Brownsville board says it’s out of debt
The Brownsville Area School District has paid down its $926,000 deficit and is no longer operating in the red. The board will host an audit presentation at its regular meeting at 7 p.m. Thursday to inform the public on the district’s financial status.
The audit report comes after months of questioning by Nena Kaminsky, former board member, who had been asking the board of directors and Superintendent Dr. Gerry Grant if the district was still operating with a deficit.
Kaminsky began asking questions after she heard a board member say, during a presentation given by Bill Boucher, former business manager before his resignation, that they were pleased that the district’s deficit had been paid.
The board had never publicly announced that the district had paid down its deficit at that time.
Again and again Kaminsky asked Grant if the deficit was in fact paid down.
A couple meetings later, Grant said that the deficit was paid and said she would have an auditor do a formal presentation on the matter.
Kaminsky asked how the district was able to pay down the deficit so quickly.
It was only five months ago that the board approved a 12-mill real estate tax increase, with three mills allotted to balance an $18.4 million budget and pay down a $926,000 deficit.
Grant said, during a previous meeting, that the district was able to pay down the deficit with money saved from the closing of Redstone Middle School and Hiller and Colonial elementary schools, which were closed last year.
The board will also hear comments Thursday from Charles Geisel of Adah.
Geisel wants to start a petition for Brownsville Area to have Act 80 placed on the ballot for the upcoming school board election.
According to Geisel, Act 80 is a law passed in 1998 that allows the school district to cut property tax up by to half and eliminate nuisance taxes.
He said the lost money can be made up through a new tax. He said this way voters would have a say on how the district would change the taxing.