BY
MATT SCHOOLEY
Bow School District officials
found a savings of about
$330,000 in the 2008-09 school
budget, as the actual employee
health care rate was significantly
lower than the guaranteed maximum
rate set in October.
Each year, the district
receives the guaranteed maximum
rate from HealthTrust and
bases that portion of the budget
on that amount. This year, the
estimate was 13.1 percent, while
the final rate recently approved
is 1.4 percent.
According to Business
Administrator Duane Ford, the
money will stay where it is.
“We won’t take that money
and transfer it somewhere else
to pay other things,” said Ford.
“It’s part of the general budget
and doesn’t go anywhere.”
After remaining in the budget,
however, the health care
savings may be part of the year-end
surplus that is returned to
taxpayers, although that amount
won’t be known until July 2009.
“The $330,000 is for health
insurance. If oil spikes dramatically,
we may have to go to the
board and ask to use it for that,”
said Superintendent of Schools
Dean Cascadden. “But the plan
is to keep it in the health insurance
line, and if all goes to plan
it will be returned to the taxpayer.”
The savings will not be
used for any specific purchases,
according to Cascadden.
At a recent School Board
meeting, a group of residents
came to see the financial list
of staff-proposed year-end purchases.
Cascadden said he was surprised,
as he had not previously
done so in other districts.
“I’ve never done year-end purchases
as a superintendent; it’s
not required to do. The amounts
are set in the budget. You go
along and spend your lines as
you go,” said Cascadden.
“If for some reason we have
a lot of money left over at the
end of the year and we were
doing large projects, I would say,
yes, that’s something to bring in
front of the taxpayers. We managed
the budget within the lines
that we had this year. We didn’t
do anything like (large projects)
this year.”
Taxpayers won’t know the
surplus funds from the previous
year’s spending until the School
Board’s mid-summer meeting,
which takes place July 31.