Remaining COVID-19 relief funds are being used for new curriculum at Jackson schools
The ESSER funding initiative, which is part of the American Rescue Plan Act, was signed into law in March 2021, and allocated nearly $122 billion for education across the country. JPS received $22.2 million through this program.
The majority of the district's expenditures — about $12.3 million — have been spent on staffing needs, including benefits. About $9.1 million was spent on curriculum updates across the district.
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