Reviewing+and+analyzing+College+Station+ISD's+Maintenance+&+Operations+Fund

Maintenance and Operations (M&O) budgets fund many of the areas that are not immediately thought of when it comes to running a school district. The M&O budget keeps the lights turned on, pays the internet bills, and takes care of any upgrades needed throughout the school district. These are essential and without these funds, a school district would cease to operate.  The Maintenance and Operations budget is funded by local sources of revenue, specifically, taxes. According to the glossary found on investintexasschools.org, the M&O tax rate is a local school district property tax rate that is used to raise money to maintain and operate schools. This tax rate cannot be more than $1.50 per $100 of taxable property, though typically this rate is held close to $1.00 to give school district’s added monetary flexibility in times of financial need. Elected school boards are able to raise this $.04, often referred to as the “4 golden pennies”, before an additional rise must be brought to the voters in the district. Again though, it must be pointed out that this tax rate cannot be raised higher than $1.50 per $100 of taxable property. In College Station, the school board has not yet used it’s “4 golden pennies” since a 2007 bond election raised additional monies for three new schools and a transportation center. With the district, like every other school district in the state, facing difficult financial times, there has been some discussion about using one or two of those pennies to offset some of the financial hit for the upcoming school year.  In College Station ISD, the total M&O budget, excluding salaries, for the 2010-2011 school year is $4,195,697.21. This represents about ¼ of the overall M&O budget, but does include all budget items coded between 6200 and 6400 (with salaries being 6100). Some of the larger expenditures are $102,720 for contracted repairs, over $620,000 for electricity at A&M Consolidated High School alone, $75,330 for equipment to keep up the grounds on each campus, and $45,788 for upkeep and improvements to the school district’s natatorium. Overall, from the $4.195 million being discussed here, the vast majority of the money went to simply running the district’s buildings for a year ($3, 056,820). These are all significant expenses and represent only a few examples of where money from the M&O budget goes. With these expenses, the district has been able to tap into to some funds the remained from the 2007 bond election and also zeroed out a fund balance from another account.  I don’t think there is any doubt that the money used in College Station ISD’s M&O budget is well spent considering the source of the money are the residents of the school district. No money from this account is spent on teacher conferences or items that are not physically in the school district. While some funds are used for vehicles to transport school staff to and from events which may or may not be outside of the district, these funds are predominantly used to make sure the children in the school district can attend buildings that are well maintained, heated, cooled, mowed, and that overall provide an environment where students can learn to their highest abilities.