The Newhall School District governing board at Tuesday’s meeting approved a positive certification for the district’s second interim financial report.
“The district is reporting that the budget is ‘positive’ and will meet its financial obligations for the current fiscal year and two subsequent fiscal years,” reads the agenda item.
Arik Avanesyans, assistant superintendent of business services, presented the second interim budget report to the board.
Avanesyans said, “The second interim is an update to our budget we adopted at the end of June last year. It’s all the activity and actual activity updates to the budget as of Jan. 31. You have to self-certify, meaning we are telling the county and the state that we will be a positively certified school district.”
According to the presentation, the district is projected to be deficit spending this year and the next two school years but has enough funds to meet its needs.
The district is projected to spend about $98.4 million this year, against about $93.5 million in revenues, a difference of $4.8 million that is set to come out of the district’s fund balance. The next two school years the district is projected to be closing the gap and the deficit will be decreasing.
By 2026-27, expenditures are projected to slightly increase to $99.1 million while revenues are projected to increase to $97.4 million, a difference of nearly $1.7 million.
The district is projected to have reserves of nearly $3 million for this year and the next two subsequent years to meet the state’s requirement of 3% of projected expenditures in case of economic uncertainty.
The total ending fund balance for this school year is projected to be $36 million, followed by $32 million next school year and then $30.3 million for the 2026-27 school year.
Board member Donna Robert made a motion to approve the second interim budget report and board member Rachelle Haddoak seconded the motion. The motion passed 5-0.
