The Harlan Community School District saved over $2 million in expenditures in 2012. In a regular board of directors meeting held Monday, the district received their good news from the annual audit report. Superintendent Justin Wagner said the main thing is the district was under budget.

“Financial Solvency is something that people can understand as school financials are extremely complicated. Our financial solvency ratio was 19.9 and this year increased to 29.1 and we knew it would for two reasons, property value evaluation went up and even though we reduced our levy to almost under $3 we knew our financial solvency will go up.” He said the district budgets conservatively which is why they saw the savings.

“In addition it is funny numbers because the state doesn’t tell us what our budget is going to be so our budget is projections. We budget conservatively because we remember what happened 5 years ago. Let’s say for example zero allowable growth and the state comes in and says no you get 2 percent. That makes it tricky. I want people to understand we are going to budget conservatively.” Wagner said “We are going to be aggressive educationally but budget conservatively and that’s why we see these great numbers.”

In other business, the board approved the purchase two new buses from Thomas Inc. for $161,260. The district has 22 buses. The two which are being replaced have over 200,000 miles on them. Wagner said during the meeting the district had already budgeted for the buses and will be paid for by PPEL. The board also approved the modified allowable growth for increasing enrollment funding. The district has seen an increase in enrollment which is why the district had a chance for allowable growth. Wagner called it a good problem to have and is a lot like a credit card limit where the district has a chance to spend money when they need to but no necessarily going to.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)